A PREVENTIVE, PSYCHOEDUCATIONAL APPROACH TO INCREASE PERCEIVED SOCIALSUPPORT

Investigated the effects of a 13-week-preventive, psychoeducational in tervention program to improve perceived social support. Fifty-one, low -perceived support, community residents were randomly assigned to an i ntervention or wait-fist control condition. Intervention subjects rece ived training in social skills and cognitive reframing regarding the s elf and social relations. The intervention led to increased perceived social support from family, but not from friends. As hypothesized by s ocial cognition models, increases in perceived support appeared to be mediated by changes in self-esteem and frequency of self-reinforcement . Further, such changes in cognition about the self were larger than t he changes observed for perceived support, suggesting that it may be e asier to change cognition about the self than perceptions of support.