Precedents of perceived social support: Personality and early life experiences

In order to examine the effects of personality and early life experiences o n perceived social support, a total of 97 young Japanese women were investi gated. Current interpersonal relationships were measured by an interview mo dified from Henderson et al.'s Interview Schedule for Social Interaction (I SSI). Personality was measured by Cloninger et al.'s Temperament and Charac ter Inventory. Early life experiences at home and outside of home were also identified in the interview. The number of sources of perceived support wa s correlated with self-directness, while satisfaction with perceived suppor t was correlated with novelty seeking and with low harm avoidance. No early life experiences - early loss of a parent, perceived parenting, childhood abuse experiences, experiences of being bullied and/or other life events - showed significant correlations with the number or satisfaction of supporti ve people. The quantity and quality of perception of social support differ in their link to personality, and perceived social support may, to some ext ent, be explainable in terms of personality.