Anxiety in Relation to Social Support in a College Population

This study examined anxiety in relation to social support, gender, ethnicity, class standing and living situation in a college population. The Social Provisions Scale (Cutrona & Russell, 1987) was used to measure social support. Anxiety was measured by the state-anxiety subscale from the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (Speilberger, 1970). Five hundred and thirty-one students returned the instrument packages (44% return rate). Multiple regression was used to test anxiety in relation to independent variables: social support gender, ethnicity, living situations, and class standing. Females were more anxious, in general, and feamles with less social support reported more anxiety. Males' anxiety was not related to social support. The remaining variables were non-significant at the .05 level of significance. Suggestions for future studies are given.