doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9507.2009.00540.x
Social Support from Parents, Friends,
Classmates, and Teachers in Children and
Adolescents Aged 9 to 18 Years: Who Is
Perceived as Most Supportive?
sode_540
417..426
Caroline L. Bokhorst, Sindy R. Sumter and P. Michiel Westenberg,
Leiden University—Department of Psychology, Developmental
Psychology Unit
Abstract
Age and gender differences in perceived social support from parents, friends, classmates, and teachers were investigated in 304 boys and 351 girls aged 9–18 years. The
social support scale for children and adolescents was used for this purpose. Analyses
showed that the level of perceived social support from parents and friends was similar
across age groups. The study of the prominence of social support sources showed that
parents and friends were perceived as equally supportive; only for the ages 16–18
years did friend support exceed parent support. Support from teachers was lower in the
older age groups, and this was related to the transition from primary to secondary
school. Finally, girls perceived more support from teachers, classmates and friends
than boys did.
Keywords: perceived social support; adolescence; middle childhood
Introduction
In the adolescent period, social behaviour changes rapidly. One of the characteristic
changes in the adolescents’ social behaviour is the movement towards independence
from parents combined with an increasing reliance upon friends (Collins & Laursen,
2004). Adolescents’ relations with parents undergo a transformation, and relations
with peers take on new qualities of reciprocity and intimacy (see Darling, Hamilton, &
Shaver, 2003). Research suggests that as adolescents rely less on their parents or
family, their friends become increasingly important, and they interact with a greater
number of them (see Scholte & Van Aken, 2006). Adolescents also seem to talk more
with people of their own age, and they indicate a greater dependence on their friends
(see Arnett, 2003). The increasing importance of friends in relation to parents and the
new emerging qualities in these relationships (e.g., greater reciprocity) might create an
opportunity for perceiving increased support from these friends. The question that has
been addressed in the present study is whether adolescents actually perceive their
Correspondence should be addressed to Caroline L. Bokhorst, Wassenaarseweg 52, 2333 AK
Leiden, The Netherlands. Email: [email protected]
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2009. Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street,
Malden, MA 02148, USA.
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Caroline L. Bokhorst, Sindy R. Sumter and P. Michiel Westenberg
friends as more supportive than their parents and the extent to which this depends on
age.
To date, most research has focused on family (predominantly parents) and friend
relationships, and it is generally accepted that these relationships have an impact on the
developing adolescent (e.g., Smetana, Campione-Barr, & Metzger, 2006). However,
ecological theories also emphasise the importance of school as a social context. In
Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological model on the context of development, the family and
the school are both placed in the microsystem and are therefore considered to be of
equal importance (see Siegler, Deloache, & Eisenberg, 2006). Adolescents spend much
of their time at school in the companionship of teachers and classmates, and both are
likely to influence adolescent development as well (see Eccles & Roeser, 2003). In
addition, previous research has demonstrated a differential and unique impact of
parents, friends, teachers, and classmates on problem behaviour, emotional problems,
academic (mal)adjustment, as well as positive development (e.g., Cook, Herman,
Phillips, & Settersten, 2002; Demaray & Malecki, 2002; Garnefski & Diekstra, 1996;
La Greca & Lopez, 1998), which demonstrates the importance of investigating people
from school as well as the family setting. Hence, the current study investigated the
degree of social support that adolescents perceive from their teachers and classmates
in addition to parent and friend support.
Detailed knowledge about the amount of perceived support in 9- to 18-year-olds can
be of importance for the improvement of prevention and intervention programmes.
Previous studies have already demonstrated that social support can avert atypical
development and can provide opportunities for positive development (e.g., Cook et al.,
2002). Results of the current study about the amount of perceived support and the
relative prominence might add to these previous studies.
Perceived Social Support
Perceived social support is often used in research as a good indicator of the quality of
social support (Wills & Shinar, 2000). It represents the individual’s perceptions of the
extent to which people from their social network are available to provide social support
(Cauce, Mason, Gonzales, Hiraga, & Liu, 1994; Demaray & Malecki, 2002). Several
methods have been developed to measure perceived social support (see for an overview, Wills & Shinar), and these measures tap into different dimensions of support.
Wills and Shinar list five important functions: emotional support, instrumental support,
informational support, companionship support, and validation support. The present
study focuses on emotional aspects of social support. These emotional aspects of
support can be defined as ‘the availability of one or more persons who can listen
sympathetically when an individual is having problems and can provide indications
of caring and acceptance’ (Wills & Shinar, p. 88). Other terms used for this type of
support are confidant support, esteem support, reassurance of worth, attachment, and
intimacy. This type of support includes discussions of feelings, expression of concerns,
and acceptance of the person.
It is not completely clear from the literature what one is to expect regarding the
amount of perceived emotional support during the adolescent period. Some research
has indicated that perceived emotional support from friends increases from middle
childhood to adolescence (e.g., Furman & Buhrmester, 1992; Helsen, Vollebergh, &
Meeus, 2000; Hunter & Youniss, 1982) whereas other research has demonstrated it
remains stable (e.g., Malecki & Demaray, 2002). Similar inconsistencies arise from
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studies on perceived support from parents. Some studies have indicated that it remains
stable during the adolescent period (e.g., Hunter & Youniss; Nickerson & Nagle, 2005),
whereas other studies have found parent support to decrease (e.g., Furman &
Buhrmester, 1992; Helsen et al., 2000). Teacher or classmate support have not been
widely researched, but the available research has indicated a decrease over time for
teacher support (Furman & Buhrmester, 1992; Malecki & Demaray, 2002) whereas
classmate support seems to undergo few changes (Harter, 1985b; Malecki & Demaray,
2002). It should be noted that these studies used cross-sectional designs, and that the
patterns described actually reflect differences between age groups.
Furthermore, the studies mentioned report different results regarding the relative
prominence of support sources, that is, which source is perceived as most supportive in
comparison with other sources. Although it is clear that children perceive their parents
as more supportive than their friends (e.g., Furman & Buhrmester, 1992), adolescent
studies provide a less consistent pattern. Some studies have demonstrated that
friends actually become more supportive than parents in adolescence (e.g., Furman &
Buhrmester, 1992) whereas others have found that parent and friend support ended up
at equal levels (e.g., Helsen et al., 2000). In addition, inconsistent results have been
reported for teacher support in comparison with other support sources. Teacher support
was the least prominent in the study of Furman and Buhrmester whereas it was found
to be at an almost equal level as other support providers in Harter’s study (1985b), in
which parents, friends, classmates and teachers were compared. The decrease of
teacher support was especially notable at the transition from primary to secondary
school (Furman & Buhrmester, 1992).
In addition to these age patterns, some gender differences have been found. The
study of a Dutch sample of 2918 adolescents aged 12–24 (Helsen et al., 2000) showed
that girls perceived significantly more support from friends than boys did, although
both groups reported an equal amount of parent support. In that study, the age patterns
were also dependent on gender. For boys, parent support declined whereas friend
support increased in the 12- to 17-years period. Both support sources remained stable
after the age of 17. For girls, parent support decreased from the ages of 12 to 14, after
which it remained stable. Friend support increased from 12 to 17, after which it
decreased slightly and remained stable from the age of 18 onwards. A comparison of
the two support sources showed that 12-year-old boys and girls perceived more support
from parents than from friends whereas from 18 years onwards, no differences between
the two types of support were found. In addition, during the 15- to 17-years period,
friend support temporarily exceeded parent support in girls only. In Harter’s study
(1985b), girls reported higher levels of support from close friends compared with boys.
However, these trends have not been subject to inferential statistical analysis.
It is difficult to compare the findings of these studies, because they vary in: (1) the
instruments used (ranging from one or two questions per support source to complete
subscales for each support source); (2) the definitions used for social support; (3) the
age range of the samples (ranging from a sample with primary school children to a
sample with 12- to 24-year-olds); and (4) the support sources included (parents and
friends only, or other support sources also). More research is needed to obtain detailed
knowledge about how the amount of perceived support compares between several
sources, gender, and different age groups.
The aim of the present study was to investigate the amount of perceived social
support from parents, friends, classmates, and teachers, in children and adolescents
aged 9 to 18. Based on the literature reviewed, the following hypotheses were derived:
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Caroline L. Bokhorst, Sindy R. Sumter and P. Michiel Westenberg
(1) It was expected that children would perceive their parents as more supportive than
their friends. It was, however, uncertain whether perceived support from friends would
exceed support from parents during the adolescent period or whether they would end
up at the same level. (2) It was hypothesised that teacher support would be lower
in adolescence than in late childhood, especially at the transition from primary to
secondary school. (3) Classmate support was expected to be the same across age
groups. (4) Finally, it was expected that girls would perceive more social support from
friends than boys would, and that friend support would exceed parent support during
mid-adolescence for girls only.
Method
Participants
In total, 678 children and adolescents aged 9–18 participated in the current study. Two
cases were excluded from the analyses because the respondents did not fill out their age
and gender in the questionnaire they were given. Participants with more than one
missing value in one or more social support subscales were also excluded from the
analyses. The remaining sample consisted of 655 participants with 304 boys (46.4
percent) and 351 girls (53.6 percent). The mean age was 12.54 (SD = 2.04) for boys and
13.00 (SD = 2.33) for girls. Four primary schools, two secondary schools, and two
higher education schools from the Western part of The Netherlands participated. The
children and adolescents attended regular schools at different educational levels. They
came from predominantly middle-class catchment areas.
To study age effects, seven adjacent age groups were used. For the youngest and
oldest respondents, participants with different ages were combined with the adjacent
age group to create sufficiently large sample sizes. The resulting age groups were: (1)
9- to 10-year-olds (N = 101); (2) 11-year-olds (N = 95); (3) 12-year-olds (N = 124); (4)
13-year-olds (N = 100); (5) 14-year-olds (N = 93); (6) 15-year-olds (N = 70); and (7)
16- to 18-year-olds (N = 72). The numbers of boys and girls were almost equal in each
age group with the exception of the oldest group, which included more girls (N = 53)
than boys (N = 19).
Measure
Social Support Scale for Children and Adolescents (SSSCA; Harter, 1985b). A Dutch
translation of the SSSCA was used to study perceived social support from parents,
teachers, classmates and friends (for detailed information about the internal and external
validity of the instrument, see Bokhorst, Sumter, and Westenberg, 2009). This instrument enabled us to study perceived social support from four support systems and to
compare them in a straightforward way in several age groups. The central construct
assessed by the instrument is ‘social support in the form of positive regard from others’
(Harter, 1985b, p. 1), which is comparable to the dimension ‘emotional support’ as
defined by Wills and Shinar (2000). Examples of topics included are: the extent to which
participants can talk about their problems or feelings with other people and the extent to
which they feel accepted as they are by others. For the sake of consistency with Harter’s
concept and measure, we use the term ‘social support’ throughout the present paper.
The SSSCA consists of 24 items, with 6 items for each source or subscale. For each
item, two statements are presented, representing two types of kids (‘Some kids
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421
have . . .’, BUT ‘Other kids don’t have . . .’). First, participants are asked to decide
which kind of kid is most like him or her. Next, they have to decide how much that
statement characterises them (‘sort of true’ or ‘really true’). This means each item can
be scored on a four-point scale. This question format is the same as in the often-used
self-perception profile (Harter, 1985a), and is appropriate for use with a broad age
range. Half of the items from each subscale are formulated negatively, meaning that
these scores have to be recoded before the subscale scores can be computed. In the
current study, subscale scores were computed by averaging item scores. For individuals
with a missing value, the remaining items were averaged (a maximum of one item was
missing per subscale). Cronbach’s alpha was .75 for parent support, .83 for friend
support, .73 for classmate support, and .78 for teacher support.
Procedure
The data was collected in 45 minutes during the school day. Two students and the
teacher were present while the children filled out a booklet with questionnaires,
including the SSSCA. One of the students gave a general introduction, after which each
participant could start with the questionnaires. The questionnaire format was explained
explicitly to the youngest children. The children were allowed to ask questions during
the session if they did not understand the items. The questionnaires were filled out
individually and anonymously.
Results
To test our hypotheses, a three-way mixed-model analysis of variance (ANOVA) was
conducted with the four support sources as within-subject variables, and gender and
age groups as between-subjects variables. First, the relative prominence of the four
support sources was investigated for the whole group (i.e., the main effect of the
within-subject variables), as well as the dependence on age and gender (interaction
effects). With these analyses, the hypotheses regarding the relative prominence of
support sources in relation to age and gender were addressed. Next, age and gender
differences were studied within the four support sources using the between-subject
effects of this mixed model. Although these analyses are part of the same mixed-model
ANOVA, they were conducted and described separately to test our specific hypotheses
regarding age differences within each support source.
Relative Prominence of Social Support Sources
As was expected, the main effect of the four support sources was significant, Wilks’s
L = .56, F(3, 639) = 166.06, p < .01, partial h2 = .44, indicating that there were
differences in the amount of perceived support between the four sources in the whole
sample. Follow-up analyses (paired t tests1) showed that the amount of perceived
support from parents (M = 3.56) was equal to the amount of perceived support from
friends (M = 3.58), and both were significantly higher than support perceived from
classmates (M = 3.32) and teachers (M = 3.12). Furthermore, classmates were perceived as significantly more supportive than teachers.
To investigate whether the amount of perceived support was dependent on age, the
age group ¥ support source interaction effect was tested and demonstrated a significant
effect, Wilks’s L = .83, F(18, 1807.85) = 6.79, p < .01, partial h2 = .06). The age group
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Caroline L. Bokhorst, Sindy R. Sumter and P. Michiel Westenberg
Perceived social support
4
Score on the SSSCA
3,8
3,6
Friends
3,4
Parents
3,2
Teachers
3
Classmates
2,8
2,6
72
)
)
=
70
(N
=
16
-1
8
(N
=
15
(N
14
=
93
10
0
)
)
4)
12
(N
13
(N
=
=
12
(N
11
910
(N
=
10
95
)
1)
2,4
Age groups
Figure 1. Perceived Social Support for Each Source Separately in Different Age
Groups.
Note: SSSCA = social support scale for children and adolescents.
¥ support source interaction effect indicated that the prominence of the four social
support sources was different across age groups. The three-way interaction effect (age
group ¥ gender ¥ support source) was not significant, Wilks’s L = .99, F(18, 1807.85)
= .50, NS, indicating that the interaction between age group and support source was the
same for boys and girls. Therefore, in Figure 1, mean levels of each support source are
presented as a function of age group for boys and girls together.
To investigate the interaction effect between age groups and support sources in more
detail, follow-up analyses were conducted by means of dependent t tests for each pair of
support sources within each age group. Because multiple tests were carried out, effects
with p < .01 were considered significant2 and are reported. Contrary to our hypothesis,
the findings indicated that 8- to 10-year-olds perceived their parents and friends as
equally supportive. Both parents and friends were perceived as more supportive than
their teachers and classmates, who were perceived as equally supportive as well in this
age group. In 13- to 18-year-olds, perceived support from teachers was significantly
lower than support from classmates. In sum, teachers and classmates were perceived as
equally supportive in children, but as hypothesised, respondents aged 13–18 reported
more support from classmates than from teachers. Partly in contrast to our expectations,
the amount of social support perceived from parents and friends was at an equal level for
the ages 9–15; for 16- to 18-year-olds, friend support exceeded support from parents.
Support from parents and classmates appeared equally important in the oldest age group,
but were significantly lower than friend support. Support from teachers was significantly
lower than the other three support sources for the ages 13–18.
Gender and Age Differences for Each Social Support Source
Age group and gender differences per support source were investigated by means of
between-subjects effects taken from the three-way mixed-model ANOVA. As expected,
a significant main effect was found for gender, F(1, 641) = 30.46, p < .01, partial h2 =
.05, and for age group, F(6, 641) = 2.15, p < .05, partial h2 = .02. The gender ¥ age
interaction effect was not significant, F(6, 641) = 1.41, NS.
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As a follow-up, four 2 (gender) ¥ 7 (age group) ANOVAs were conducted to test for
which support sources effects were found. Using the Bonferroni method, each ANOVA
was tested on a .05/4 = .013 level. No significant age effects were found for parent
support, F(6, 641) = 1.91, NS, friend support, F(6, 641) = .47, NS, or classmate
support, F(6, 641) = 1.92, NS. As hypothesised, a significant age effect was found for
teacher support, F(6, 641) = 16.06, p < .01, partial h2 = .13, indicating that perceived
support from teachers was lower in the older age groups than in the younger age
groups. Post hoc tests (Bonferroni) showed that 9- to 12-year-olds perceived significantly more social support from teachers than 13- to 18-year-olds. No age differences
were found within the group of 9- to 12-year-olds or within the group of 13- to
18-year-olds. Because ages 12 and 13 are linked to school transition, the differences in
reported teacher support could reflect the transition from primary to secondary school.
Follow-up analyses showed that the 70 12-year-olds attending primary school scored
significantly higher (M = 3.44, SD = .47) on teacher support than the 54 12-year-olds
attending secondary school (M = 3.09, SD = .59, t = 3.73, p < .01), confirming that
the lower levels of teacher support reflected school differences more so than age
differences.
Significant gender differences were found for classmate support, F(1, 641) = 10.15,
p = .01, partial h2 = .02, for teacher support, F(1, 641) = 12.75, p < .01, partial h2 = .02,
and, as expected, for friend support, F(1, 641) = 38.77, p < .01, partial h2 = .06, with
girls perceiving more support than boys for each support source. Perceived support
from parents was similar for boys and girls. It should be noted that none of the
interaction (age group ¥ gender) effects were significant.
Discussion
The aim of the current study was to investigate the amount of perceived social support
from parents, friends, classmates, and teachers in a sample of 9- to 18-year-olds. The
results demonstrated that although only a significant age effect was found for teacher
support, the prominence of each support source was different across age groups.
Parents and friends were perceived as equally supportive by 9- to 15-year-olds, but for
ages 16 to 18 years, friend support exceeded parent support. Classmates and teachers
were rated at similar levels in the younger age groups. However, in the older age
groups, classmates were perceived as equally supportive as parents whereas teachers
were perceived as less supportive. The lower level of teacher support in older age
groups was related to the transition from primary to secondary school. Finally, girls
perceived more support from teachers, classmates, and friends than boys did.
In contrast to our hypothesis and previous studies, which showed that children
perceived their parents as more supportive than their friends (e.g., Furman &
Buhrmester, 1992; Helsen et al., 2000), participants as young as 9–10 years reported an
equal amount of social support from parents and friends in the current study. Although
no age differences were found in the amount of perceived support from parents and
friends, tests of prominence showed that friend support exceeded parent support in the
oldest age group. This finding is in agreement with Furman and Buhrmester, who
reported that friend support exceeded parent support in 10th grade.
It is important to note that only 16–18 year olds reported more support from their
friends than their parents. Previous research on the amount of time that adolescents
spend with people has shown that from the age of 9 to 15, children allocate more and
more time to friends than family (Larson & Richards, 1991), and that fourth graders
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Caroline L. Bokhorst, Sindy R. Sumter and P. Michiel Westenberg
selected their parents more often when they were asked with whom they liked to spend
time whereas sixth and eight graders preferred their friends (Nickerson & Nagle,
2005). Therefore, the reversal of the time spent with parents and friends seems to occur
at an earlier age. This may be an indication that changes in the amount of time spent
with people per se do not immediately result in changes in the amount of perceived
support. It may be that when individuals grow more psychologically mature, the
relationships adolescents have with their friends grow in their quality, and that over
time, friends become more capable of providing emotional support to each other. To
understand better why the reversal in the amount of perceived support takes place in
late adolescence, it would be wise to include measures about quality of friendship and
some maturity measures as well.
The fact that no age differences for friend support were observed could be caused by
a ceiling effect. Perceived social support from friends reported by the youngest age
group was very high, and higher than that found by Harter (1985b). The SSSCA uses
a four-point scale, and the perceived support from friends was above 3.5 on average in
each age group. In future research, it would be wise to broaden the age range to
investigate whether friends are possibly less important to children younger than nine
and to include older participants to study what happens beyond the age of 18. The
SSSCA might be appropriate for this purpose, but it would be helpful to include an
additional scale to assess support from a romantic friend in older age groups as well.
As hypothesised, perceived support from teachers was lower in 13- to 18-year-olds
than in 9- to 12-year-olds whereas support from classmates was equal across age
groups. These patterns are in line with patterns described by Furman and Buhrmester
(1992), Harter (1985b), and Malecki and Demaray (2002). The study of the prominence of teacher support showed results that are similar to Furman and Buhrmester,
with teacher support as the least prominent. In the current study, lower support from
teachers was especially notable during secondary school. At secondary school, adolescents have multiple teachers, and it may be more difficult to build personal relationships with all of them. Future research could study this speculation in more detail.
It would be interesting to include a mentor support subscale in addition to the teacher
support subscale. Perceived support from a mentor in secondary school might be more
similar to perceived support from the teacher in primary school.
Gender differences in social support are not always discussed in the literature, but
existing studies suggested that girls perceive more social support than boys, especially
from friends (e.g., Helsen et al., 2000; Malecki & Demaray, 2002). The results of the
current study are in agreement with this literature. An unanticipated finding was that
girls also perceived their classmates and teachers as more supportive. However, the
effect size was largest for friend support. As found previously (e.g., Helsen et al.,
2000), boys and girls perceived equal levels of support from their parents.
The unexpected gender difference found for teacher support is interesting, and can
be important for educational purposes. The gender of the teacher may be of importance
for the amount of perceived support. In The Netherlands, most teachers in primary
school are female (almost 80 percent in 2004, Ministry of Education, Culture and
Science, 2005), and it would be interesting to investigate whether the gender of the
teacher mediates the difference between boys and girls on their perceived support. It is
possible that boys would perceive more support from a male teacher than from a female
teacher.
The cross-sectional design of this study is a limitation for investigating developmental differences. This design by definition does not allow analyses of developmental
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change, so the patterns described in the current study are based on differences between
age groups. It would be valuable to conduct longitudinal analyses, especially to
investigate the transition from primary school to secondary school. Although the
selected schools in the current study were highly similar in terms of educational level
of the participants, sociodemographics, and ethnicity, it is impossible to separate age
and school differences in a cross-sectional design. The results of the current study,
however, provide suggestions for hypotheses about developmental changes in perceived social support that can be investigated further longitudinally.
Another suggestion for future research is based on studies showing that the influence
of different people depends on the issues involved. From a study on adolescent girls,
Brittain (1963) concluded that in seeking advice, peer-conforming choices were more
prevalent in response to certain dilemmas, and parent-conforming choices to other.
Another study (Wintre, Hicks, McVey, & Fox, 1988) demonstrated that although
familiar peers increased as first choice of consultant with age in some domains,
familiar adults remained valued as consultant in all domains. Thus, the amount of
emotional support adolescents perceive may also be dependent on the situation
involved. However, the SSSCA measures the amount of perceived social support in
general. Therefore, it may be worthwhile to investigate whether the results found in the
current study apply to different situations or whether the patterns are actually different
across specific domains.
In conclusion, some differences across age groups were found for the prominence of
perceived social support from parents, friends, classmates and teachers. Future
research could study the impact of these sources on problem behaviour and psychological health in a developmental perspective. The relative influence of support sources
from different social contexts can be investigated, as well as whether perceiving high
support from one source can compensate for low support from other sources. This
method would fit with ecological models that emphasise that multiple social contexts
together shape the course of development (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 1998). This
information may help with the development of intervention strategies and the decision
as to which people may make a valuable contribution to such interventions. In childhood, parents are often involved in intervention programmes for their children, but it
might be helpful to (also) involve friends when treating adolescents aged 16–18 years.
In that way, intervention programmes may become more developmentally oriented and
possibly more effective.
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Note
1. The t values for each test are available on request from the first author.
2. The t values for each test are available on request from the first author.
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2009
Social Development, 19, 2, 2010