Cutrona, Hessling, and Suhr (1997) describe four mechanisms that could explain the influence of personality on social support. Personality affects (1) the ease with which relationships are formed, (2) the transactions within relationships, for example if someone wants social support, (3) appraisals of supportive behavior, and, finally, (4) how susceptible someone is to support, which, in turn, influences if it will be effective or not. Cutrona et al. (1997) examined the influence of extraversion and negative affectivity (neuroticism) on support interactions in 100 couples. Extraverted partners provided more support and were also more susceptible to emotional support. However, the recipient’s extraversion did not predict received support. For tangible support, received support was greatest when both partners had high levels of extraversion. Russel, Booth, Reed, and Laughlin (1997)
investigated the relationship between extraversion, neuroticism, social network characteristics and perceived social support in 294 men in treatment for alcohol abuse. Extraversion and neuroticism influenced network characteristics and perceived support. Gurung, Sarason, and Sarason (1997) investigated whether personal characteristics (depression, loneliness, anxiety, and self-esteem) and perceived qualities of romantic relationships contribute to perceptions of social support availability – both of self-reported support and the social support reported by the partner. In their study of 86 student couples, personal characteristics and the view of the
relationship as well as partner’s personal characteristics predicted support availability. They argue that personal characteristics are linked to social support by, for example, causing someone to have more contact with others or influencing the attribution and interpretation of others’ behaviors.
As personality influences perceived support availability, it might also have an impact on reporting discrepancies. Whereas one person might, for example, recognize and “encode” a certain provided behavior as “supportive” (i.e., due to appraisal or sensitivity), another person might not. To our knowledge, there is only one study on the impact of personality traits on support agreement. Gant, Calsyn, and Winter (1999) predicted support agreement in two studies. In the first study with students (receiver) and their mothers (provider), they used the following predictors: gender, self-disclosure, four of the Big Five personality traits (i.e., neuroticism, openness to experience, conscientiousness, and extraversion), perspective taking, empathic concern and fantasy, personal distress, and closeness. The full model did not significantly predict a difference score, and only provider distress and perspective taking were negatively related to support agreement. In the second study, college students were receivers of social support, non-romantic peers the providers. Gender, wanting of social support, perceived available support, neuroticism, intimacy, and stress were investigated as predictors in a multiple regression. Again, the full model did not significantly predict the difference score, nor did any of the single predictors. Although Gant et al.’s (1999) study did not demonstrate the predictive power of personality traits for the discrepancy between provided and received support, it would be too early to conclude that personality is actually irrelevant in predicting discrepancies. First, the dyads they analyzed did not include romantic partners. Second, they did not investigate the full range of the Big-Five traits, as they
impact of the Big Five personality traits on provided-received support discrepancies in couples in more detail.
1) Neuroticism. Individuals high in neuroticism tend to worry, feel insecure, be self- conscious, and have a negative view of themselves and life in general (McCrae & Costa, 1987; Watson & Clark, 1984). Their negative view of life might “cloud” their perception of support (Cutrona et al., 1997; Luszczynska et al., 2007, p. 157). In fact, as shown by Bolger and Eckenrode (1991), neuroticism negatively influences evaluations of social support. Because individuals high in neuroticism tend to be self-conscious and evaluate relationships negatively, support efforts might not be noticed or encoded as being supportive, leading to a greater discrepancy.
2) Extraversion. Extraverted individuals are characterized as sociable, talkative, and outgoing. They have larger social networks and are expected to communicate their needs more openly to others than introverted persons. With respect to social support, several authors have shown that extraverted individuals have a higher tendency to seek support and that they are more susceptible to it (e.g., Amirkhan, Risinger, & Swickert, 1995; Bolger & Eckenrode, 1991; Duckitt, 1984; Krause, Liang, & Keith, 1990; McCrae & Costa, 1987; Parkes, 1986). In previous studies, extraversion was also positively associated with provided support (Bolger & Eckenrode, 1991) but not with received social support (Krause et al., 1990). Overall, extraverted individuals might more often seek and perceive provided support than introverted individuals. Therefore, the discrepancy between provided and received support should be lower for extraverted individuals.
3) Openness. Individuals high in openness to experience are characterized as being original, imaginative, and having broad interests (McCrae & Costa, 1987). They are
considered to experience emotions more intensely and to be more attentive to feelings. Thus, they should know themselves better and also their own social support needs, increasing the
probability of communicating them to others and of being susceptible to supposedly
supportive behaviors (Costa & McCrae, 1992; Gant et al., 1999). Thus, we expect openness to experience to be negatively related to the discrepancy of provided and received social support.
4) Agreeableness. McCrae and Costa (1987) describe agreeable individuals as having strong empathy with and trust in others. Therefore, it may be assumed that they communicate their support needs more directly and are more sensitive to other people’s behavior, thus recognizing and encoding supportive acts more often. Therefore, we expect agreeableness to be negatively related to the discrepancy of provided and received social support.
5) Conscientiousness. Conscientious individuals are characterized as being thorough, dutiful, hardworking, ambitious, and persevering. They are reliable and well-organized (McCrae & Costa, 1987). Consequently, they should be more accurate and less biased in their perceptions of received social support and also in reporting it (Costa & McCrae, 1992; Gant et al., 1999). Thus, we expect conscientiousness to decrease discrepancy.
Hypothesis 1: The support recipient’s Big Five personality traits significantly predict the discrepancy between provided and received support. More precisely, neuroticism is positively related to the discrepancy between provided and received social support, whereas extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness are negatively related to the discrepancy between provided and received social support.