Sense of coherence, trait anxiety, and the perceived availability of social support

Abstract

Antonovsky (1987) has proposed that the Sense of Coherence (SOC) scale assesses a personality-related “stress-resistance resource” that comprises the belief that life is comprehensible, manageable, and meaningful. To date, most of the research on the SOC scale has been conducted in Israel. One finding that appears to be particularly robust, at least among Israeli adolescents, is an inverse association between SOC total scale scores and trait anxiety. The first purpose of the present study, which examines American college students, is to attempt to provide some external validity evidence for the Israeli research linking SOC and anxiety. The present study also attempts to refine previous research by examining whether anxiety is differentially related to the comprehensibility, manageability, and meaningfulness SOC subscales. In addition, this study seeks to extend previous research by examining whether individuals scoring high on SOC would perceive social support to be more readily available than individuals scoring low on SOC. Finally, the present investigation provides preliminary reliability and validity data for the short form version of the SOC scale. Results showed that SOC total scores were strongly negatively correlated with levels of trait anxiety. The relative strength of the correlations of anxiety to the various SOC subscales could not be assessed accurately because the SOC subscales were unreliable. Other results showed SOC scores were unrelated to the perceived availability of four different types of social support. These data support the generalizability of Israeli research suggesting that individuals scoring high on SOC enjoy better mental health than their lower scoring counterparts. In addition, results showing that SOC is independent of socially based stress-resistance resources suggest the SOC scale has discriminant validity. Finally, the present results support the validity of the shortened version of the SOC scale, but suggest that use of short form subscale scores may be problematic.