THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN AFFECTIVE TEMPERAMENT AND PERCEIVED SOCIAL SUPPORT

Abstract

This paper examines whether people with different affective temperament (depressive, cyclothymic, hyperthymic, irritable, anxiety-cognitive, anxiety-somatic and mixed) differ in terms of perceived social support. The sample is a convenience one, uniform by gender, consisting of 200 people under the age of 35. The instruments used in the research are: the Serbian version of the TEMPS-A scale, which assesses five affective temperaments, and the Serbian version of the Social Support Scale of the Study of Medical Outcomes (MOS-SSS). The results show that the depressive temperament perceives social support to a lesser extent than the cyclothymic (p <.05), hyperthymic (p <.01), anxiety-cognitive (p <.05) and mixed temperament (p <.05). On the other hand, the hyperthymic temperament is more prone to perceiving social support than the cyclothymic (p <.05) and anxiety-somatic temperaments are (p <.05). The main conclusion of this research is that hyperthymic temperament, which is characterized by most desirable traits such as optimism, sociability, self-confidence and eloquence, perceives its social environment to be more supportive than other temperaments, which is a consequence of its characteristics and the adequate communication of its own needs