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Social Support and Well-Being among Lesbian and Heterosexual Women: A Structural Modeling Approach

University of California, Los Angeles

Letitia Anne Peplau

University of California, Los Angeles

The authors examined the types of social support that lesbian and heterosexual women receive from their social networks and the link between support and psychological well-being. Participants were White, middle-class, single and coupled women. Using Robert Weiss's typology of social provisions, the authors found that lesbian and heterosexual women reported receiving equivalent overall amounts of support from their social networks. Relationship status was related to well-being; coupled women reported greater well-being than did single women. Using structural equation modeling, the authors found a strong association between social support and psychological well-being for all women. Beyond this general association, lesbian women's well-being was also associated with reassurance-of-worth support, whereas heterosexual women's well-being was linked with guidance support. These results support the usefulness of latent variable models for examining social support and demonstrate that lesbians, like their heterosexual counterparts, benefit from supportive networks.

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Vol. 21, No. 11, 1189-1199 (1995)
DOI: 10.1177/01461672952111007


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