Social Support in the Structure of Personality Resources in Individuals with Disabilities

Abstract

The paper focuses on the issues of social support of individuals with disabilities and describes its role in the development and maintenance of subjective well-being of persons in situations of disability. A special external resource for overcoming unfavorable developmental conditions, social support is interlocked in a continuous relationship with psychological resources of personality. One of its distinctive features is that it implies the subject's activity aimed at overcoming difficult life situation on his/her own. When the person's bodily resources are insufficient (as it happens in situations of physical disabilities), the role of macro- and microsocial resources in supporting his/her well-being naturally increases. However, when both social and bodily resources are scarce, it is the individual's personality that stands in the gap. The research described in the paper explored the relationship between microsocial resources (support of family and friends, satisfaction with this support) and psychological resources of resistance and self-regulation of personality. The sample consisted of 210 subjects (48 students with disabilities, 162 healthy subjects). The outcomes revealed certain differences between the subsamples with low and high rates of social support which suggest that the subjects' perceptions and evaluations of the support contribute to their psychological resources of coping and self-regulation, activating and/or reinforcing the existing potential of their personalities.

Keywords

• social support
• disability
• subjective well-being