Cross-sectional analyses of data collected from a large sample of incoming college freshmen were used to determine (a) whether the perceived availability of social support protects persons from stressinduced depressive affect; (b) whether social competence, social anxiety, and self-disclosure are responsible for the stress-protective effect of perceived social support; and (c) whether these social skill measures discriminate among persons for whom support will help, hinder, or be ineffective in the face of stress. Prospective analyses based on the original testing (beginning of school year) and 11-and 22week follow-ups of a randomly selected subsample were used to determine how the same social skill factors influence the development and maintenance of support perceptions and of friendships. Evidence is provided for a stress-buffering role of the perceived availability of social support. The stress-buffering effect is unaffected by controls for the possible stress-protective influences of social anxiety, social competence, and self-disclosure. Although these social skill factors do not discriminate among persons for whom support will help, hinder, or be ineffective, they are prospectively predictive of the development of both social support and friendship formation. These prospective relations between social skills and the development of perceived availability of social support are only partly mediated by number of friends. Research on psychological symptomatology suggests that the perception that others will provide needed aid helps to protect people from the pathogenic effects of stressful events (see reviews by S. Cohen & Wills, 1985; Kessler & McLeod, 1985; Leavy, 1983). Specifically, stress is positively associated with psychological symptomatology under low levels of social support, but unassociated (or less strongly associated) under high levels of support. Recent discussions of this literature have focused on the possible importance of stable individual differences in social skills in influencing or even accounting for the support-buffering effect (S.

A laboratory experiment was conducted in which groups of Ss performed simple and complex tasks for one hour in three conditions of crowding: (1) noncrowded, (2) crowded, (3) crowded-with-perceived-contxol. Immediately afterward, all groups worked in a noncrowded situation on two additional tasks, one involving frustration tolerance and the other involving quality of proofreading performance. Conditions of crowding had no effect on simple or complex task performance. In the postcrowding situation, however, significant negative behavioral aftereffects were observed for the crowded groups on the frustration tolerance measure, though perceived control ameliorated these aftereffects. There were no significant aftereffects on the prooofreading measure.Current information about crowding and its effects comes from three areas of research, namely, animal studies, correlational studies, and a small number of experimental studies, all of which are reviewed in several recent articles (e.g., Stokols, 1972; Zlutnick & Altman, 1972). Within this body of research, a study by Freedman, Hevansky, and Ehrlich (1971) stands out as a particularly straightforward experimental test of the effects of density on human task performance. Their surprising finding, based on a series of three experiments, is that density has no significant effect on either simple or complex task performance. In other words, density per se is apparently not a stressful phenomenon for humans.It is interesting to consider the findings of Freedman and his colleagues in light of another body of research dealing with a different kind of social stressor, Glass and Singer's (1972) experiments on noise. The approach in this series of studies was to expose Ss to bursts of intense noise (either predictable or

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Results from a survey of 283 gay men and lesbians contradict some of the findings of earlier research on gender differences in same-gender friendships. Data from a variety of scales and items indicate that, while gay males and lesbians value casual, close and best friendships equally (similar to research findings on heterosexual men and women), their definitions and enactments of friendship also were similar (unlike other research which supports differences along gender lines). However, some gender differences did persist in the ways gay men and lesbians dealt with conflict and sexuality within friendships. The implications of considering sexual orientation and gender in the study of friendship are discussed in terms of theoretical, methodological and socio-political issues.

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