Development and validation of Work Support Scale: Social support in the context of psychology of working theory.

A theoretically grounded, psychometrically sound new scale-the Work Support Scale (WSS)-was developed to address limitations of existing social support measures used in vocational research. Work support was conceptualized and defined using a psychology of working lens. In Study 1, an initial pool of items was developed and reviewed by experts and a small group of participants in the target population via cognitive interviews. Next, survey data was gathered from a development sample of 365 working adults, and exploratory factor analysis was conducted for factor optimization and extraction. A 16-item, four-factor WSS measure that consisted of Emotional Support, Appraisal Support, Informational Support, and Instrumental Support was developed. In Study 2, the WSS was administered to a new sample of 320 working adults to establish reliability and validity. Results of confirmatory factor analysis supported that all three models-the correlational, bifactor (items loaded onto both general work support and the four subscales), and higher order-had a good fit to the data. Scores from the WSS had good reliability and significantly correlated with validity measures in the expected directions. Additionally, the scores from the total WSS demonstrated incremental validity over existing measures of general and work-related support scales in predicting work-related and well-being outcomes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).