The purposes of this study were: (1) to determine what types of social support moderate the pathogenic effects of excessive stress; (2) to examine the differential impacts of stress and social support on depressive symptomatology; (3) to determine whether the gender of social support recipient influences responses to stress. The respondents of this study were 271 (M = 116, F = 155) Korean-Americans The instruments used were the Interpersonal Support Evaluation List (ISEL), a modified version of the Hispanic Stress Inventory (HSI), the Center for Epidemiological Studies - Depression (CES-D), and a demographic questionnaire The results indicated that acculturative stress was a strong indicator of depressive symptomatology for both Korean immigrant men and women. However, the difference in the level of stress between men and women was not significant and neither were there any significant difference in depressive symptomatology between men and women. Social support was negatively correlated with stress, whereas the stress-induced depressive symptomatology was negatively correlated with social support and positively with stress. The moderating effect of social support on acculturative stress was not significantly different among Korean men and women
