Six different well-vetted and established measures were used to determine each subjects' personal standing in terms of their level of self-actualization or progress towards self-actualization, their perceived level of social support, their placement on a depression index, an assessment of their life experiences, and finally a test designed to measure how likely an individual is to try to present themselves positively on self-reporting measures such as those use din the study. This last test's results were used to control for self-reporting biases in the other instruments. The subjects were given instructions in person and then asked to complete all six instruments in their own homes, with recommendations that the instruments be completed in a single block of time, and respondents then mailed the completed instruments to the researchers.

The research did not yield any results that were contrary to long-held and specifically stated hypotheses, and in large part simply confirmed what seemed to be common sense, yet did so with empirical evidence for the first time. Briefly put, the results of the subjects' responses on the various instruments and the correlation analysis performed showed that depression showed a direct negative...

High levels of perceived social support were positively correlated with self-actualization and negatively correlated with depression, meaning that the more social support an individual has the more likely they are to make significant progress towards self-actualization and the less likely they are to suffer from depression.
The researchers do note that there are some significant limitations to the study and its findings, including the population of the study, the lack of true objectivity in the sole use of self-reporting measures, and the lack of research techniques that might expose and explore causal relationships rather than merely correlations. Even with these limitations, however, this study yielded significant information in a very necessary area of study, determining that the relationships long assumed to exist actually did, and creating a foundation for further study. The researchers close their study by recapping this foundation and calling for this further research.