Although social support has been operationally defined, a lack of conceptual clarity has made measurement modest and unreliable. To investigate the feasibility of measuring social support from a qualitative rather than a quantitative perspective, and to consider negative social interactions in the assessment, 130 college students were administered the newly devised Social Transaction Scale, the Social Network Survey, and three measures of well being. An analysis of the results showed that measures of quality or adequacy of available social resources rather than those of size or other quantitative characteristics of the social network were better predictors of psychological outcomes such as strain or well being. Negative social interactions were identified and divided into conflicts and obstacles. Social obstacles directly affected well being and school strain. Although social conflicts did not directly affect well being or strain, they were influential in the presence of stress. Network size, density, and multiplexity were not significant variables. (BL)