Considered as a whole, our results are consistent with the theory that individual andcontextual factors exert a strong influence on the evaluation of an individual’s receivedsupport. In this analysis, the perception of support was far more consequential than thereception of support in predicting depressive symptoms. We found evidence from agroup of clergy with objectively high levels of received support that there was widevariation in their overall appraisal of perceived social support. Differences in perceivedsupport were driven in part by higher levels of received support and also likely fromcontextual factors such as congregational size that were not correlated with receivedsupport. Additionally, even in this population with high levels of received support,received social support was very weakly related to depression and, when consideredalong with perceived social support, it did not have a significant association. Thesefindings do not support Hobfoll’s (2009) thesis that perceived and received social support are related in an essentially linear manner. These findings also do not support theidea that perceived and received social support are weakly correlated because theyoperate on different time scales (i.e., perceived support involves a long-term appraisal ofsupport, but received support only draws upon recent experiences). Our measure ofreceived support covered a relatively long time horizon, yet was still weakly correlatedwith our measures of perceived support.In terms of the implications, these findings speak to the design of social supportinterventions as a way to improve health, at least among clergy. One major problem with