Communication message cues and opinions about people with depression: an investigation of discussion on Weibo

A content analysis was conducted of the posts generated by mass media organizations and public opinion leaders on the Chinese social media platform Sina Weibo to investigate the associations between several communication message cues and opinions about people with depression (N = 102). The study revealed that the posts of the influential users were more likely to be stigmatizing when they communicated stereotypes, but less likely to be stigmatizing or more likely to be supportive when they made personal, genetic and medical, and social and environmental cause and responsibility claims. The posts were also more likely to be supportive if the influential users presented treatment and recovery information. In addition to finding out what communication cues activate the influential users' stigmatizing or supportive opinions, the study also examined and found the impact of the influential users' opinions on their followers' opinions on this issue (N = 8261). The findings showed that the public opinion leaders were more likely than the mass media to express support for people with depression. This support then translated into supportive responses among their followers toward those living with the disease.     

The Social Dimension of Blogging about Health: Health Blogging,Social Support,and Well-being

The study reported here explored the social dimension of health-related blogs by examining blogging as a means to marshal social support and, as a result, achieve some of the health benefits associated with supportive communication. A total of 121 individuals who author a blog dedicated to their experience living with a specific health condition completed the study questionnaire. The number of blog posts made by respondents and proportion of posts with reader comments were positively associated with perceived social support from blog readers. The relationship between blog reader support and two outcomes related to well-being depended upon the support available in bloggers' strong-tie relationships with family and friends. Consistent with the social compensation (i.e., “poor get richer”) perspective, blog reader support was negatively associated with loneliness and positively associated with personal growth when support in strong-tie relationships was relatively lacking.     

Nonverbal communication and the support process: Interactional sensitivity in interactions between mothers and young adult children

This study investigated the contribution of nonverbal cues to supportive communication in interactions between mothers and young adult children. Current support communication research primarily focuses on verbal messages communicating support or conceptualizes nonverbal communication in narrow ways. Using the concept of interactional sensitivity from attachment theory for direction, a number of hypotheses concerning support provision were proposed in order to develop our understanding in this area. Findings provide insight into the role of nonverbal as well as verbal communication in supportive interaction. Interactional sensitivity—in the form of certain conversational involvement cues (vocal warmth/interest and kinesic/proxemic attentiveness), responses appropriate to the child's needs, and movement synchrony—predicted young adult children's perceptions of mothers’ supportiveness during a conversation about a relationship problem.     

An Examination of Support (In)Adequacy: Types,Sources, and Consequences of Social Support among Infertile Women

This study investigated gaps between the supportive communication people desire and receive in the context of infertility. Our findings advance the notion of support adequacy by positioning social support as a dynamic resource that is contributed to from a variety of sources in numerous ways. A community sample of 301 infertile women indicated that they experience discrepancies in the support they desire compared to what they receive from their spouses, friends and family, medical professionals, and online sources. Participants experienced the most discrepancies from medical professionals, and in almost all of these discrepancies people desired more support than they received. The magnitude of the gap between people's desires and what they receive corresponds with evaluations of support quality.     

Measuring Social Exchange Constructs in Organizations

Although social exchange has been frequently referred to as a framework for exploring employee-organization relationships, the role of potentially important exchange related variables such as communication climate and change communication are less understood. The present research aimed to assess the measurement properties of an expanded set of social exchange constructs. The measurement properties of change communication, communication climate, perceived organizational support, procedural justice, affective commitment, and cynicism toward organizational change were tested using competing confirmatory factor analytic models. After appropriately defining items and refining individual scales, confirmatory factor analyses provided evidence in support of an expanded set of social exchange constructs. Despite high correlations between some of the variables, tests for discriminant validity established that respondents (N = 500) could reliably distinguish between the full set of constructs. Furthermore, Harman's One Factor Test for common method variance suggested that the variance in the data could not be explained by a single construct. Practical implications for the use of this set of social exchange constructs in organizational contexts are discussed.     

Support providers' interaction goals: the influence of attributions and emotions

The current study examines cognitive and emotional influences on the formation of interaction goals. Specifically, it develops and assesses an extension of Weiner's attribution-emotion-intention model of helping (e.g., Weiner, 1995) to the prediction of support providers' goals. 608 college students read situations manipulating attributions of responsibility, stability, and effort with regard to a friend who was seeking support. They subsequently responded to measures of emotional response (anger, sympathy), interaction goals, and attributions. Attributions were found to influence goals both directly and through the mediation of emotion, though the character of this influence depended strongly on the goal. The results suggest that at least some variability in the effectiveness and sensitivity of supportive communication can be explained by support providers' goals. They also indicate the need for continued, closer examination of cognitive and emotional influences on interaction goals and behaviors.     

The Effects of Social Support,Depression, and Stress on Drinking Behaviors in a College Student Sample

Social support research contends that supportive interactions provide a buffer wherein individuals are protected from increased risk due to negative affect. The present study investigated the relationships between social support and college students' stress, depression, and alcohol use. A total of 54 students completed questionnaires in exchange for extra course credit. Results demonstrated that stress and depression were correlated with one another and that social support was negatively correlated with each of these outcomes. Depression, but not stress, was correlated with increased drinking behavior. Overall, social support was negatively correlated with alcohol consumption; however, depression moderated the effect of social support such that support and alcohol consumption were negatively correlated for participants with higher depression whereas support and alcohol consumption were positively correlated for individuals with lower depression. These findings partially confirm existing theories of alcohol use that hypothesize differences between self-medicating drinkers and social, sensation-seeking drinkers.     

Precursors to probation and parole agent intent to send informational,emotional, and esteem social support messages to female clients

Supervising agents serve as sources of social support for over one million women in the US on probation and parole who strive to avoid recidivism. Little is known about the supportive messages agents intend to provide their female clients or their precursors. The optimal matching model of social support is used in an investigation of the precursors to agents’ intent to send different types of social support messages to the women they supervise. Results indicated that supervising agents intended to provide informational support in the form of suggestions or advice, esteem support in the form of compliments, and emotional support in the form of encouragement to the women. Both agent communication pattern and offender level variables were precursors to the intent to send informational support messages, but only agent communication pattern variables predicted the intent to send emotional support messages.     

Don’t You Know What Causes That? Advice,Celebration, and Justification in a Large Families Bulletin Board

A thematic analysis of an on‐line bulletin board for parents of large families revealed three prominent patterns of talk related to advice seeking and giving, celebration of family, and justification of family size. This combination of discursive behaviors seem to be largely social supportive in nature and may have implications regarding the lack of face‐to‐face social support for large families and the potential importance of communication within on‐line groups for providing that support.     

Explaining Gender Differences in the Perception of Support Availability: The Mediating Effects of Construct Availability and Accessibility

Perceived support availability (PSA), a general belief about the likelihood that social support will be available when needed, is associated with numerous processes and outcomes of supportive communication. Currently, however, there is little understanding of the factors that contribute to this belief. Numerous studies have reported gender differences in PSA, with women generally indicating that they see support as more available than do men; in turn, gender differences in PSA have been cited to explain gender differences in the production and interpretation of supportive messages. In an effort to explain gender differences in PSA and, more broadly, understand the social-cognitive factors that contribute to individual differences in PSA, this article proposes and reports a test of a theoretical model that treats PSA as the outcome of the availability and accessibility of cognitive schemata for construing social situations. Participants (150 men and 271 women) completed instruments providing assessments of PSA, construct availability (cognitive complexity), and construct accessibility (expressive and instrumental orientations). Bootstrap procedures for the simultaneous assessment of multiple mediators found that construct accessibility generally was a stronger mediator of gender differences in PSA than construct availability. However, a cooperative suppression effect was found for 1 index of construct accessibility, complicating the interpretation of mediation effects.     

Coparental Communication as a Mediator of Interparental Conflict and Young Adult Children's Mental Well-Being

This study tested young adults’ perceptions of supportive and antagonistic coparental communication as mediators of interparental conflict (i.e., demand/withdraw patterns and aggression) and young adults’ mental well-being. Participants included 493 young adult children from intact and divorced families. Although young adults from divorced families reported higher levels of interparental conflict and antagonistic coparental communication than those from intact families, no significant differences emerged in the pattern of associations among the latent constructs in both groups. Bootstrapping analyses revealed that demand/withdraw patterns and mothers’ aggression had both direct effects and indirect effects on young adults’ mental well-being through antagonistic coparental communication. Consequently, coparental communication may function as a risk mechanism linking the adverse effects of witnessing interparental conflict to children's adjustment.     

Communicating Social Support in Computer-mediated Contexts: A Meta-analytic Review of Content Analyses Examining Support Messages Shared Online among Individuals Coping with Illness

Research on social support during the past two decades has been marked by a growth in scholarship examining supportive communication in computer-mediated contexts among individuals coping with illness. In an effort to summarize and advance this body of research, a meta-analytic review of content analyses was conducted. Across the 41 content analyses examining social support messages shared in health-related contexts online, informational and emotional support messages were most prevalent. Additionally, the prevalence of particular types of support messages varied based on several stressor dimensions relevant to illness. Nurturant forms of support were more common among content analyses examining health conditions likely to threaten personal relationships as well as among content analyses focusing on health conditions with a greater potential for loss in the form of death. Action-facilitating types of support were more common among content analyses examining more chronic conditions. The findings from this project offer insights about the nuanced ways in which computer-mediated communication is used as a resource for coping with illness.     

Communication Skills,Social Support,and Burnout among Advocates in a Domestic Violence Agency

Intimate partner violence affects millions of lives annually. Domestic violence advocates work to alleviate this problem; yet the nature of the work leaves them vulnerable to negative outcomes such as burnout. This study examined the relationships between communication anxiety, communication competence, perceived social support, and feelings of burnout among domestic violence advocates. Results from a survey of 69 individuals recruited from a US domestic violence agency show the combination of communication anxiety, communication competence, perceived emotional support, and perceived informational support accounted for approximately 13% of the variance in advocates' emotional exhaustion and 21% of the variance in advocates' experiences of reduced personal accomplishment. Responses also differ with the advocate's position in the agency. The following recommendations are offered: develop scenario-based communication skills training programs to reduce communication anxiety and increase communication competence, hold regular debriefing meetings to help advocates process their experiences and to receive peer support, and develop formalized mentoring programs that can provide social support for new workers.     

Quality Is Thy Name

In the current study the authors investigate victims' response to a natural disaster crisis event. Crisis communication research has often considered organizations, but neglected the voice of the victims. Similarly, most crisis research emphasizes the negative outcomes of crisis. Positive communication research and sensemaking theory provide insight into the experiences of crisis victims. Twenty-nine individuals were interviewed from one community in Western Kentucky following a massive ice storm that occurred during January 2009. The remembering emphasis of sensemaking was salient in this study. Victims remembered their overall experience through positive terms and positive interpersonal communication. Communities and organizations alike can use this research to consider how their members may respond to crises and create messages based on these results.     

Learning supportive communication through an adaptation of the board game Apples to Apples

People who receive supportive communication when they are distressed benefit from a series of advantageous outcomes. We designed the following activity based on the popular board game Apples to Apples to provide students with an experiential understanding of different types of social support—(1) emotional, (2) esteem, (3) network, (4) informational, (5) tangible, (6) celebratory, (7) social presence, and (8) nonverbal—as well as to illustrate the concepts of support matching and person centeredness.

Courses: Interpersonal Communication, Relational Communication, Health Communication.

Objectives: To provide students with an experiential understanding of different types of social support: (1) emotional, (2) esteem, (3) network, (4) informational, (5) tangible, (6) celebratory, (7) social presence, and (8) nonverbal, as well as to illustrate the concepts of support matching and person centeredness.     

Military Wives' Stressful Disclosures to Their Deployed Husbands: The Role of Protective Buffering

This study combines the fever model with communication privacy management to examine the conditions under which military wives are likely to disclose their family stressors or engage in protective buffering with their deployed husbands. Military wives (N =105) whose husbands were deployed and who had at least one child completed a web-based survey about the communication of family stressors during deployment. Protective buffering was associated with negative health symptoms, and disclosure was related to marital satisfaction. Wives' perceptions that their husbands were in dangerous situations as well as their perceptions that husbands were supportive of their disclosures were both related to protective buffering and disclosure.     

Co-ownership of Private Information in the Miscarriage Context

Pregnancy loss due to miscarriage is a pervasive health issue. Although talking about the miscarriage experience with friends and family members has been linked to better adjustment, revealing this loss can be difficult because discussing a miscarriage often makes people uncomfortable. Moreover, couples often manage this information jointly as they decide whether to share the miscarriage with people outside the dyad. We conducted in-depth interviews with couples to explore the nature of co-ownership in the miscarriage context and to identify the privacy rules that couples develop to manage this information. We found that couples frame miscarriage as a shared but distinct experience and that both members exert rights of ownership over the information. Couples' privacy rules centered on issues of social support and others' need to know about the loss. Even though couples described their privacy rules as implicitly understood, they also recalled having explicit conversations to develop rules. We discuss how the management of co-owned information can improve communication and maintain relationships.     

Social support satisfaction,on‐line communication apprehension,and perceived life stress within computer‐mediated support groups

This study used an on‐line questionnaire to examine the relationship between social support satisfaction, on‐line communication time, on‐line communication apprehension, and perceived life stress among members of various on‐line support groups (N = 140). The results indicated that on‐line support satisfaction was predictive of on‐line communication time while on‐line communication apprehension was not related to on‐line communication time. On‐line communication apprehension was found to be predictive of on‐line support satisfaction. On‐line support satisfaction was found to be predictive of perceived life stress. The implications of findings for communication and social support research as well as the limitations of the study are discussed.     

The impact of sex,gender, and cognitive complexity on the perceived importance of teacher communication skills

The current study examines student perceptions of the importance of selected communication skills for the teacher‐student relationship. Seven of eight communication skills identified in previous research (Burleson & Samter, 1990; Frymier & Houser, 2000) were perceived by students to be important in the teacher‐student relationship. These included referential, ego supportive, regulative, persuasive, conversational, narrative, and conflict management skills. This study sought to explain differences in student perceptions by examining student biological sex, psychological gender, and cognitive complexity. Psychological gender was superior to biological sex as a predictor of six of eight communication skills. Masculine/instrumental individuals reported expectations for teachers' use of persuasive, conversational, and narrative communication skills, while feminine/expressive individuals perceived ego supportive, regulative, and referential skills as important to effective teaching. Finally, cognitive complexity was positively associated with regulative skill and negatively related to narrative and persuasive skills. Implications for instructional research and effective teaching are discussed.     

Social support within an on-line cancer community: an assessment of emotional support,perceptions of advantages and disadvantages,and motives for using the community from a communication perspective

This study investigated an on-line cancer support community emphasizing communication concerns important to the community administrators. The researcher conducted an on-line survey of participants (N v = v 103) focused on their on-line communication activities and social support. The results indicate a modest negative correlation between emotional support received on-line and perceived stress, differences in emotional support scores based on perceptions of disadvantages of on-line support groups, and different motives for using the community between people with cancer and family members. The study also describes suggestions based on the results that were made to community administrators and which could be used by other on-line support communities.