Esteem Support Messages Received during the Job Search: A Test of the CETESM

The current study extends research on the Cognitive-Emotional Theory of Esteem Support Messages (CETESM) and examines the role of esteem support during the job search. Unemployed, underemployed, and/or displaced job seekers (N=197) recalled an esteem support message they had received during their job search. Messages were coded using a scheme derived from the CETESM. Results indicate that helpful messages (i.e., those that enhanced state self-esteem related to the job search) were significantly more likely than unhelpful messages to contain message features predicted by the CETESM. Helpful messages were also associated with greater job search activity than were unhelpful messages. Theoretical implications, as well as pragmatic implications for those who wish to support job seekers, are discussed.     

A functional perspective on the study of social movements

Esteem support is a particular form of social support that is provided with the intent of enhancing how others feel about themselves and their attributes, abilities, and accomplishments. This study examines the association between perceptions of esteem support message helpfulness and (a) characteristics of the esteem support situation, (b) the relationship between provider and recipient, and (c) features of the perceived esteem support message. Participants (N = 55) recalled two esteem-threatening situations, one for which they received helpful esteem support and another for which they received unhelpful esteem support. Messages and features of situations and helpers were coded. Results indicate that features of the esteem support message and the helper are related to perceptions of messages helpfulness.     

Anonymity and Interaction in an Online Breast Cancer Social Support Group

Despite the benefits of using online social support groups, prior research does not provide a solid understanding of the online factors related to an individual’s supportive interaction. Accordingly, this study aims to explore how various aspects of anonymity predict different levels of social support engagement. The current study uncovers that visually identifiable group members are more likely to get supportive responses than are visually anonymous members. Also, when support group members are visually and discursively identifiable, they are more likely to get supportive messages than those who are visually and discursively anonymous. Additionally, the more identifiable support group members are, the more they receive positive messages. Practical implications for the role of social support group members’ anonymity/identifiability on the overall social support process are presented.     

Responsive E-government in China: A way of gaining public support

A growing body of research suggests that officials in China are highly responsive to citizens' requests on e-government platforms. However, our understanding of the effects of such responsiveness in China remains limited due to the lack of research from a citizen perspective. By conducting two online survey experiments involving 205 residents of Hubei Province, China, we examined the features of government responses in the e-government context that affect citizens' perceptions of government performance. The findings show that even a delayed and unhelpful response can have a positive impact on citizens' satisfaction with the government. This effect is mediated by the level of perceived government responsiveness. Moreover, citizens are affected more by the usefulness than by the timeliness of the government's responses. These results suggest that by combining the broad implementation of e-government with a higher response quality, the Chinese government can establish a new means of gaining public support.     

Patterns of Social Support Communicated in Response to Expressions of Uncertainty in an Online Community of Young Adults with Cancer

In order to develop more effective ways of helping adolescents and young adult (AYA) cancer survivors cope with cancer-related uncertainty, it is important to understand how AYAs respond communicatively to each other's uncertainty. We designed this project to gain insight into the patterns of social support that occur in response to AYAs' expressions of uncertainty. We analyzed 510 responses to posts in an AYA-focused online discussion group. Eighty-two percent of messages responding to uncertainty contained informational support. Sixty-seven percent contained multiple types of support. Among medical, personal, and social sources of uncertainty, the most typical response tended to be a combination of informational support accompanied by emotional and/or esteem support. AYAs who express uncertainty in online support groups should be advised that their posts are likely to be met with information, such as advice and referrals, which may either facilitate or impede their uncertainty management goals.     

Let Me Tell You About My Success: The Implications of Attribution-Based Capitalization Response Messages for Discloser Affect

Capitalization attempts, or the sharing of personal good news, can have positive outcomes for disclosers when met with a skillful response. This study reports on a test of an attribution-based theoretical framework for capitalization response messages. Participants (N = 314) read capitalization response messages created by crossing the causal attribution dimensions of locus, stability, and globality. They rated messages for their anticipated effect on positive and negative affect. Results indicate that messages that make internal attributions for success are rated significantly higher on positive affect and lower on negative affect than messages making external attributions, as are messages making stable versus unstable attributions. The stability dimension moderates the impact of the globality dimension on message ratings. Implications for attribution and social support theories are discussed.     

Word Selection and Social Identities in Talk-in-Interaction

This article examines connections between communication and identity. We present an analysis of actual, recorded social interactions in order to describe intersections between identity and vocabulary selection. We focus on how, in selecting or deselecting particular terms (e.g., cephalic, doula, cooker) speakers can display both their own identities and the identities of others. We show how these identities are constructed in part through speakers' selection and competent deployment of the specialist vocabularies associated with particular territories of expertise, how identities can be challenged when cointeractants presume understanding problems with specialist vocabularies, and how they can be defended (more or less vigorously) against such challenges with claims or displays of understanding. This conversation analytic approach to talk-in-interaction documents how specialist vocabularies can be deployed, in situ, in the construction of social identities. In describing how communication is used in the enactment and construction of identity, our findings contribute to the developing body of research specifying communication practices through which identity is constructed and showing how salient identities are made manifest in interaction.     

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.     

“Created this way”: liminality,rhetorical agency,and the transformative power of constraint among gay Christian college students

This study offers liminality as an analytic tool to investigate the discursive strategies of the negotiation of oppositional identities. Interviews with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning Christian college students reveal appeals to essentialism, labeling, and identification. Specific findings include appeals to being “created gay,” the naming of identity labels that support and resist both traditional sexual minority and religious labels, and the deployment of a gay Christian identity as evangelism. This essay explores how disciplinary rhetorics create the conditions for the emergence of rhetorical agency, allowing for a nuanced understanding of the transformative possibilities of minority sexual identity formation.     

A Measure of Weak-Tie/Strong-Tie Support Network Preference

This article reports two studies designed to develop and test a weak-tie/strong-tie support network preference scale. A theoretical framework for developing the measure and empirical tests of the underlying dimensions in two distinct populations is presented along with an assessment of the scale's validity and reliability, and hypotheses are tested regarding the support network preferences of the two populations. The application and utility of the four subscales comprising the W/STS is discussed along with the scale's implications for the study and advancement of applied research concerning social support networks.     

Organizing youth work(ers) through the paradox of play

A recent focus among communication scholars, the study of contradiction and paradox illuminates the inherent irrationality of organizing. The following case study examines how youth labor – cast as play – functions as a series of tensions and contradictions in the day-to-day construction of work(er) between adults and youth. Mirroring the popular reality TV show, The Apprentice, the program under study communicated contradictory messages about youth work(ers) in terms of: (1) proving/discounting oneself as worker, (2) demanding confidence while orchestrating uncertainty and (3) playing along versus being playful in the organizationally prescribed framework, effectively dismissing work(ers) essential to the functioning of the organization. My analysis demonstrates how the framing of youth’s work as a game delegitimized youth work(ers) resulting in potentially exploitative working conditions, and serves as a call to communication scholars to better account for youth as workers, while pointing to similar implications for other types of provisional and contingent work(ers).     

面向查询扩展的特征词频繁项集挖掘算法

为了获取高质量的扩展词,提出一种面向查询扩展的基于文本数据库的特征词频繁项集挖掘算法。该算法采用支持度衡量特征词频繁项集,给出新的剪枝策略,并结合原始查询,挖掘同时含有查询词项和非查询词项的特征词频繁项集,以提高挖掘效率。实验表明,与传统的挖掘算法相比,本算法更有效、更合理。     

Relational turbulence and perceptions of partner support during reintegration after military deployment

The transition from deployment to reintegration can be stressful for returning military personnel and at-home partners, and support plays a key role in their ability to transition effectively. We draw on relational turbulence theory to advance predictions about how parameters of the relationship between returning service members and at-home partners predict their perceptions of their partner’s support during the post-deployment transition. We surveyed 235 individuals (117 returning service members, 118 at-home partners) who had experienced the transition within the past 6 months. Findings consistent with the theory indicated that relational turbulence partially mediated the negative associations that relational uncertainty and interference from a partner shared with partner support. Partner uncertainty was a direct negative predictor of partner support as well. We consider how these results extend theory, research, and practice.     

Living with a rare health condition: the influence of a support community and public stigma on communication,stress, and available support

People affected by rare diseases often have limited coping resources and sometimes face stigma. They build communities with others who share their conditions, but not all members may benefit from these communities. This study investigated how adults with a rare genetic health condition (Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency; AATD) think about both the Alpha-1 community and public stigma about AATD, and how these cognitions predict their communication responses and well-being. The results showed that people with AATD-encountered stigmatization from various sources. Stronger public stigma predicted more secrecy, more stress, and less available support. Stronger group identification with the Alpha-1 community predicted less secrecy; stronger group activism predicted more available support and more communication to challenge stigmatizers. Post hoc analyses showed significant interactions between public stigma and group cognitions on communication to challenge stigmatizers. Practical implications for bolstering communities to improve the well-being of people with rare diseases were discussed.     

Encoding the paranoid style in American politics: “anti-establishment” discourse and power in contemporary spin

The term “anti-establishment” has witnessed a revealing rise in recent American political discourse. Combining textual analysis of news coverage and speeches with in-depth interviews with dozens of consultants involved in the encoding of mediated political communication, this research analyzes and critiques its deployment and significance in Republican campaign messaging. Mapping the contours of this rhetorical strategy, a typology of four dimensions of tension emerges: insurrection versus order; populism versus insider power; real America versus elitism; and purity versus compromise. As an exercise in critical political communication, the argument concludes that “anti-establishment” rhetoric seeks to stoke and co-opt resentment while effacing powerful, privileged economic interests.     

The role of emotions for citizen engagement via social media – A study of police departments using twitter

Police departments increasingly use social media for enhancing their relationships with citizens. However, little is known about how specific characteristics of police-initiated messages affect whether and to what extent citizens engage with the former. This study looks at 11 large police departments using Twitter in Germany. Based on a multimethod approach, it explores the effect of content type and two emotional elements (i.e. arousal and valence) of tweets on different dimensions of citizen engagement. The latter is measured as observable online behavioral responses to police tweets in form of likes, comments, and retweets. The results suggest that emotional arousal (i.e. the emotional intensity of a tweet) plays a key role in triggering all forms of citizen engagement, while emotional valence (more specifically, the negativity of a tweet) largely shows no effect. Moreover, the impact of content type (informative versus interactive) varies across the different engagement dimensions.     

Communicative signaling of occupational fitness: How innovative ability is expressed and assessed

ABSTRACT

This study investigates how individuals working in the innovation field communicatively define the nature of their work and make assessments of others’ innovative ability. Drawing on signaling theory, this work explores what communicative signals are valued within an ambiguous professional context. Interviews with 36 innovation workers revealed that individuals perceive this emerging occupational role as comprised of skills and traits that vary in how easily they are communicatively expressed, and in turn what forms of communication allow these dimensions to be evaluated. These findings inform the development of a grounded model for communicatively assessing innovative ability. This work extends our theoretical understanding of how signals of professionalism are actively, and communicatively expressed and assessed in new occupational settings.     

Examining the Construct Validity of Enacted Support: A Multitrait–Multimethod Analysis of Three Perspectives for Judging Immediacy and Listening Behaviors

Scholars of supportive communication are primarily concerned with how variations in the quality of enacted support affect individual and relational health and well-being. But who gets to determine what counts as enacted support? There is a large degree of operational heterogeneity for what gets called enacted support, but little attention has been afforded to the issue of whether these assessments are substitutable. In two studies we use self-reports, conversational partner-reports, and third-party ratings of two quintessential behavioral support indicators, namely, listening and immediacy. Using a multitrait–multimethod (MTMM) design, Study 1 found (1) little association between the enacted support assessments and (2) a high degree of common method variance. A second study found moderate-to-high degrees of effective reliability (i.e., consistency of judgments within a set of judgments, or mean judgments) for enacted support evaluations from the perspective of unacquainted and untrained third-party judges. In general, our data provide cautionary evidence that when scholars examine evaluations of enacted support, perspective matters and might ultimately contribute differently to well-being and health.     

Supportive Communication and the Adequate Paraphrase

The active listening paradigm recommends that helpers paraphrase the thoughts and feelings of support seekers. But how? This study compared evaluations of four types of paraphrase messages derived from the work of Polanyi. Results showed that certain forms of paraphrasing are evaluated as more helpful, sensitive, and supportive than others, though differences were not in full alignment with theoretical predictions, and results were dependent on narrative prompt. Our study provides initial empirical data that question the practical advice given to informal help providers found in our academic scholarship and textbooks. Formal and informal helping relationships have many similarities and differences that should be acknowledged and tested with a variety of methods and populations.