Strategy Specific Support During Uncertain Waiting Periods

Abstract

Uncertainty over what the future holds can be a source of anxiety and worry, and people use a variety of coping strategies in response to this distress. However, limited research has examined whether and how interpersonal factors might influence how exactly people choose to cope with uncertainty. In the current studies, we explore how perceptions of a romantic partner’s strategy-specific support behaviors (e.g., support for bracing for the worst, support for maintaining optimism) relate to the coping strategies used by the person facing stressful uncertainty. Study 1 recruited doctoral students on the academic job market and found that those on the job market (support recipient) reported greater use of particular coping strategies to the extent that they perceived their partner (support provider) as supporting the use of that coping strategy. In Study 2, we built on those findings by recruiting law school graduates and their romantic partners as they awaited the law graduate’s bar exam result. We largely replicated the pattern of findings from Study 1 when looking at law graduates’ perceptions of their partner’s support attempts; however, partners’ reports of their support efforts were unassociated how law graduates coped, despite finding no mean-level differences between the two parties’ perceptions of support efforts. Further analyses revealed that, depending on the coping strategy, either partners’ own coping efforts or their perceptions of the law graduate’s coping efforts predicted the type of support they provided. We discuss implications of these findings for relationship functioning and interpersonal support.