Person-centered Messages Research Articles

Contextual Factors Influencing Online Support Providers’ Motivations and Message Provision

This study examined how contextual factors influence support providers’ motivations and message provision. Participants (N = 602) provided supportive messages in response to support-seeking posts sent either publicly or privately through either Facebook or an online support group. Findings revealed that providers’ motivations and message provision varied as a function of the channel and privacy of communication. Moderated mediation analyses showed that privacy moderated the indirect effect of channel on verbal person-centered message provision through approach motivation. This project advances extant understanding regarding direct and indirect effects of contextual factors and motivations on the quality of supportive messages people produce.

Development and Initial Assessment of an Emotional Support Provision Training Intervention for Interpersonal Support Providers in the Context of Chronic Illness

ABSTRACT This study reports on the development and pilot testing of an emotional support provision training intervention for interpersonal support providers to those with chronic illnesses. Using findings from a needs assessment in combination with existing theory and research, we created a training framework consisting of verbal person-centered message design, empathic listening, and communicated perspective-taking. Then, we recruited 282 individuals to participate in a pre-training questionnaire, the online training module, a post-training questionnaire, and a two-week post-training questionnaire. Outcome variables included emotional support knowledge, efficacy, and intentions, as well as general support efficacy, response efficacy, and quality. Repeated measures MANCOVA revealed significant increases from T1 to T2 for all variables of interest. These increases were sustained at T3 for emotional support knowledge and efficacy, and support provision response efficacy. Participants rated the training favorably and provided helpful suggestions for improvement. This study answers the call for more theoretically-grounded support interventions that not only assess theory in real-world settings, but also help people better their supportive communication skills.

“You Think This is Hard? Just Wait…”: Memorable Messages in Motherhood

This study explores the hurtful and helpful memorable messages said to mothers. Ninety-seven mothers completed an open-ended questionnaire, providing examples of their most memorable hurtful and helpful messages related to motherhood. Messages labeled as hurtful critiqued parenting-related decisions or the child’s behavior, typically leading to a strain on the relationship or relationship termination. Helpful memorable messages were recognized as directly supporting parenting decisions or complimenting participants’ children. These messages maintained or improved the relationship with the message source. When talking with mothers, people should engage in high person-centered messages, provide encouragement, and avoid giving unsolicited parenting advice.

LISTENING IN COURT-CONNECTED MEDIATIONS

ABSTRACT As the use of court-connected mediations has received a permanent status as an intrajudicial conflict resolution method, the purpose of this study (n = 38/44 Finnish judges) was to elucidate how listening is used in mediations. The data set one consisted of answers to open-ended questions and was analyzed using thematic content analysis. The data set two consisted 56 statements that were used to create a personal listening profile for each participating judge. The results suggest that 1) facilitative, evaluative, and transformative mediation models have both shared and different listening goals that require an extensive listening competence from the mediator judges, 2) complexity and relationality characterize listening in facilitative mediations, and 3) most judges sent highly or moderately person-centered messages and were excellent in interpretation and evaluation. These results suggest that the relationality of listening in court-connected mediations is imperative in meeting the needs of the mediating parties. The judges’ listening behavior, listening goals, and the listening requirements of each mediation style suggest that the full potential of listening in court-connected mediations is yet to be reached.

Focusing on the “Public” in Public Relations: The Importance of Person-Centered Messages (PCMs) in Crisis Communication on Twitter

Based on the theoretical frameworks of situational crisis communication theory (SCCT) and person-centered messages (PCMs), this interdisciplinary study conducted a 2 x 3 experiment to examine the role of PCMs in crisis management on social media. Our findings suggest that crisis type (victim, preventable) has an effect on people’s perceptions/reactions toward an organization and that PCM levels (low, medium, and high person-centered messages) in crisis communication on social media influence organizational reputation and participants’ intention to post negative feedback about the organization in crisis. We suggest that when organizations are responding to crisis online, they provide additional attention to the interpersonal dynamics of those interactions. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Promoting Sustained and Exclusive Breastfeeding among Chinese American Pregnant Women

This study investigated prenatal goal setting and breastfeeding attitudes and intentions for 210 Chinese American pregnant women. In addition, this study assessed impact of person-centered versus factual messages on breastfeeding attitudes and intentions. While pregnant women reported receiving information about Baby-Friendly designated hospitals from healthcare providers, most received no breastfeeding information from those same providers. Although women had positive attitudes toward breastfeeding, they showed lack of knowledge about colostrum, general approval for using infant formula, as well as early introduction of complementary foods. By extension, these attitudes suggested they misunderstood the meaning of exclusive breastfeeding. No differences were observed based on parity, trimester of pregnancy, level of education or income. Person-centered and factual messages were judged as equally effective messages, but intention to breastfeed was more affected by the factual message. Reasons for this result are discussed. Healthcare providers are positioned to proactively engage in maternal preparedness for exclusive breastfeeding. These results suggested a missed opportunity for healthcare providers to communicate the value of sustained exclusive breastfeeding for the recommended first 6 months of an infant’s life and underscore a need for all antenatal healthcare providers to collaboratively ensure that breastfeeding information is comprehensively provided throughout the span of antenatal care.

How the Comforting Process Fails: Psychological Reactance to Support Messages

Abstract This study extends the theory of psychological reactance to the context of social support by examining how supportive communication is associated with psychological reactance and subsequent support outcomes. The final sample included 325 married adults who had experienced a marital disagreement, and were asked to evaluate a hypothetical support message that varied in the level of person-centeredness provided by a social network member. The results indicated that perceptions of support messages as conveying dominance and having weak argument quality were positively associated with psychological reactance. Low person-centered messages corresponded with more dominance and weaker argument quality. Low person-centered messages were associated with more psychological reactance through an indirect effect conveyed by a perceived threat to freedom. There was a significant, indirect effect between person-centeredness and emotional improvement conveyed by a perceived threat to freedom and psychological reactance. The discussion highlights the role of psychological reactance in social support.

“When You Care Enough to Send the Very Best”: Examining the Person-Centered Quality of Message Features Provided in Sympathy Cards

Sympathy cards are a popular channel by which grief support is communicated. In order to better understand the supportive messages used in sympathy cards, a content analysis was performed. The messages found in one hundred cards from major greeting card companies were coded based on their level of person centeredness (Burleson, 1994) and their use of grief management strategies (Marwit & Carusa, 1998). Results indicate sympathy cards typically rely on moderate and high person centered messages. The majority of strategies previously identified by the modified Support-Intended Statements Scale (SISS) were used. However, one unique strategy labeled “difficulty knowing what to say” was identified.

A Novel Approach to Helping People with Glaucoma Use Their Drops Routinely.

Pharmacy data reveal that 70% of patients were missing one or more days worth of drops out of five. Adopting approaches to behavior change and management skills used for people with diabetes may provide insight to improve self-management of glaucoma. Every person who is diagnosed with a chronic health condition such as glaucoma has unique life circumstances that may present barriers to behavior change. An accurate diagnosis and a treatment plan are useless if patients do not use their prescribed eye drops. Active listening and effective communication can result in persons who are more engaged in their self-care behaviors. Collaborative communication using person-centered and strengths-based messages could help eye care providers identify challenges and concerns for people with glaucoma who are experiencing inconsistencies with their eye drops. In an atmosphere where patients can discuss their challenges with treatment recommendations without judgment or fear, they are more likely to trust their provider and therefore share their situation openly and honestly. This is accomplished by choosing language that communicates mutually-agreed-upon self-management goals and addresses and strengthens individual and clinical outcomes. The eye care professional is then seen by the patient as a resource who can empathize when setbacks occur and reinforce the patient's self-management goals. Open-ended questions and tell-ask-tell approaches for identifying barriers to care are keys to more effective communication and trusting relationships. This includes recognizing that glaucoma is associated with increased rates of anxiety or depression that may be an overlooked barrier to self-management. By adopting language recommendations from diabetes care and education, eye care practitioners may be better equipped to help people with glaucoma improve their self-care.

When sistahs support sistahs: A process of supportive communication about racial microaggressions among Black women

ABSTRACTThis study extends a rich line of research on racial microaggressions (Sue, 2010) by examining the way friendship networks of Black women communicate support to a targeted individual. Groups of Black women friends (n = 52) engaged in supportive discussions about racial microaggressions by white women perpetrators, and a research team of Black women inductively analyzed the supportive encounters. The findings indicated that groups engaged in a two-phase process of supportive communication that began with Individual Orientation, which describes person-centered messages that solely supported a target, and continued to Collective Orientation, which describes group-centered discussions about the prevalence and effects of racial injustice on all Black women. Three co-occurring sub-themes emerged in Collective Orientation: Hostile Differentiation, Socio-political Contextualization, and Collective Uplift. Humor and Laughter were important in both phases. Generational dynamics were also considered in this study, but few differences emerged. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.

Improving cancer caregivers’ emotion regulation and supportive message characteristics: Results of a randomized controlled expressive writing intervention

ABSTRACTThis study tested whether a 17-day randomized controlled expressive writing (EW) intervention improved cancer caregivers’ emotion regulation ability and if improved emotion regulation predicted increases in verbal person-centered message characteristics present in caregivers’ recalled support conversations with cancer survivors. Participants (N = 64) were spousal caregivers of hematopoietic stem cell transplant cancer survivors assigned to one of three writing conditions: traumatic disclosure (TD), benefit finding (BF), or a time-management control. Caregivers completed writings three times at one-week intervals, along with pre- and posttest reports of emotion regulation and written accounts of supportive conversations with spousal survivors. Both EW conditions (TD and BF) predicted reduced emotion regulation difficulty compared to the control condition. Cognitive, pronoun, and positive affect word usage within EWs did not predict emotion regulation improvement. However, use of negative emotion words predicted significant increases in emotion regulation difficulty across conditions. Verbal person-centeredness (VPC) message characteristics significantly increased from pre- to posttest for those assigned to the BF and control conditions. Despite change in VPC, emotion regulation did not mediate the relationship between condition assignment and message characteristic outcomes.

Person-Centered Messages, Attributions of Responsibility, and the Willingness to Forgive Parental Infidelity

This study tested the degree to which person-centered disclosures about parental infidelity are associated with adult children’s attributions of responsibility for infidelity and willingness to forgive the offending parent. Participants included 299 adult children (aged 18–30) who were randomly assigned to hypothetical scenarios manipulating the person-centeredness of the offended parent’s disclosure and the biological sex of the offending parent. Although person-centered disclosures did not predict willingness to forgive, children’s attributions of responsibility for the offense did inversely predict their willingness to forgive. Meaningful differences in attributions of responsibility and willingness to forgive emerged on the basis of the sex of the offending parent. The results support attribution theory by showing that part of understanding third-party relational transgressions involves assessments of responsibility.

Communicating grief and loss online: Evaluating person-centered support messages

ABSTRACTThis single-class activity expands current literature on person-centered messages by providing attention to message quality in mediated contexts. Students begin the activity by reviewing a hypothetical scenario in which a friend has posted about a family death loss on social media. After reviewing this scenario, students then create sample supportive messages that they could share with a grieving friend. Students are also asked to apply their knowledge about person-centered messages to evaluate other fictional support messages. Students who participate in this activity will be provided with additional skills for comforting grieving friends effectively.Courses: This single-class activity can be implemented in several courses, including interpersonal communication, the dark side of interpersonal communication, and family communication.Objectives: Students who complete this activity should be able to: (1) outline what qualities comprise a person-centered support message; (2) discuss why highly person-centered messages are effective in providing support to others; and (3) evaluate death loss support messages across levels of person centeredness.

The Influence of Cognitive Complexity, Empathy, and Mindfulness on Person-Centered Message Evaluations

More than 30 years of research shows that highly person-centered (PC) supportive messages that validate and acknowledge the feelings of others are consistently viewed as more beneficial than less PC-based messages. There are, however, differences in how well people can distinguish high and low PC messages. We argue that the combined influence of motivational factors (i.e., empathy) and cognitive factors (i.e., cognitive complexity, mindfulness) significantly impacts how people process and evaluate support messages that vary in PC. Participants (n = 331) completed a survey, and structural equation modeling analyses revealed that both cognitive complexity and empathy predicted the extent to which people are able to differentiate more and less PC messages. Interestingly and in line with past research, mindfulness directly predicted empathy but not cognitive complexity.

Connections Between Family Communication Patterns, Person-Centered Message Evaluations, and Emotion Regulation Strategies

In this study, we theorize that family communication patterns (FCPs) and 2 emotion regulation strategies (reappraisal and suppression) explain variations in person-centered (PC) supportive message evaluations. Specifically, we forward an emotion regulation model that predicts reappraisal and suppression will mediate the relation between FCPs and PC message evaluations. Results (N = 361) suggest that conversation orientation positively predicted reappraisal and negatively predicted suppression; conformity orientation positively predicted suppression only. Reappraisal positively and suppression negatively predicted the extent to which people discriminated among PC message evaluations. Reappraisal also mediated the relation between conversation orientation and PC message evaluations. These results have implications for how capable people are to evaluate and ultimately profit from beneficial support when coping with negative emotions.

The Impact of Mindfulness on Empathy, Active Listening, and Perceived Provisions of Emotional Support

Mindfulness has emerged as an important factor that assists people in regulating difficult emotions, but it is not yet known whether mindfulness plays a role in supportive communication. The current study examines whether mindfulness facets (describing, observing, nonjudging, aware acting, nonreacting) positively influence self-reported abilities to (a) discern more and less person-centered (PC) supportive messages and (b) facilitate reappraisals via two core cognitive factors, namely, empathy and active listening. College students with little or no meditation experience ( N = 183) completed an online survey. Mediation analyses showed that empathy and active listening partially mediated the relationship between two mindfulness facets (describing, observing) and the two perceptual outcome measures (PC message discriminations, facilitating reappraisals) by accounting for 33% and 62% of the variance. Additional structural equation modeling suggested that mindful observing and describing positively predicted empathy and active listening. Both mindful describing and nonjudging also positively predicted facilitating reappraisals. Interestingly, nonjudging negatively predicted empathy and active listening. The results point to mindfulness as an important factor that influences cognitive-affective processes in supportive communication.

Person-Centered Emotional Support and Gender Attributions in Computer-Mediated Communication

Without physical appearance, identification in computer-mediated communication is relatively ambiguous and may depend on verbal cues such as usernames, content, and/or style. This is important when gender-linked differences exist in the effects of messages, as in emotional support. This study examined gender attribution for online support providers with male, female, or ambiguous usernames, who provided highly person-centered (HPC) or low person-centered (LPC) messages. Participants attributed gender to helpers with gender-ambiguous names based on HPC versus LPC messages. Female participants preferred HPC helpers over LPC helpers. Unexpectedly, men preferred HPC messages from male and gender-ambiguous helpers more than they did when HPC messages came from females. Implications follow about computer-mediated emotional support and theories of computer-mediated communication and social influence.

A Review and Meta-Analysis of Person-Centered Messages and Social Support Outcomes

Person-centered messages are a form of social support that has been theoretically and empirically linked to a variety of outcomes. Scholars would benefit by recognizing the influence of person-centered messages across a number of studies in the absence of statistical artifacts. This article reports a meta-analysis testing the association between person-centered messages and social support outcomes across 23 studies. Our results demonstrate a positive linear association between person-centeredness and actual effectiveness, and an even stronger linear relationship between person-centeredness and perceived effectiveness. The association between person-centeredness and support outcomes was attenuated in confederate-based methodologies. Moreover, the data suggest that scholars need to more precisely conceptualize and empirically assess the differences between the nine levels of the person-centered hierarchy.

Task Stressfulness Moderates the Effects of Verbal Person Centeredness on Cardiovascular Reactivity: A Dual-Process Account of the Reactivity Hypothesis

This study sought to investigate the impact of person-centered comfort on cardiovascular reactivity and to test a recently developed dual-process theory of supportive message outcomes proposing that the impact of supportive communication is moderated by the motivation and ability to attend to message content. Participants (n = 179) completed a public speaking task that served to experimentally manipulate stress. During the preparation period, instant messages containing either low or high person-centered messages or containing no imbedded supportive message were sent. Results indicated that, in line with theoretical predictions, message content did influence mean arterial pressure and heart rate for participants exposed to moderate but not to low or high stress. Results are discussed in terms of the dual-process theory of supportive message outcomes, and the discussion offers both theoretical and practical implications of the research.

Expanding the Walls of the Health Care Encounter: Support and Outcomes for Patients Online

This paper assesses the relationship between patient–health care provider (HCP) interaction and health behaviors. In total, 109 Native American patients diagnosed with diabetes mellitus were enrolled in a Web-based diabetes monitoring system. The system tracks patient–HCP interaction, and in total 924 personal messages were exchanged. These 924 messages contained 6,411 message units that were content analyzed using a nine-category scheme. Patient blood glucose monitoring was found to be related to the frequency of phatic communication, informational social support, and tangible social support messages, as well as messages containing references to personal contact. Finally, person-centered messages proved to be the single best predictor of patient involvement with the telemedicine system (as measured by the number of times the patient logged into the system).