Explaining the Relationships among Supportive Message Quality, Evaluations, and Outcomes: A Dual-Process Approach

Communication Channel, Sex, and the Immediate and Longitudinal Outcomes of Verbal Person-centered Support

“…People experience negative consequences when they receive LPC messages, and they perceive providers of LPC messages in an unfavorable light Jones & Burleson, 2003). LPC messages elicit reduced affect improvement and lower perceptions of helpfulness, quality, and supportiveness, compared to their HPC counterparts (Bodie et al, 2012;Burleson, 2008;High & Dillard, 2012).…”

“…HPC messages are associated with evaluations of appropriateness, helpfulness, responsiveness, sympathy, sensitivity, and quality (Burleson, 2009;Jones, 2005;Jones & Burleson, 2003). High-quality messages yield benefits by helping people work through their problems (Burleson & MacGeorge, 2002), improve their affect (Bodie et al, 2012;Jones, 2004), and enhance their psychosocial well-being Burleson, 2008). Although HPC messages are advantageous, some studies report that "support attempts that fail" are common in everyday life (see Lehman & Hemphill, 1990).…”

“…There were no sex differences in providers' reported ease of message production, and receivers did not evaluate HPC support produced by men and women differently in terms of its sensitivity or appropriateness. Prior research on supportive communication highlights the importance of ability and motivation for both message production and message processing (Bodie et al, 2012;Burleson, 2009). Ability and motivation may, in fact, be more crucial for message production than processing, given that support providers lack the exigence of people in distress.…”

“…Ten items, created for this study after examining existing measures of support outcomes (Bodie et al, 2012;Clark et al, 1998;Jones & Guerrero, 2001), assessed support receivers' perceptions of support quality (i.e., "The comfort in this conversation was high quality"). A CFA indicated acceptable unidimensionality, χ 2 /df = 5.78, p < .01; AGFI = 0.77; CFI = 0.94; RMSEA = 0.08.…”

“Same stuff different day:” A mixed-method study of support seeking on Facebook

“…The assessments of these messages can affect perceptions of the individual's situation as well as the ways in which they might respond to it. Bodie, Burleson, and Jones (2012) found a connection between evaluations of supportive messages and outcomes, suggesting that the degree to which a supportive message is positively evaluated may affect the outcome of a situation. Additionally, positive evaluations of supportive messages have been associated with coping and relational satisfaction (Goldsmith, McDermott, & Alexander, 2000).…”