Mixed Messages: II. Outcomes Associated with the Proportion and Placement of Negative Statements in Support Messages

Ray, Colter D.; Harvey, Jacquelyn; Floyd, Kory; Bonito, Joseph A.; Reblin, Maija

doi:10.1080/10410236.2020.1719322

Cited by 10 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…Taken together, these findings suggest that attempting to provide positive support to those coping with chronic medical conditions is necessary, but not sufficient, for health and well-being. This aligns with previous work finding it is especially crucial to avoid negative interactions (including unwanted or unhelpful types of support) when attempting to support those coping with serious medical conditions (Ray et al, 2020; Ray & Veluscek, 2017).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

When we say “perceived support,” what do we mean? Contexts and components of support among people with serious medical conditions

Rivers¹,

Sanford

2020

Journal of Social and Personal Relationships

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Perceived social support is important for numerous health outcomes in people with serious medical conditions; however, previous studies have targeted different assessment contexts (including single people or partnered people reporting on either general or relationship-specific support) and different components of perceived support (including positive and negative interactions and support availability). The present study investigated potential functional differences across these contexts and components. A sample of 340 people with serious medical conditions were recruited via market research panels to complete online questionnaires. The sample included three assessment context groups and participants completed scales assessing three components of perceived support along with criterion variables regarding treatment adherence, affect, coping, and aspects of general psychological functioning. Results suggested a high degree of functional invariance across the different assessment contexts, but important distinctions between the different components of perceived support. Following theoretical expectations, each component explained unique variance in different sets of criterion variables. Results suggest that it is meaningful for researchers to generalize across assessment contexts, but important to distinguish between components of perceived support.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

When we say “perceived support,” what do we mean? Contexts and components of support among people with serious medical conditions

Rivers¹,

Sanford

2020

Journal of Social and Personal Relationships

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“…In turn, lower nonsupport reason acceptability predicted greater negative relational ramifications. This aligns with prior research that the quality of support can have consequences for relational well‐being (Ray et al, 2021) and that not meeting expectations for communicating in a given context (e.g., not communicating emotional support) can influence perceptions of communication competence (Spitzberg, 2010).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 87%

What counts as an acceptable reason for not communicating emotional support?

Ray

Manusov

2023

Personal Relationships

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This study investigated assessments of the acceptability of and negative relational implications for the reasons given for someone not providing emotional support. A representative sample of U.S. adults (N = 1598) participated in a survey experiment that included thinking of a person from whom they would expect such support, imagining that they did not receive support from this person, and being shown one of 16 reasons to explain the nonsupport. Participants evaluated that reason for its acceptability and its negative relational ramifications. As predicted, some nonsupport reasons were judged as more acceptable than were others, and they generated fewer negative relational ramifications. Participants who experienced nonsupport by a friend viewed their reasons as more acceptable than those experiencing nonsupport from family members. Despite this, greater negative relational ramifications were reported when friends compared to family members did not communicate support. Women's nonsupport was viewed as less acceptable compared to men's; however, there were no gender differences in the negative relational ramifications of nonsupport. When tested in a mediation model, acceptability mediated the relationship between expectations and negative relational ramifications, but there was also an unexpected direct negative effect between expectations and negative relational ramifications.

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“…Instead, the overwhelming majority of studies did not report a confirmatory factor analysis. Those who used the scale as a unidimensional measure rarely justified the decision, and those who did made the decision based on observing high inter-item correlations (e.g., Jones & Burleson, 2003) or high interfactor correlations (e.g., Ray et al, 2021) instead of reporting a confirmatory factor analysis. Of note, only one of the 23 studies that used the MEESS as a unidimensional scale did so based on the reported results of a confirmatory factor analysis (Matsunaga, 2010).…”

Section: Issues With How the Scale Has Been Used And Citedmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Issues of Factor Structure Goldsmith and Griscom (2018) note that one critique of the scale is the potential for substantial intercorrelations among the scale's three factors. Although the scale's creators reported interfactor correlations ranging from .62 to .77 when developing the scale (Goldsmith et al, 2000), subsequent uses of the scale have seen interfactor correlations as high as .96 (Ray et al, 2021). High interfactor correlations may suggest that the MEESS is actually a unidimensional measure as opposed to a multidimensional measure.…”

Section: Issues With How the Scale Has Been Used And Citedmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Additionally, a persisting issue dating back to the scale's development is whether the scale's items comprise three factors or one factor (i.e., whether the MEESS is actually multidimensional or if the scale's 12 items all load onto one dimension). Compounding this issue is that, although the developers of the MEESS claim it is a three-factor scale, the majority of researchers using the scale has treated it as a unidimensional measure of support in their studies-sometimes out of convenience and other times due to a high interfactor correlation (e.g., Ray et al, 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The multidimensional evaluation of enacted social support: Best practices for use based on issues of factor structure, study design, and scale instructions

Ray

Mikkelson

2023

Journal of Social and Personal Relationships

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The Multidimensional Evaluation of Enacted Social Support (MEESS) measures communicated support in terms of supportiveness, helpfulness, and sensitivity. However, a systematic review of studies using the scale showed that the scale is mostly used as a unidimensional measure of support. Additionally, the scale is prone to having high interfactor correlations, and researchers rarely perform a confirmatory factor analysis to verify the scale’s factor structure. Therefore, we conducted two studies (Combined N = 1609) using nationally representative samples of U.S. adults to investigate the scale’s factor structure in message recall and hypothetical message study designs. We also explored whether the scale is best presented one factor at a time with factor-specific instructions as opposed to presenting the scale as a single set of items with one instruction set. Study 1 results indicate that the one-factor and three-factor solutions are both adequate without performing modifications during confirmatory factor analysis, but the three-factor model did provide a small but significantly better fit to the data than the one-factor model. In Study 2, both the one- and three-factor solutions had adequate fit; however, when using the factor-specific instructions, the three-factor solution had a far superior fit compared to the one-factor solution. Given the purpose of the scale as a multidimensional evaluation of social support, we recommend always conducting a confirmatory factor analysis when using the MEESS and to present the scale with separate instructions for each factor’s items.

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Mixed Messages: II. Outcomes Associated with the Proportion and Placement of Negative Statements in Support Messages

Cited by 10 publications

References 28 publications

When we say “perceived support,” what do we mean? Contexts and components of support among people with serious medical conditions

When we say “perceived support,” what do we mean? Contexts and components of support among people with serious medical conditions

What counts as an acceptable reason for not communicating emotional support?

The multidimensional evaluation of enacted social support: Best practices for use based on issues of factor structure, study design, and scale instructions

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