Motivation moderates the effects of social support visibility.

Abstract

Social support can sometimes have negative consequences for recipients. One way of circumventing these negative effects is to provide support in an 'invisible' or indirect manner, such that recipients do not construe the behavior as a supportive act. However, little is known about how recipients' motivational states influence when visible (direct) support or invisible support is more beneficial. Using the framework of Regulatory Mode Theory, we predicted that recipients motivated to engage in critical evaluation (i.e., those with a predominant assessment motivation) would find invisible support more beneficial than visible support, whereas recipients motivated to initiate action (i.e., those with a predominant locomotion motivation) would find visible support more beneficial than invisible support. Findings from one 2 × 2 experiment (Study 1), two laboratory experiments (Studies 2-3), one dyadic study involving support conversations between friends (Study 4), and a meta-analysis aggregating data from all four studies supported these hypotheses. As predicted, support outcomes were better for assessment predominant recipients following invisible support, but were better for locomotion predominant recipients following visible support. Results indicate that support attempts could be made more effective by considering both support visibility and recipient motivation. (PsycINFO Database Record

Investigating mechanisms of social support effectiveness: The case of locomotion motivation

“…Although additional work would help elucidate whether stress is a boundary condition, it seems likely that perceived movement might also mediate the effects of locomotion motivation when support is given for stressful events. Other findings, for instance, showed that recipients with a predominant locomotion motivation coped better (e.g., their stress reactivity and distress were lower) when they received experimentally manipulated visible (explicit) support for a stressful speech (Zee et al, ). Although perceived movement was not measured, the manipulations used in this research contained tangible information about how the participant was coping with the stressor.…”

“…Prior work has shown that people higher on locomotion benefit from overt social support interactions (Kumashiro et al, ; Zee et al, ). This study extends knowledge of locomotion and support by showing that perceived movement toward their goals mediates the association between recipient locomotion and beneficial outcomes in support contexts.…”

“…Motivational needs may be especially relevant to social support for goals. In particular, prior work has demonstrated the importance of regulatory mode motivations in support contexts (Cavallo et al, 2016;Kumashiro et al, 2007;Zee et al, 2018). Regulatory Mode Theory proposes two motivational orientations that regulate people's goal pursuit strategies (Higgins, Kruglanski, & Pierro, 2003;Kruglanski et al, 2000).…”

“…Prior findings regarding locomotion motivation in the context of social support are consistent with this notion. Even though direct (visible) support is often detrimental for recipients (Bolger & Amarel, ), recipients with a predominant locomotion motivation benefitted from visible enacted support, and this effect was found for both practical support and emotional support (Zee et al, ). This suggests that it is the explicit nature of visible support that fulfills their motivational needs rather than the type (practical vs. emotional) of support given.…”

“…Beyond support receptivity, recipients with a predominant locomotion motivation benefit from overt support attempts. Although recipients often experience more distress when they receive direct (visible) support compared to indirect (invisible) support (Bolger & Amarel, 2007), recipients higher on locomotion benefit more from direct support (Zee, Cavallo, Flores, Bolger, & Higgins, 2018).…”