Some Consequences for Helpers Who Deliver “Cold Comfort”: Why it's Worse for Women than Men to be Inept When Providing Emotional Support

Abstract

Two experiments were conducted to assess whether responses to helpers who used insensitive emotional support vary as a function of the interaction between sex of participant and helper. We hypothesized that women would evaluate an insensitive female helper and her behavior more negatively than they would an insensitive male helper. In Experiment 1, participants (N = 137) read conversations in which male or female helpers sought to comfort emotionally distressed friends. In Experiment 2, participants (N = 87) engaged in face-to-face interactions in which they were comforted by either a male or female helper who used insensitive comforting messages. Overall, the results imply that women with deficient emotional support skills may be at high risk of rejection by same-sex peers.

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

“…Of course, message evaluations are interesting and important in their own right. For instance, research exploring the impressions we form of others who use particular types of support has provided valuable theoretical and practical insights (Holmstrom, Burleson, & Jones, 2005;Jones, 2004). Thus, our conclusions should not be used to downplay the importance of a variety of dependent variables in the context of supportive communication that deal with impressions or judgments of messages and the people who send them.…”

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

“…Research has also documented distinct experiences of supportive communication within male-male versus female-female dyads Holmstrom et al, 2005). Stereotypically feminine behaviors, such as communicating HPC support, may be threatening to the gender identity of men, especially when they interact with other men (Eagly, Wood, & Diekman, 2000).…”

“…This study's methods were adapted from the training procedures reported in prior research that distinguished among three levels of VPC support (e.g., Holmstrom et al, 2005;Jones, 2004), and we analyzed our data using three levels of VPC to be consistent with these training procedures and the manipulation check; however, differences among three levels of VPC were not salient to the support receivers. Interestingly, Holmstrom et al (2005), Jones (2004), and Jones and Guerrero (2001) all observed that the difference between LPC and MPC messages was greater than the difference between MPC and HPC messages. Furthermore, the MPC and HPC messages used by Bodie (2011) did not differ in expected ways, and High and Dillard (2012) found that people are unable to differentiate among all levels of the VPC hierarchy.…”

Emotional Support and Physiological Stress Recovery: The Role of Support Matching, Adequacy, and Invisibility

“…Research on supportive communication has revealed both main effects for message qualities (see High & Dillard, 2012) and individual and situational differences in evaluations of support messages (e.g., Burleson, Holmstrom, & Gilstrap, 2005;Goldsmith, McDermott, & Alexander, 2000;Holmstrom, Burleson, & Jones, 2005). In previous research, three explanations have been offered to account for gaps between the support conveyed to an individual and the supportive benefits realized.…”