ABSTRACT

Despite widespread agreement about the benefits of social support, much remains to be learned about the dynamic nature of supportive communication. We examined the evolution of supportive conversations by investigating changes within support seeking and provision behaviors over the course of a discussion. Across two existing datasets, the results showed that support seekers’ use of approach behaviors, avoidance behaviors, and exonerating justifications varied systematically during conversations. The prevalence of moderate and low person-centered feedback from support providers also varied across the four quartiles of supportive conversations and in conjunction with support seekers’ change in emotional distress. The results collectively offered evidence that supportive conversations are generally organized in a sequence of four phases.

摘要

尽管人们对社会支持的好处达成了广泛的共识，但关于支持性沟通的动态性质还有很多需要了解。我们通过调查讨论过程中寻求支持和提供行为的变化，研究了支持性对话的演变。在现有的两个数据集中，结果表明，在对话期间，寻求支持者对接近行为、回避行为和免责理由的使用有系统的变化。来自支持提供者的中度和低度以人为本的反馈在支持性对话的四个四分位数中的普遍性也有所不同，并与寻求支持者在情绪困扰中的变化相结合。结果共同提供了证据，表明支持性对话通常分为四个阶段。