ABSTRACT

Miscarriage occurs in roughly one in five pregnancies in the United States. Although it is largely considered a “women’s issue,” non-miscarrying spouses also endure the mental and relational health effects of the loss. Drawing on communicated narrative sense-making (CNSM) theory, we interviewed heterosexual, cisgender, mostly white, married men (n = 45) to solicit their stories of their spouse’s miscarriage. Six types of memorable messages (i.e., messages that affect the values, behaviors and/or beliefs of the receiver) from social network members emerged – have faith, brush it off, this (pain) is your fault, silence, I’m so sorry, and this happens a lot. These messages illuminate the importance of context in memorable message meaning-making; highlight the complexity of “message gaps” in narratively processing difficulty; and uncover ethical issues with attending to men’s experiences with miscarriage. We explore how these findings inform memorable messages theorizing and research.

摘要

在美国，大约五分之一的怀孕会发生流产。虽然这在很大程度上被认为是“女性问题”，但未流产的配偶也会忍受流产对心理和关系健康的影响。借鉴沟通叙事意义建构 (CNSM) 理论，我们采访了异性恋、顺性、大部分是白人、已婚男性 ( n = 45)，以征求他们关于配偶流产的故事。来自社交网络成员的六种令人难忘的信息（即影响接收者的价值观、行为和/或信仰的信息）出现了——相信，不要管它，这（痛苦）是你的错，沉默，我很抱歉，这种情况经常发生. 这些信息阐明了上下文在令人难忘的信息意义形成中的重要性；强调叙事处理困难中“信息差距”的复杂性；并发现关注男性流产经历的伦理问题。我们探索这些发现如何为令人难忘的信息理论化和研究提供信息。