Relational implications of communication skill evaluations and love styles.

Abstract OnlyAs values placed by individuals on communication skills may associate with experiences of romantic love, this study explores relationships between communication values and the adoption of six major love styles (Lee, 1973). Two hundred and seventy‐two participants (119 males and 153 females) completed an expanded version of Burleson and Samter's (1990) Communication Functions Questionnaire, which generates judgments about the importance of several communication skills, and Hendrick and Hendrick's (1986) Love Attitudes Scale, which provides assessments of love styles. Results indicated numerous significant associations between communication values and love styles, sex differences in the evaluation of some communication values and in the adoption of some love styles, and that sex moderates relationships between some of the communication values and love styles

Assessing explanations for sex differences in emotional support: A test of the different cultures and skill specialization accounts

Abstract OnlyResearch documents sex differences in interpersonal behaviors, such as comforting and emotional support, with women consistently being more likely than men to engage in comforting behavior, to produce sophisticated comforting messages, to value comforting skills, and to select friends based on comforting skills. Explanations for these gender differences include the “different cultures account” and the “skill specialization account.” This research was designed to test these explanations by assessing contrasting predictions derived from each account. Participants completed questionnaires assessing the types of comforting messages perceived as most sensitive and effective, preferences for the sex of comfort providers, and priorities assigned to affective and instrumental goals in comforting contexts. The results indicated that men and women evaluated comforting messages similarly, preferred receiving emotional support from female providers, and had similar priorities in comforting contexts. These results are most consistent with the skill specialization account and provide virtually no support for the different cultures account

Parental and Peer Contributions to the Emotional Support Skills of the Child: From Whom Do Children Learn to Express Support?

DOI: 10.1207/S15327698JFC0202_02With advancing age, children increasingly turn to peers for emotional support, and the child's ability to provide sensitive emotional support to peers becomes an increasingly important predictor of social acceptance. Although individual differences in emotional support skills become evident in early childhood, little is known about the social experiences that lead some children to become more skillful providers of emotional support than others. The present study assessed the influence of two socialization agents, parents and peers, on individual differences in children's emotional support skills. Participants included 51 first- and third-grade children, their mothers, and their classmates. Assessments obtained from each child of three skills related to the provision of emotional support included: comforting skill, affective perspective-taking ability, and social perspective-taking ability. Measures of comforting skill were obtained from both the child's mother and three classmates with whom each child frequently interacted. Correlational and regression analyses indicate that the comforting skills of mothers and peers independently contribute to the child's capacity to produce sensitive comforting messages. In addition, peers' comforting skills were significant predictors of the child's affective perspective taking ability. The results indicate different theoretical mechanisms may link the behavior of parents and peers to the social competencies of the child

Men’s and women’s evaluations of communication skills in personal relationships: When sex differences make a difference—and when they don’t

Abstract OnlyMuch recent research on gender and communication has emphasized differences in men's and women's communicative conduct, with some theorists going so far as to claim that men and women constitute different cultures. However, comparatively little research has assessed both similarities and differences in men and women's communication to determine whether the sexes are more alike or different. The present paper provides such assessments with respect to men's and women's evaluations of the importance of diverse communication skills in two relationships, friendship and romance. Two studies are reported. In Study 1, participants (N = 382) evaluated the importance of eight communication skills in same-sex friendships. Results indicated that although females rated affectively oriented communication skills as somewhat more important than males and males rated instrumentally oriented skills as somewhat more important than females, both males and females overwhelmingly viewed affectively oriented skills as more important than instrumental skills. Study 2 sought to replicate and extend the findings of Study 1 by having participants (N = 685) evaluate the importance of eight communication skills for either same-sex friendship or opposite-sex romances. Results virtually identical to those of Study 1 were obtained in Study 2 for both friendship and romance. Findings are discussed in terms of their implications for our understanding of communication in personal relationships and the different cultures perspective

Thoughts about talk in romantic relationships: Similarity makes for attraction (and happiness, too)

Abstract OnlyThis current study assessed whether heterosexual dating partners are similar in their values about communication and how well such similarities predict partners’ attraction to one another and satisfaction with their relationship. Participants were 135 couples who described themselves as “seriously involved”; and had been dating for an average of 15 months. They completed a version of Burleson and Samter's (1990) Communication Functions Questionnaire, which assesses the value placed on several distinct communication skills and activities, and multiple measures of interpersonal attraction and relationship satisfaction. Correlational analyses indicated that partners’ evaluations of communication skills and activities were not significantly related. However, degree of similarity in couples’ communication values was moderately related to the assessments of attraction and satisfaction, demonstrating that partners with similar communication values were more attracted to one another and more satisfied with their relationship. In particular, similarities in the value placed on affectively oriented forms of communication such as ego support, comforting, and conflict management were significantly associated with indices of partner attraction and relationship satisfaction. Subsidiary analyses indicated that the similarities in couples’ communication values were not due to convergence (the tendency to become more similar over time). The results are discussed in terms of how cognitive similarities, especially those directly implicated in the conduct of a relationship, may contribute to the health and well being of that relationship

Which comforting messages really work best? A different perspective on Lemieux and Tighe’s “receiver perspective”

Abstract OnlyThis article responds critically to a recent article by Lemieux and Tighe (Communication Research Reports, 21, 144–153, 2004) in which the authors conclude that recipients of comforting efforts prefer messages that exhibit a moderate rather than high level of person centeredness. It is argued that an erroneous assumption made by Lemieux and Tighe about the status of “receiver perspective” research on the comforting process led to faulty interpretations of the data and unwarranted conclusions about recipient preferences regarding comforting messages. Alternative interpretations of Lemieux and Tighe's data are presented; these are guided by the extensive previous research that has assessed evaluations and outcomes of comforting messages

Similarity in cognitive complexity and attraction to friends and lovers: Experimental and correlational studies

Abstract OnlyTwo studies are reported examining whether similarities in cognitive complexity foster different forms of interpersonal attraction. Study 1 provided an experimental test of the hypothesis that perceivers would be more attracted to targets with similar levels of complexity than to targets with dissimilar levels of complexity. Participants read interpersonal impressions reflecting low and high levels of cognitive complexity and completed 3 assessments of attraction (social, task, and intellectual) to the source of the impressions. As predicted, there were significant interactions between perceiver complexity and target complexity such that high-complexity perceivers were more attracted to high-complexity targets than were low-complexity perceivers, whereas low-complexity perceivers were more attracted to low-complexity targets than were high-complexity perceivers. Unexpectedly, however, low-complexity perceivers were more attracted to a high-complexity target than a low-complexity target. Study 2 examined the effects of similarities in cognitive complexity on attraction among 126 pairs of dating partners. Partners having similar levels of cognitive complexity expressed significantly greater intellectual attraction to one another than partners having dissimilar levels of cognitive complexity

Consistencies in Theoretical and Naive Evaluations of Comforting Messages

Assesses the extent to which naive actors\u27 perceptions of comforting strategy correspond with the formal analysis of comforting strategy sophistication embedded in the constructivist hierarchical coding scheme. Concerns that motivate interest in how actors evaluate different comforting strategies; Methodological implications associated with the study; Background on the constructivist hierarchical coding systems