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Article Excerpt
As a communicative event, the support episode is fraught with risks for both individuals needing and individuals providing support (Goldsmith & Parks, 1990; LaGaipa, 1990). The potential for negative evaluations, indebtedness, over-dependence, and possible relational consequences complicate the support process. Therefore, distressed individuals must choose whether and to what degree they seek social support from conversational partners. Further, potential support providers likely make judgments about what the troubled individual wants and needs from them. Given the complexity of the support process, questions arise not only about what factors influence decisions to seek support and perceptions that support is desired, but also about how distressed individuals communicate a need for support when it is desired. This latter query frames the specific questions investigated here.
The relational context likely shapes the desire to obtain support. The relationship between adolescent and young adult children and their mothers, for example, is an important site for support (Hunter & Youniss, 1982; Larose & Boivin, 1998), and adolescents report frequent and open communication with mothers more than fathers (Jackson, Bijstra, Oostra, & Bosma, 1998). Despite this important support relationship, however, young adult children do not always want support from their mothers concerning their problems. The tensions between independence and interdependence as well as privacy and disclosure experienced in the relationship (Noller, 1996; Williams, 2003) and the influence of past relational history on current expectations (Gottlieb & Wagner, 1991; Vangelisti, 1993) suggest possible variation in the degree to which children seek support from mothers during problem talk.
Scholars tend to focus on support provision in research, neglecting support seeking processes (see review by Burleson & MacGeorge, 2002). Support providers, however, likely require some indication that the distressed individual needs support. Just as support providers differ in their intent to provide support (MacGeorge, 2001), distressed individuals might differ in their intent to obtain support (Horowitz et al., 2001). Sensitive Interaction Systems Theory (Barbee & Cunningham, 1995) points to a set of behaviors that distressed individuals might use to activate various types of support. Specifically, verbal and nonverbal approach behaviors likely relate to support seeking intentions and contribute to judgments of conversational partners that support is desired. This study, then, investigates the verbal and nonverbal behaviors associated with support seeking goals from both support seekers' and support providers' points of view.
Sensitive Interaction Systems Theory and Support Seeking Goals
Although not a central focus in research, support seeking is central to support episodes. Indeed, Pearlin and McCall's (1990) model of the support process frames recognition and revelation of the problem as the first stage, necessary for support activation. Research demonstrates, however, that distressed individuals might not always seek help. Factors that influence the choice to seek support include perceptions of the context (e.g., the relationship or stressor, Cutrona, Suhr, & MacFarlane, 1990), personal characteristics (e.g., affiliative need, Hill, 1991, or attachment orientation, Collins & Feeney, 2000), and evaluations of the risks and benefits of seeking support (e.g., self-presentation concerns, Goldsmith & Parks, 1990).
That people facing problems might hesitate or be ambivalent about seeking support underscores a central premise of Sensitive Interaction Systems Theory (Barbee & Cunningham, 1995). One of the few comprehensive theories that attempts to explain supportive communication, Sensitive Interaction Systems Theory (SIST) identifies a set of internal (e.g., mood) and external (e.g., nature of problem) factors that might influence the process of seeking and giving social support, outlines categories for support seeking and support providing behaviors, and attends to potential outcomes of support interactions (e.g., mood change). According to SIST, appraisals of the problem, the relationship between support seekers and providers, individual characteristics of seekers and providers, and potential risks all influence the decision to seek support. Further, individuals' varying desires to elicit support in a specific conversation influence their support activation behaviors (Barbee & Cunningham, 1995; Derlega, Winstead, Oldfield, & Barbee, 2003). Current research, however, has not investigated the specific relationship between support elicitation goals and support seeking behaviors.
The SIST framework conceptualizes the support elicitation process as an overall desire to obtain support. However, given the multidimensional nature of the support construct, the type of support desired might vary. Research on supportive interactions and the provisions of personal relationships points to two central support seeking goals: emotion-focused and problem-focused support (Cutrona & Russell, 1987; Weiss, 1974). Emotion-focused support includes expressions of caring, concern, empathy, and acceptance and belonging. By contrast, problem-focused support attempts to solve the problem through actions such as advice and offers of aid.
Some research (e.g., Cutrona & Russell, 1990; Horowitz et al., 2001) indicates that the type of support desired depends on the type of problem faced. Cutrona and Russell's (1990) Optimal Matching Model, for example, proposes that individuals facing controllable problems want problem-focused support whereas those facing an uncontrollable stressor prefer emotion-focused support. Additionally, emotion-focused and problem-focused support goals might change how support is elicited. For example, Horowitz et al. (2001) argued that support seeking goals (agentic/problem-focused or communal/emotion-focused) are evident in the speaker's framing of a problem (e.g., 'I don't know what to do' or 'I feel so bad'). However, the different dimensions of support are not mutually exclusive choices (e.g., Tardy, 1992), and both types of support might be desirable. This means that support seekers could have multiple support goals, shaped both by the context and the dilemmas they face. Whether support seekers desire emotion-focused and/or problem-focused support should influence their support seeking behavior.
Additionally, although SIST proposes a variety of factors (e.g., providers' mood and appraisals of the problem) that impact support provision (Barbee, 1990), providers also partially rely on support seeking behavior to judge if support is desired. Support seeking behaviors influence support providers' responses (Barbee & Cunningham, 1995). For example, more direct support elicitation behaviors elicit more positive (approach) support provision from relational partners (e.g., Derlega et al., 2003; Yankeelov, Barbee, Cunningham, & Druen, 1995). To explain this, Derlega et al. (2003) argued that indirect support elicitation behaviors create more ambiguity in support providers' minds regarding the desire for assistance.
Sensitivity to the support seeking desires of distressed individuals might be important for positive support outcomes. Several studies suggest that the fit between type of support desired or expected and type of support received influences evaluations of support attempts. For example, in a hypothetical scenario study, participants evaluated support more positively when it fitted with the type of support desired by the distressed individual, particularly for emotional support in close relationships (Cutrona, Cohen, & Igram, 1990). In a study of marital interaction, Cutrona (1996) found that spouses were less satisfied with support when they received more or less support than expected. Horowitz et al. (2001) found that a speaker who described an agentic problem in an agentic frame was more satisfied with an agentic support response and the reverse was true for those describing a communal problem in a communal frame. Support providers' judgments regarding distressed individuals' desire for support, then, are important for support provision processes, and support seeking behaviors might influence these judgments.
Clearly, the link between support interaction goals and communication might provide insight into how individuals talking about problems vary in their support seeking behavior. SIST and related research suggests the importance of both the relationship between support interaction goals and support seekers' behaviors and the relationship between support seekers' behaviors and support providers' assessment of support goals, leading to two separate questions. First, what verbal and nonverbal behaviors do support...
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