This study builds on previous work investigating reactions to people with pathological personality traits based on thin slices of behavior (
Oltmanns, Friedman, Fiedler, & Turkheimer, 2004). Verbal ...and nonverbal aspects of the signal were separated and examined in a new sample of 150 target individuals (military recruits). Ratings were made after viewing or listening to a 30
s excerpt from an interview that had been conducted with each target person. Undergraduate students (408 total) served as raters in one of the following conditions: transcript, sound only, picture only, or full channel (sound and picture). In all conditions, people with higher scores on histrionic and narcissistic personality traits were rated in a more positive manner, and those with higher scores on schizoid and avoidant personality traits were rated more negatively. The consistency of ratings based on different sources indicates that important and somewhat redundant cues are available in both verbal and nonverbal channels. Initial reactions to people with pathological personality traits are influenced by both verbal and nonverbal cues.
The literature on social support within dyadic intimate relationships raises a seeming paradox: The availability of support tends to reduce distress, but its actual receipt is often unhelpful and at ...times engenders feelings of inadequacy, indebtedness, and inequity—unintended but potent side effects of the support transaction. Our review organizes this literature in order to solve the apparent paradox. Specifically, we theorize that, because support attempts are often unskilled and miscarried, they lead to greater costs than benefits. We identify four ways in which dyadic support can be unskillful, ways pertaining to its timing, content, process, or reciprocation. We suggest that when these are addressed, support can regain its intended goals of enhancing dyadic coping, reducing stress, and strengthening relationships.
Social Support and Health Gleason, Marci E. J; Bornstein, Jerica X
The Wiley Encyclopedia of Health Psychology,
09/2020
Book Chapter
Social support has consistently been shown to be beneficial for both physiological and psychological health; however the benefits of social support vary greatly depending on how it is defined and ...measured. Having social ties is consistently linked to lower mortality and better mental health, but specific instances of support are often associated with negative outcomes. This consistent finding is a well‐known paradox in the social support literature: individuals benefit from knowing that support is available but often suffer when it is received. We discuss several theories that attempt to explain the association between social support and multiple health‐related outcomes.
Both the intimacy and support literatures suggest that social support should enhance feelings of closeness in relationships, but recent studies of actual support receipt have found that support can ...increase feelings of distress in recipients (Gleason, Iida, Bolger, & Shrout, 2003). This raises the possibility that support receipt could actually impair closeness, through the effects of generalized distress of the recipient. In a series of three studies I investigated whether the unintended negative consequences of support receipt on negative mood extend to impair relationship closeness, or whether receiving social support can simultaneously increase negative mood and intimacy/closeness. Study 1, a daily diary study of 85 committed couples, demonstrated that even though support was often associated with an increase in negative mood, it simultaneously increased feelings of relationship closeness. Study 2, an experimental test of the effects of support receipt between strangers, confirmed the causal pathway from support receipt to increased intimacy. Finally, Study 3, again a daily diary study of 295 couples, investigated the heterogeneity of the effects of received support through the use of random effects analyses. A moderate negative correlation between the random effects of support receipt on negative mood and closeness was found such that although on average support simultaneously increased negative mood and relationship closeness, for many individuals support was either positive for both outcomes or negative for both outcomes. Thus, while the receipt of support proved to be a mixed blessing across individuals, for other individuals it was either all bad or all good.
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