Communicating Social Support (advances In Personal Relationships)

E-Book Overview

We often turn to our friends, family, spouses, and partners for help in coping with daily stress or major crises. Daena Goldsmith provides a communication-based approach for understanding why some conversations about problems are more helpful than others. In contrast to other research on the social support processes, Goldsmith focuses on interpersonal communication--what people say and how they say it, as well as their reactions to the conversations. Her studies cover adults of all ages and various kinds of stresses, ranging from everyday hassles to serious illnesses and other major crises.

E-Book Content

Communicating Social Support When stresses and hassles challenge our abilities to cope, we frequently turn to family, friends, and partners for help. Yet social support from close relational partners does not uniformly benefit recipients or their relationships. By probing the communication processes that link enactments of social support to participant’s reactions, this book provides new explanations for when and how receiving social support will be evaluated as helpful and relationally satisfying. The author’s research addresses a variety of types of relationships and stresses, including young adult friends and romantic partners coping with the stresses of university life; adult friends, family, and spouses responding to everyday hassles; and married couples coping with chronic health conditions. This innovative program of research combines qualitative and quantitative methods to develop a distinctive communication-based framework for understanding why the content, form, style, and sequence of talk matter for our evaluations of the help we receive from others. Daena J. Goldsmith (Ph.D.) is Associate Professor of Speech Communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. Her teaching and research span a variety of topics, including social support, communication theory, gender issues, and personal relationships. She is widely published in national and international journals in the areas of communication and personal relationships. ADVANCES IN PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS HARRY T. REIS University of Rochester MARY ANNE FITZPATRICK University of Wisconsin-Madison ANITA L. VANGELISTI University of Texas, Austin Although scholars from a variety of disciplines have written and conversed about the importance of personal relationships for decades, the emergence of personal relationships as a field of study is relatively recent. Advances in Personal Relationships represents the culmination of years of multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary work on personal relationships. Sponsored by the International Association for Relationship Research, the series offers readers cutting-edge research and theory in the field. Contributing authors are internationally known scholars from a variety of disciplines, including social psychology, clinical psychology, communication, history, sociology, gerontology, and family studies. Volumes include integrative reviews, conceptual pieces, summaries of research programs, and major theoretical works. Advances in Personal Relationships presents first-rate scholarship that is both provocative and theoretically grounded. The theoretical and empirical work described by authors will stimulate readers and advance the field by offering up new ideas and retooling old ones. The series will be of interest to upper division undergraduate students, graduate students, researchers, and practitioners. OTHER BOOKS IN THE SERIES Attribution, Communication Behavior, and Close Relationships Valerie Manusov and John H. Harvey Stability and Change in Relationships Anita L. Vangelisti, Harry T. Reis, and Mary Anne Fitzpatrick Understanding Marriage: Developments in the Study of Couple Interaction Patricia Noller and Judith A. Feeney Growing Together: Personal Relationships Across the Life Span Frieder R. Lang and Kar
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