COMM3401 - Week 9

Key terms:

• Emotional support messages: Specific lines communicative behavior enacted by one person with the intent of helping another cope effectively with emotional distress

• Person-centered messages: The extent to which messages explicitly acknowledge, elaborate, legitimize, and contextualize the feelings and perspective of another person

• Heuristic: Quick rule of thumb we use to guide our actions

General notes:

I. Emotional suport messages

• Person-centered

• Goal - emotional improvement

II. Three levels of Person-centeredness

• High person-centered messages (HPC)

• Moderate person-centered messages (MPC)

• Low person-centered messages (LPC)

III. General Findings and One Question

• HPC messages do a better job at making others feel better

• What does person-centeredness not tell us?

  • How and Why do more and less PC messages influence people’s feelings

  • Messages do not MAKE people do/feel things

IV. What are the two dual processes?

• People evaluate messages they receive

• Two cognitive processes

  • Elaborate path → sometimes the upset person may scrutinize a message

  • Heuristic path → sometimes people don’t

    • Expectations (from EVT)

    • Pre-conceived beliefs - ex: “women provide good support”

V. Putting together the pieces

• Key ideas

  • Goal → Emotional improvement

  • It’s not always HPC that’s needed

• Under what conditions do people use either elaborate or heuristic paths when they process more or less PC messages

  • Motivation

  • Ability

• HPC might not work

  • Motivation - if distress is very/low

    • If trauma is severe

    • If one doesn’t really care about what happened

  • Ability - if one can’t differentiate among more and less PC messages

    • If one does not know what a HPC message is, they won’t recognize it

VI. Critiques of DPM

• Pretty complex——not simple

• Lots of variables and factors

• In the very beginning stages → not a lot of empirical evidence