Susanne M. Jones

A Meta-Analytic Perspective on Sex Equity in the Classroom

This meta-analysis examines patterns of sex differences in teacher-initiated teacher–student interactions. While extensive research has examined factors that influence student evaluations of effective and ineffective teachers, this study examines whether teacher-initiated interactions with students, such as praising or blaming, vary as a function of student sex. After a careful examination of 127 empirical studies, 32 studies were retained for the meta-analysis. The studies were coded for positive, negative, and total interactions. The results suggest that teachers initiate more overall interactions and more negative interactions, but not more positive interactions, with male students than with female students.

Putting the Person into Person-Centered and Immediate Emotional Support Emotional Change and Perceived Helper Competence as Outcomes of Comforting in Helping Situations

The goal of this study was to assess the effects of comforting messages using both experienced emotional change by the help recipient and help recipients’ judgments of the helper’s competence. A hypothesized path model proposed relationships between two comforting message factors (verbal person centeredness and nonverbal immediacy) and the two outcomes (emotional change and evaluations of helper competence). Data were generated from an experiment in which 258 participants disclosed a mildly upsetting event to a confederate trained to display different levels of person centeredness and nonverbal immediacy. Participants subsequently completed a set of instruments tapping both their emotional state and the perceived competence of the helper on four dimensions (help motivation, supportiveness, conversation management, and expressiveness). A modified model with two added paths fit the data well and revealed not only that people felt significantly better but also that they viewed the helper as more supportive and caring after having received person-centered comforting messages. Nonverbal immediacy only influenced evaluations of perceived helper competence, such that immediate helpers were perceived as more competent than nonimmediate helpers.

The Impact of Situational Variables on Helpers' Perceptions of Comforting Messages An Attributional Analysis

Research indicates that people consistently perceive highly person-centered comforting messages as providing the most effective and sensitive emotional support. However, research on helping suggests that attributions about the cause of the distressful event (blame) and its solution (control) may influence what people perceive to constitute appropriate help. This study assessed how attributions of blame and control influenced evaluations of comforting messages varying in level of person centeredness. Participants (N = 342) read about a situation in which a sad target was either responsible or not responsible for the problem and either could or could not influence the outcome of the situation. Messages low in person centeredness were viewed as more appropriate with high blame targets, whereas messages high in person centeredness were viewed as more appropriate with low blame targets. Perceptions of situation controllability did not influence evaluations. The study also detected gender differences in perceptions of comforting messages.

Explaining the Relationships among Supportive Message Quality, Evaluations, and Outcomes: A Dual-Process Approach

Research on supportive communication has been concerned with two primary classes of dependent variables. Message evaluations refer to judgments about the supportive message and/or the sender of that message, and message outcomes refer to cognitive, affective, and behavioral effects of messages. Most studies have utilized variables from one or the other class with less attention paid to the association between evaluations and outcomes. Indeed, there is a common assumption that message evaluations are a valid proxy for other outcomes of interest. This assumption is tested empirically in this article. Results from two studies show that (1) evaluations of messages mediate the effect of message quality on outcomes and (2) degree of message scrutiny moderates this mediating effect by altering the degree to which message quality influences evaluations. We use a dual-process theory of supportive message outcomes as the framework for interpreting supportive message effects and for examining the link between message evaluations and outcomes.

The Nature of Supportive Listening II: The Role of Verbal Person Centeredness and Nonverbal Immediacy

This study examines an untested research assumption that a key component of supportive communication is active listening. Participants (N = 383) viewed a 5-minute conversation featuring a person who disclosed an emotionally upsetting event to a confederate who provided emotional support that varied in verbal person centeredness (VPC) and nonverbal immediacy (NVI). Participants then evaluated the extent to which the support provider was an active listener. Results showed that helpers who used higher levels of both VPC and NVI were rated as better listeners than those who used less person-centered and immediate support, although effect sizes were small. Results were also dependent on the operationalization of active listening.

Effects of helper and recipient sex on the experience and outcomes of comforting messages: An experimental investigation

The purpose of this experimental study was to examine whether and in what ways the sex of the helper and the recipient moderate the effects of comforting messages in face-to-face interactions. A total of 216 participants disclosed an emotionally upsetting event to a confederate trained to display different levels of nonverbal immediacy and verbal person centeredness. Men and women responded very similarly to comforting messages that exhibited different levels of verbal person centeredness and nonverbal immediacy, and this response similarity was not moderated by the sex of the helper. Both men and women were most comforted by messages that exhibited high levels of person centeredness and nonverbal immediacy, and they were least comforted by messages that exhibited low levels of these qualities. Moreover, both sexes viewed highly person-centered and immediate messages as exhibiting the highest comforting quality, and, with one minor exception, both sexes viewed helpers who used these messages as the most competent.

Attachment Style Differences and Similarities in Evaluations of Affective Communication Skills and Person‐centered Comforting Messages

Recent research has explored moderating factors that shape the perception and production of emotional support messages. The current study extends this agenda and examines how attachment patterns influence values for affective communication skills and evaluations of verbal person‐centered comfort. A total of 280 participants completed categorical and continuous attachment measures as well as a measure of communication values, and provided evaluations of comforting messages. Results indicated that avoidants viewed affective communication skills as significantly more important than did nonavoidants. Dismissives and preoccupieds viewed low person‐centered comforting messages as more comforting than did secures and fearful avoidants. Fearful avoidants viewed these messages as least comforting of the four attachment styles. These findings have important implications for differences in how people evaluate affective communication skills and particularly comforting messages that vary in person centeredness.

Differences in one’s own and one’s partner’s perceptions of social skills as a function of attachment style

Two studies focused on attachment‐style differences in peoples social skills. Study 1 had a sample of 237 students who completed questionnaires assessing their own attachment styles and social skills (based on Riggios six dimensions of social skill). Study 2, which focused on partner‐reports, used data from 258 couples to determine whether peoples perceptions of a partners social skill would vary based on the partners self‐reported attachment style. The results revealed attachment‐style differences in various social skills across self‐and partner‐reports; however, these differences were generally less robust for partner‐reports. Differences in self‐reported social skill were consistent with Bartholomews two‐factor conceptualization of attachment. Dismissive and fearful individuals rated themselves as relatively antisocial and unexpressive, in line with their negative models of others; preoccupied and fearful individuals rated themselves as overly sensitive, in line with their negative models of self. Preoccupied individuals were also perceived as the most socially sensitive by their partners, and across all the analyses, secures were ostensibly the most socially skilled.

The Role of “Active Listening” in Informal Helping Conversations: Impact on Perceptions of Listener Helpfulness, Sensitivity, and Supportiveness and Discloser Emotional Improvement

Undergraduate students were randomly assigned to disclose a recent upsetting problem to either a trained active listener (n = 41) or an untrained listener (n = 130). Active listeners were trained to ask open questions, paraphrase content, reflect feelings, and use assumption checking as well as be nonverbally immediate. Verbal and nonverbal active listening behaviors were rated as signaling more emotional awareness and promoting a greater degree of emotional improvement but did not affect perceptions of relational assurance or problem-solving utility. On average, the set of verbal behaviors were more important in the prediction of outcomes compared to the nonverbal behaviors. Results contribute to the larger literature on enacted support, suggesting particular roles for active listening techniques within troubles talk.

“Sad Monkey See, Monkey Do:” Nonverbal Matching in Emotional Support Encounters

The current study examined the interpersonal coordination of nonverbal immediacy behaviors in the emotional support process. Participants (N = 216) disclosed a distressing event to a confederate who was trained to exhibit emotional support that varied in high, moderate, or low nonverbal immediacy. After the 5-minute conversation, participants evaluated the confederate on several scales. Trained coders coded 10 immediacy cues of confederates and participants. Results indicated that participants tended to match confederates, regardless of the immediacy condition. Perceived liking for the helper did not moderate immediacy matching and exerted only a main effect on confederate immediacy; participants reported liking better highly immediate helpers than either moderately immediate or nonimmediate helpers. The study also generated several sex differences, such that, with the exception of eye contact, women tended to match confederates more than did men.