Support features, psychological reactance, and support outcomes: evaluating social network support for friends and daters

ABSTRACT

This study examined the ways in which characteristics of support interactions associate with psychological reactance and, in turn, affect support outcomes. Recent studies have linked the content/quality of support messages to psychological reactance. We build on those findings by exploring associations between reactance and features of the support provider, recipient, and problem-context. We gathered data from 615 college students who described a disagreement with a dating partner (280) or friend (335). Participants reported their perceptions of perceived support availability and relational closeness with the support provider. They then evaluated a support message that varied in verbal person-centeredness. Results suggest a mediating role of psychological reactance on support outcomes. Significant mean differences were identified for support outcomes between the dating and friend contexts, but the associations between the variables were not statistically different between the groups. Discussion addresses supportive communication as a form of social influence that may induce psychological reactance.

KEYWORDS:

• Perceived support availability
• person-centered messages
• psychological reactance
• relational closeness
• supportive communication

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/01463373.2023.2281678

Notes

1. Participants who could not recall a recent area of disagreement or had not disclosed the problem to a social network member were not included in the study.

2. The original sample (before eliminating participants who received MPC messages and those who did not discuss a disagreement with a social network member) consisted of 1202 participants. There were no significant differences between the group of participants that were excluded from the analyses and the final sample.

3. The original sample also included one participant that identified as trans male and five that identified as nonbinary. Thus, we did not have enough participants in these groups to make comparisons. Therefore, they were not included in the analyses.

4. At very high levels of PSA, the association between LPC (compared HPC messages) and support quality was positive and significant; however, those values were outside the range of participants’ actual scores for PSA.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kellie St.Cyr Brisini

Kellie St.Cyr Brisini (Ph.D., Penn State University) is an Assistant Professor of Interpersonal Communication at Louisiana State University.

Ningyang Wang

Ningyang Ocean Wang is a Ph.D. candidate in the Depart of Communication Studies at Louisiana State University.