Chapter 9 Supporting Others 1 Empathizing The cognitive

Chapter 9: Supporting Others 1

Empathizing The cognitive and affective process of perceiving the emotions others are feeling and then acting on our perception 2

3 Types of Empathy • Perspective Taking • Empathic Responsiveness • Sympathetic Responsiveness 3

Imaging oneself in the place of another Perspective Taking 4

Empathy the cognitive and affective process of perceiving the emotions others are feeling and then acting on our perception Empathic response an emotional response parallel to another person’s actual or anticipated display of emotion 5

Sympathetic Responsiveness Feeling concern, compassion, or sorrow for another person because he/she is in a distressing situation 6

Guidelines for Improving Empathy • Take time and make the effort to understand people. • Pay attention to nonverbal and paralanguage cues. • Pay attention to the emotional content of the verbal message. • Employ one of the three types of empathy. 7

Supportive Messages • Social support: • providing emotional, informational, and instrumental resources • Supportive messages: • communications that provide intangible support for your partner, including emotional support, information, advice, and motivation 8

Types of Support • Celebratory • Comforting • Grief management • Esteem Support • Informational Support • Motivational Support 9

Effective Support Messages • Clearly state the aim to help the other. • Express acceptance, love, and affection for the other. • Demonstrate care, concern, and interest in the other’s situation. 10

Effective Support Messages (cont’d) • Indicate that you are available to listen and support the other. • State that you are an ally. • Acknowledge the other’s feelings and situation and express sincere sympathy. • Assure the other that feelings are legitimate. • Encourage the other to elaborate. 11

Ineffective Support Messages • Condemn and criticize the other’s feelings and behavior. • Imply that the other’s feelings are not warranted. • Tell the other how to feel. • Focus attention on yourself. • Impose advice on a relative stranger. 12

Supporting Positive Feelings • Capitalization: sharing successes and leveraging the good feelings with the expectation that others will celebrate with us. (from the sender) • Active-constructive: celebratory messages whose goal is to leverage partner’s positive feelings that stem from a happy event or accomplishment. (feedback from the listener) 13

Supporting Negative Feelings • Comforting messages: active, constructive feedback whose goal is to alleviate or lessen emotional distress • How do you respond when you come into a room to find someone sitting at a table crying? • Supporting skills include empathizing but generally involve a lot of skills. 14

Supportive Interaction Phases • Phase One: Support Activation • Initial support message • Phase Two: Support Provision • Focusing on the emotions being displayed or the problem that has been expressed • Phase Three: Target Reaction • Gauging the reaction of your supportive message (how successful was it? ) • Phase Four: Helper Responses • POSSIBLY offering suggestions or solutions to the problem, or cycling back to earlier phases. 15

A Test • How well do you show empathy and display comforting messages? • Who feels your pain? University of Michigan Study 16

Supportive Message Skills: Clarifying Supportive Intentions 1. Directly state your intentions by emphasizing your desire to help. 2. Remind your partner of your commitment to the relationship. 3. Indicate that helping is your only motive. 4. Phrase your clarification in a way that reflects helpfulness. 17

Buffering Face Threats • Face-threatening act (FTA): a statement of support that a person in need may interpret as a threat to his or her public self-image • Positive facework: providing messages that affirm a person or a person’s actions in a difficult situation to protect his or her respectability and approval • Negative facework: providing messages that offer information, opinions, or advice to protect a person's freedom and privacy 18

Positive Facework • Describe and convey positive feelings about what the other has said and done. • Express your admiration for his or her courage. • Acknowledge the difficulty of the situation. • Express your belief that the other has the qualities and skills needed to endure. 19

Negative Facework • Ask for permission before giving advice. • Verbally defer to the opinions and preferences of the other person. • Use tentative language to hedge and qualify opinions and advice. • Offer suggestions indirectly. 20

Using Other-Centered Messages • Ask questions that prompt the person to elaborate on what happened. • Emphasize your willingness to listen to an extended story. • Use vocalized encouragement and nonverbal behavior to communicate continued interest. • Affirm, legitimize, and encourage exploration of feelings expressed by partner. • Demonstrate that you understand, but avoid changing the focus to you. 21

Framing The skill of providing support by offering information, observations, and opinions that enable the receiver to better understand or see his/her situation in a different light 22

Giving Advice • Ask for permission to give advice. • Word the message as one of many suggestions in a way that the recipient can understand. • Present any potential risks or costs associated with the following the advice. • Indicate that you will not be offended if the other chooses to ignore your recommendation. 23

Hmmm • • Do you believe in Evil? Are some people predisposed to have better empathy skills? Is empathy and sympathy something that can be learned? Are women better than men at displaying empathy? What is empathy? Simon Baron Cohen Empathy Test 24

Social Support via Social Media • Advantages • Creates social distance • Hear from people around the world • Useful for introverted, shy, or lonely • Easier to manage messages • Crosses age/status/education boundaries • Time/place less important 25

Gender and Cultural Similarity • Desire to be comforted is universal. • Both men and women place high value on emotional support from partners. • Little difference reported between genders or among cultures 26

Culture • European-Americans believe that openly discussing feelings is valuable. • Americans are more sensitive to othercentered messages than are Chinese. • Chinese view avoidance strategies as more appropriate than Americans. • Chinese and American married people view emotional support provided by their spouses as most important. 27