Abstract
Most social support theory implies that there are objectively supportive people and statements. Yet there is little agreement among perceivers that some people are more supportive than others. Nonetheless, there might be better agreement regarding supportive statements. In three studies, children, college students, and members of a clinical training program rated the supportiveness of specific statements presented by text or video. Agreement among perceivers accounted for only 11% of the variance (range = 8%–12%). Perceivers disagreed because of their traitlike perceptual biases, as well as perceivers’ idiosyncratic tastes. Implications for social support theory were discussed.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 329-339 |
Number of pages | 11 |
Journal | basic and applied social psychology |
Volume | 40 |
Issue number | 5 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Sep 3 2018 |
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Social Psychology
- Applied Psychology