By Guest Author Tess Nelson
It is common knowledge that people who have undergone a traumatic experience can heal emotionally by simply talking about it with someone else; everyone needs to vent. However, while this process may be beneficial to the speaker, it can negatively impact the listener.
Lewis and Manusov looked at 82 reports of interactions between closely related persons (based on emotional ties and proximity, such as roommates, relatives, friends, and romantic partners). The end results indicated that the listener’s level of distress increased with the amount of responsibility felt and the time they spent listening. However there are many varying factors that contribute to the listener’s level of distress that should also be considered, such as expectations by speakers, the level of distress the speaker is experiencing, the amount of support the listener can provide and what resources are available to the listener. Another major influencing factor is the listener’s reluctance to listen; sometimes people just do not want to hear about it. Nonetheless, the predominate deciding factor is the type of relationship between the listener and speaker. This relationship determines the level of responsibility the listener feels, what the speaker expects from the listener, and ultimately how each will feel when the conversation ends.
It is important that both persons leave the conversation with little or no distress. Ideally both would come out feeling better, but this is a difficult feat to achieve. While generally the speaker may decrease their levels of distress, they may unknowingly distress the listener, especially if they have not undergone professional training. If the listener can no longer offer support, they can only distance themselves emotionally. The most common way to do so is to offer advice; however there is also a possibility that this too could have negative effects on the discloser, which in turn has a negative effect on the listener. Thus it is at this point that the listener should encourage the speaker to talk to a counselor, support group, or other personal relationship.
Lewis, T., & Manusov, V. (2009). Listening to Another’s Distress in Everyday Relationships. Communication Quarterly, 57, 282-301.
“R U 4 real?” The use of phrases like this demonstrate how technology has managed to merge itself with the social life of teenagers in the form of instant messaging, text messaging and social networking sites such as Facebook. A little observation will tell anyone that a large percentage of a teen’s time is spent texting on his or her phone or chatting online. With so much time devoted to these activities, researchers want to know if there are any side effects.
Burleson’s research suggests that these four factors lead to different levels of satisfactory support. He finds that the amount of cognitive processing or thought a person applies to support messages is related to how useful that solace is evaluated as. The research also suggests that one’s ability to process the message and motivation to do so vastly changes the perceived effectiveness. People who are increasingly upset have more motivation to process support (and thus apply more cognitive processing). Additionally, people who are better able to process support messages benefit more from them. He found that in all of these situations supportive communication was taken more positively, and was reported to have a greater effect. There is a tipping point, in that people that who are extremely upset have a diminished ability to process supportive communication, and less likely to regard it as useful or positive.
