How gender and cognitive complexity influence the provision of emotional support: A study of indirect effects

The current study examined the extent to which cognitive complexity—a well known predictor of message behavior—mediated sex differences in the production of person‐centered comforting messages. Two hundred and eight students (102 men and 106 women) representing a variety of majors at a large midwestern university participated in the study. They responded to Crockett's (1965) Role Category Questionnaire (a measure of cognitive complexity) and three hypothetical situations designed to elicit their levels of comforting ability. Responses to the comforting scenarios were coded for their degree of person‐centeredness (Burleson, 1984). Results demonstrated the partial mediating effects of cognitive complexity. However, the effects of sex were large and remained significant even when controlling for complexity.

[1]  W. H. Crockett.  Cognitive complexity and impression formation. , 1965, Progress in experimental personality research.

[2]  Sex Differences and Comparability of Three Measures of Cognitive Complexity , 1969 .

[3]  An Investigation of the Relationships Among Indices of Social Cognition, Motivation, and Communicative Performance , 1979 .

[4]  E. M. Ritter.  Social perspective‐taking ability, cognitive complexity and listener‐adapted communication in early and late adolescence , 1979 .

[5]  James L. Applegate.  Adaptive Communication in Educational Contexts: A Study of Teachers' Communicative Strategies. , 1980 .

[6]  The Development of Comforting Communication Skills in Childhood and Adolescence. , 1982 .

[7]  SOCIAL COGNITION, EMPATHIC MOTIVATION, AND ADULTS' COMFORTING STRATEGIES , 1983 .

[8]  Wendy Samter,et al.  COGNITIVE AND MOTIVATIONAL INFLUENCES ON SPONTANEOUS COMFORTING BEHAVIOR , 1984 .

[9]  B. Burleson.  Age, social-cognitive development, and the use of comforting strategies , 1984 .

[10]  Wendy Samter,et al.  Consistencies in theoretical and naive evaluations of comforting messages , 1985 .

[11]  Wendy Samter,et al.  Comforting conversations: The effects of strategy type on evaluations of messages and message producers , 1987 .

[12]  CHAPTER 19 – Interpersonal Cognition, Message Goals, and Organization of Communication: Recent Constructivist Research* , 1987 .

[13]  E. Maccoby,et al.  Gender segregation in childhood. , 1987, Advances in child development and behavior.

[14]  Bruce J. Biddle,et al.  Causality, confirmation, credulity, and structural equation modeling. , 1987 .

[15]  Tom Carney,et al.  A Handbook for the Study of Human Communication: Methods and instruments for observing, measuring and assessing communication processes , 1988 .

[16]  Wendy Samter,et al.  Behavioral Complexity Is in the Eye of the Beholder: Effects of Cognitive Complexity and Message Complexity on Impressions of the Source of Comforting Messages. , 1989 .

[17]  Construct system development and attention to face wants in persuasive situations , 1991 .

[18]  A. Eagly,et al.  Explaining Sex Differences in Social Behavior: A Meta-Analytic Perspective , 1991 .

[19]  Wayne H. Denton,et al.  A new look at similarity and attraction in marriage: Similarities in social‐cognitive and communication skills as predictors of attraction and satisfaction , 1992 .

[20]  R. Clark.  Men's and women's self-confidence in persuasive, comforting, and justificatory communicative tasks , 1993 .

[21]  Rebecca L. Collins,et al.  The Role of Emotion in Social Support Provision: Gender, Empathy and Expressions of Distress , 1994 .

[22]  V. Helgeson,et al.  Gender effects on social support provision and receipt , 1995 .

[23]  L. Acitelli,et al.  Gender and thought in relationships. , 1996 .

[24]  Wendy Samter,et al.  Men's and Women's Evaluations of Communication Skills in Personal Relationships: When Sex Differences Make a Difference and when they don't , 1996 .

[25]  Edward Woods,et al.  Associations of nonverbal decoding ability with indices of person‐centered communicative ability , 1996 .

[26]  Men's and Women's Beliefs About Communication in Intimate Relationships: When Sex Differences Make A Difference - And When They Don't , 1996 .

[27]  Bryan B. Whaley,et al.  Ethnicity and emotional support in same-sex friendship: A comparison of Asian-Americans, African-Americans, and Euro-Americans , 1997 .

[28]  Paul A. Mongeau,et al.  Effects of event type and sex on comforting messages , 1997 .

[29]  D. Goldsmith,et al.  Sex Differences and Similarities in the Communication of Social Support , 1997 .

[30]  Brant R. Burleson,et al.  The Impact of Situational Variables on Helpers' Perceptions of Comforting Messages , 1997 .

[31]  M. Waltman,et al.  Feminine gender identity and interpersonal cognitive differentiation as correlates of person‐centered comforting , 1997 .

[32]  Social Support and the Emotional Lives of Men and Women: An Assessment of the Different Cultures Perspective , 1998 .

[33]  E. Woods.  Communication abilities as predictors of verbal and nonverbal performance in persuasive interaction , 1998 .

[34]  Brant R. Burleson,et al.  Assessing Explanations for Sex Differences in Emotional Support A Test of the Different Cultures and Skill Specialization Accounts , 1999 .

[35]  L. Brody.  Gender and emotion: The socialization of gender differences in emotional expression: Display rules, infant temperament, and differentiation , 2000 .

[36]  Judith A. Hall,et al.  Gender differences in nonverbal communication of emotion , 2000 .

[37]  Laura K. Guerrero,et al.  The Effects of Nonverbal Immediacy and Verbal Person Centeredness in the Emotional Support Process , 2001 .