Do Message Features Influence Responses to Depression Disclosure? A Message Design Logics Perspective

This project uses a multiple goals theoretical perspective to examine the sophistication of responses to depression disclosure. In the first study, 504 college students imagined that a friend revealed a depression diagnosis using one of several messages exhibiting different identity management goals. Their responses were coded for expressive, conventional, or rhetorical message design logic. Variation in how depression was disclosed influenced the sophistication of responses. In the second study, 352 individuals with depression rated messages taken verbatim from the first study. Expressive messages were evaluated less favorably than conventional messages, which in turn were rated less favorably than rhetorical messages. The discussion focuses on the connection between attention to multiple goals and communication sophistication in responding to important disclosures.

[1]  John Patrick Caughlin,et al.  Invited Review Article , 2010 .

[2]  Kathleen M Griffiths,et al.  Stigma about Depression and its Impact on Help-Seeking Intentions , 2006, The Australian and New Zealand journal of psychiatry.

[3]  L. McMullen,et al.  Seeking Compliance: The Production of Interpersonal Influence Messages , 1992 .

[4]  Barbara J. O'Keefe,et al.  The logic of message design: Individual differences in reasoning about communication , 1988 .

[5]  J. Fleiss.  Statistical methods for rates and proportions , 1974 .

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

[7]  Kristine L. Fitch,et al.  The Normative Context of Advice as Social Support , 1997 .

[8]  Steven R. Wilson.  Seeking and Resisting Compliance: Why People Say What They Do When Trying to Influence Others , 2002 .

[9]  D. Brashers,et al.  The Message Design Logics of Responses to HIV Disclosures , 2008 .

[10]  Jennifer Caroline Greene,et al.  Handbook of communication and social interaction skills , 2003 .

[11]  Sally Jackson,et al.  Random Factors in ANOVA , 1993 .

[12]  Ruth Anne Clark,et al.  TOPOI and rhetorical competence , 1979 .

[13]  T. Albrecht,et al.  Message design logic, social support, and mixed‐status relationships , 1996 .

[14]  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 .

[15]  Brian H. Spitzberg,et al.  Appropriateness and Effectiveness Perceptions of Conflict Strategies , 1987 .

[16]  B. Kintz,et al.  Computational handbook of statistics, 2nd ed. , 1977 .

[17]  Barbara J. O'Keefe,et al.  The Communication of Identity During Face-to-Face Persuasive Interactions , 1989 .

[18]  Barbara J. O'Keefe,et al.  The pursuit of multiple objectives in face‐to‐face persuasive interactions: Effects of construct differentiation on message organization , 1987 .

[19]  B. Kintz,et al.  Computational Handbook of Statistics , 1968 .

[20]  M. Gabe.  Mental health: a report of the Surgeon General. , 2000, Home care provider.

[21]  D. Brody,et al.  Depression in the United States household population, 2005-2006. , 2008, NCHS data brief.

[22]  Brant R. Burleson,et al.  Emotional support skills. , 2003 .

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

[24]  J. Coyne,et al.  Toward an interactional description of depression. , 1976, Psychiatry.

[25]  J. Crocker,et al.  Reasons for disclosing depression matter: the consequences of having egosystem and ecosystem goals. , 2008, Social science & medicine.

[26]  W. Grove.  Statistical Methods for Rates and Proportions, 2nd ed , 1981 .

[27]  Patient Perceptions of Pharmacy Students' Hypertension Compliance-Gaining Messages: Effects of Message Design Logic and Content Themes , 1994 .

[28]  D. Goldsmith,et al.  Communicating Social Support , 2004 .

[29]  Erin Donovan-Kicken,et al.  Do Message Features Influence Reactions to HIV Disclosures? A Multiple-Goals Perspective , 2009, Health communication.

[30]  R. Lam,et al.  Bipolar Disorder and Quality of Life: A Patient-Centered Perspective , 2006, Quality of Life Research.

[31]  Charles R. Berger,et al.  Interpersonal Communication: Theoretical Perspectives, Future Prospects , 2005 .

[32]  Susan R. Furr,et al.  Suicide and depression among college students: A decade later. , 2001 .

[33]  Virginia M. McDermott,et al.  Helpful, Supportive and Sensitive: Measuring the Evaluation of Enacted Social Support in Personal Relationships , 2000 .

[34]  Daniel J. O'Keefe,et al.  Message Properties, Mediating States, and Manipulation Checks: Claims, Evidence, and Data Analysis in Experimental Persuasive Message Effects Research , 2003 .

[35]  D. Goldsmith,et al.  Dilemmas of talking about lifestyle changes among couples coping with a cardiac event. , 2006, Social science & medicine.

[36]  J. Sayers.  The world health report 2001 - Mental health: new understanding, new hope , 2001 .

[37]  L. Myer,et al.  Predictors of adherence to antiretroviral treatment and therapeutic success among children in South Africa , 2011, AIDS care.

[38]  M. Mehl,et al.  Reading between the lines: the lay assessment of subclinical depression from written self-descriptions. , 2010, Journal of personality.

[39]  Brenda Silverman,et al.  Good Days, Bad Days: The Self in Chronic Illness and Time , 1993 .

[40]  C. Dennis,et al.  Postpartum depression help-seeking barriers and maternal treatment preferences: a qualitative systematic review. , 2006, Birth.

[41]  R. C. Silver,et al.  The role of coping in support provision: The self-presentational dilemma of victims of life crises. , 1990 .

[42]  Steven A. Mccornack,et al.  Message Design Logic and Message Goal Structure Effects on Perceptions of Message Quality in Regulative Communication Situations , 1987 .

[43]  Sandra Petronio,et al.  Privacy and Disclosure of Hiv in interpersonal Relationships: A Sourcebook for Researchers and Practitioners , 2003 .