Transcript Empathy and Support - Professor Mark J. Grossman

9: Inter-Act,
th
13
Edition
Supporting
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
• Empathic Responsiveness
• Perspective Taking
• Sympathetic Responsiveness
3
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
4
Perspective
Taking
Imaging oneself
in the place of
another
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.
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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
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.
9
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.
10
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.
11
Supporting Positive Feelings
• Capitalization: sharing successes and leveraging
the good feelings with the expectation that others
will celebrate with us
• Active-constructive: celebratory messages
whose goal is to leverage partner’s positive
feelings that stem from a happy event or
accomplishment
12
Supporting Negative Feelings
• Comforting messages: active, constructive
feedback whose goal is to alleviate or lessen
emotional distress
• Supporting skills include empathizing.
13
Supportive Interaction
Phases
•
•
•
•
Phase One: Support Activation
Phase Two: Support Provision
Phase Three: Target Reaction
Phase Four: Helper Responses
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Clarifying Supportive
Intentions
• Directly state your intentions by
emphasizing your desire to help.
• Remind your partner of your
commitment to the relationship.
• Indicate that helping is your only
motive.
• Phrase your clarification in a way that
reflects helpfulness.
15
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
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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.
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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.
18
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.
19
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
20
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.
21
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
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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
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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.
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