Burleson and Goldsmith's (1998) comforting model suggests an appraisal-based mechanism through which comforting messages can bring about a positive change in emotional states. This study is a first empirical test of three causal linkages implied by the appraisal-based comforting model. Participants (N = 258) talked about an upsetting event with a confederate trained to display low, moderate, or high levels of person centeredness and nonverbal immediacy. After the conversation, participants completed several scales. Latent composite structural equation modeling was used to examine the model, which showed that person-centered and immediate emotional support exerted a direct effect on emotional improvement. Above and beyond this direct effect, personcentered comfort also encouraged people to verbalize their thoughts and emotions. These verbalizations facilitated cognitive appraisals, which in turn exerted a strong direct effect on emotional improvement. Mediation analyses further suggested that verbalizations of positive emotion words in conjunction with reappraisals partially mediated the influence of person-centered comfort on emotional improvement.

This meta-analysis examines patterns of sex differences in teacher-initiated teacher–student interactions. While extensive research has examined factors that influence student evaluations of effective and ineffective teachers, this study examines whether teacher-initiated interactions with students, such as praising or blaming, vary as a function of student sex. After a careful examination of 127 empirical studies, 32 studies were retained for the meta-analysis. The studies were coded for positive, negative, and total interactions. The results suggest that teachers initiate more overall interactions and more negative interactions, but not more positive interactions, with male students than with female students.

This study explores the combined influence of nonverbal immediacy and verbal person centeredness in the emotional support process. Three complementary models were tested in an experiment with 216 participants who disclosed an emotionally upsetting event to a confederate trained to display different levels of nonverbal immediacy and person centeredness. Participants subsequently completed a set of instruments measuring the perceived comforting quality of the confederate. Results suggested that nonverbal immediacy and person centeredness influence perceptions of what makes for good comforting. The data supported 2 of the advanced models but failed to provide support for a nonverbal primacy effect on perceived comforting quality.

Research indicates that people consistently perceive highly person-centered comforting messages as providing the most effective and sensitive emotional support. However, research on helping suggests that attributions about the cause of the distressful event (blame) and its solution (control) may influence what people perceive to constitute appropriate help. This study assessed how attributions of blame and control influenced evaluations of comforting messages varying in level of person centeredness. Participants (N = 342) read about a situation in which a sad target was either responsible or not responsible for the problem and either could or could not influence the outcome of the situation. Messages low in person centeredness were viewed as more appropriate with high blame targets, whereas messages high in person centeredness were viewed as more appropriate with low blame targets. Perceptions of situation controllability did not influence evaluations. The study also detected gender differences in perceptions of comforting messages.

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