Examining Family Communication Patterns and Seeking Social Support Direct and Indirect Effects Through Ability and Motivation

Abstract

Seeking social support remains a relatively understudied aspect of supportive communication. By integrating the literatures on family communication patterns (FCPs) and supportive communication, this study examines dispositional factors that influence support seeking in particular situations. Specifically, communicative ability and motivation to seek support were theorized to mediate the relationship between FCPs and recalled strategies of support seeking. Results from a sample (N = 352) of undergraduate students not only demonstrate that people's FCPs impart different levels of communicative ability and motivation to seek support, but also indirectly influence people's strategies of support seeking. Ability and motivation also directly influence support seeking, and several of these effects are moderated by participants' sex.

Family Communication Patterns and the Mediating Effects of Support and Resilience on Students' Concerns About College

“…FCP theory predicts outcomes based on the tendency of families to engage in relatively predictable ways of communicating (McLeod & Chafee, 1972). According to FCP, families influence children's behaviors long after they leave home by shaping their perceptions of the social environment and influencing the development of protective traits (e.g., disposition to ask for help when it is needed) that can help them cope (High & Scharp, 2015;Koerner & Fitzpatrick, 2002;Koerner & Schrodt, 2014). Specifically, FCP researchers focus on the ways that families constitute a shared reality through the processes of conversation and conformity orientation (Koerner & Fitzpatrick, 2002).…”

“…Conversation orientation refers to the extent to which members of the family-namely, parents-encourage or discourage an open communication environment. To date, studies reveal that high conversation-oriented families have adult children who are more motivated to manage their conflict (Koerner & Fitzpatrick, 1997) and are better able to seek supportive communication when experiencing distress (High & Scharp, 2015). Alternatively, adult children who come from low conversation-oriented families are less interpersonally skilled and often experience more stress, apprehension, and avoidance (Schrodt, Ledbetter, & Ohrt, 2007).…”

“…High conversation orientation is associated with students' ability to seek supportive communication (High & Scharp, 2015) and better student adjustment (Dorrance Hall et al, 2017). Thus, when parents create open environments in which their emerging adult children can ask for help and talk about difficult topics, their children likely perceive more family support.…”

The development of a family resilience‐strengthening programme for families in a South African rural community

“…Communication (conveying and receiving messages between individuals both verbally and nonverbally) within families enhances problem‐solving abilities during crises (Walsh, ). The profound effect of family communication on family functioning has been established in several family‐related studies (for example, Black & Lobo, ; High & Sharp, ; Ho et al., ; Prouty, Fischer, Purdom, Cobos, & Helmeke, ; Schrodt & Ledbetter, 2007).…”

Connections Between Family Communication Patterns, Person-Centered Message Evaluations, and Emotion Regulation Strategies

“…FCPs result in stable, relational schema that develop during socialization and that contain beliefs and values about social interaction within and outside of the family (Koerner & Fitzpatrick, ). Because these schema store social information (e.g., affective responses, supportive interactions, conflict, everyday talk; Koerner & Cvancara, ; Koerner & Fitzpatrick, , ), persons might “default” to their FCPs when they are distressed, regardless of the context (High & Scharp, , p. 2). ER strategies are goal‐oriented “attempts to influence which emotions one has, when one has them, and how one experiences or expresses these emotions” (Gross, , p. 5).…”