When chatting about negative experiences helps—and when it hurts: Distinguishing adaptive versus maladaptive social support in computer-mediated communication.

Abstract

Does talking to others about negative experiences improve the way people feel? Although some work suggests that the answer to this question is “yes,” other work reveals the opposite. Here we attempt to shed light on this puzzle by examining how people can talk to others about their negative experiences constructively via computer-mediated communication, a platform that people increasingly use to provide and receive social support. Drawing from prior research on meaning-making and self-reflection, we predicted that cueing participants to reconstrue their experience in ways that lead them to focus on it from a broader perspective during a conversation would buffer them against negative affect and enhance their sense of closure compared with cueing them to recount the emotionally arousing details concerning what happened. Results supported this prediction. Content analyses additionally revealed that participants in the reconstrue condition used the word “you” generically (e.g., you cannot always get what you want) more than participants in the recount condition, identifying a linguistic mechanism that supports reconstrual. These findings highlight the psychological processes that distinguish adaptive versus maladaptive ways of talking about negative experiences, particularly in the context of computer-mediated support interactions.

The Relationship of Emotions and Burnout to Medical Students’ Academic Performance

“…Should negative emotions present, students may be dejected and anticipate failure. Lee et al 42 found that ruminating on negative experiences also inhibits emotional self-regulation. Our results that Year 1 students' professional efficacy was nearly statistically significant may be indicative of the uncertainties related to the new curriculum.…”

“…The students had no clear way of appraising performance due to variability in weights of grading in each block. This uncertainty may have added to stress 43 and rumination, 42,44 leading to an inability to self-regulate learning.…”

“…Providing students with academic coaching coupled with guidance on how to master material may develop incremental mind-set, which will help them identify strategies to achieve goals and overcome negative emotions. 39,42 Coaching can help students identify specific short-term milestones to better achieve their goals. 45 This could be done by helping students incorporate self-testing into studying to enhance retrieval, which will help them on exams.…”

What Media Helps, What Media Hurts: A Mixed Methods Survey Study of Coping with COVID-19 Using the Media Repertoire Framework and the Appraisal Theory of Stress

“…Tsitsika et al [ 11 ] evaluated a cluster sample of more than 10,000 adolescents in grade 9 or 10 from 600 classrooms from 6 European countries and found that, in younger adolescents, the heavy use of social networking was associated with lower academic performance, higher internalizing of problems, and loss of physical activity; conversely, however, in older adolescents, the same social networking use was positively correlated with social competence. In a recent qualitative study of over 100 individuals with stressful experiences, Lee et al [ 12 ] experimentally manipulated the direction of conversations in an online-support context and showed that, whereas conversations that focused on reconstruing the stress experience from a broader perspective had a helpful impact, those focusing on recounting the personal experience were likely to add emotional stress for participants. A content analysis of over 8 million online conversations (in Korean) about the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) outbreak in South Korea showed that, although expressions of negative affect (anxiety and fear) were prevalent in online social media and discussion boards, informative news content was more likely to bring out expressions of positive (calm and composed) MERS emotions [ 13 ].…”

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