Introduction to the special issue: psychological mediators of sex differences in emotional...

Emotional support is a central feature of personal relationships. Considerable research has documented reliable (if not always large) sex differences in several features of emotional support communication. Thus far, however, little research has been devoted to explaining such differences. The

papers composing this special issue of CR all present empirical tests of different mediational models of sex differences in emotional support, highlighting the explanatory potential of variables such as cognitive complexity, self-efficacy, interaction goal orientation, expressivity-instrumentality, and individualism-collectivism.

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* Emotional support is widely regarded as one of the most important provisions of close personal relationships (e.g., see Cunningham & Barbee, 2000; Gottlieb & Wagner, 1991; Wills, 1991). Although both men and women routinely seek emotional support from their relationship partners, contemporary cultural stereotypes suggest that men and women have vastly different ideas about what constitutes effective emotional support and very different ways of conveying such (e.g., Tannen, 1990; Wood, 1995). These stereotypes maintain that women focus almost exclusively on a distressed partner's feelings, whereas men ignore feelings and focus on fixing the problem producing the emotional upset. Such stereotypes are widely shared in contemporary society, are a focus of best-selling popular books by authors such as John Gray (1992) and Deborah Tannen (1990), and increasingly appear in social science textbooks as established facts (e.g., Wood, 1995, 1997b).

The notion that men and women communicate in ways so distinct that they should be regarded as members of different cultures has received extensive criticism in recent years (e.g., Burleson, 1997; Kyratzis, 2001; Vangelisti, 1997; Wood & Dindia, 1998). The research evidence increasingly indicates that the cultural stereotype is wrong: men and women do not communicate in dichotomously different ways, and this is certainly the case with respect to emotional support (see Kunkel & Burleson, 1998). Still, research continues to find small, but reliable, differences in the tendency to adopt an expressive, emotion-focused approach when providing support (women exceed men), and even smaller, less reliable differences in the tendency to adopt an instrumental, action-focused approach (men occasionally exceed women) (see the reviews by Barbee et al., 1993; Cutrona, 1996; Goldsmith & Dun, 1997; Vaux, 1985).

An important limitation of research examining sex differences in social support is that such research often does little more than document such differences, providing little in the way of explanations for these differences. Most theorists readily acknowledge that biological sex is not, itself, an explanatory construct with respect to the complex forms of social behavior involved in emotional support. Rather, biological sex is frequently depicted as associated in complex ways with the socio-psychological construct of gender, which is regarded (by some, at least) as an explanatory construct for observed sex differences in behavior. Still, the question remains of just how a biological construct like sex, or even a socio-psychological construct like gender, manages to influence complex patterns of communicative behavior (see Canary & Dindia, 1998; Shields, 2000). Recent debates concerning the study of sex and gender differences in support contexts (e.g., Burleson, 1997; Wood, 1997a; Wood & Dindia, 1998) underscore the need to develop comprehensive conceptual models capable of integrating aspects of sex, cognition, personality, and interaction.

To date, most explanations of sex differences in supportive communication have invoked the notion of differential socialization experienced by men and women. That men and women have different socialization experiences and histories is hardly subject to controversy. But the simple observation that, over the course of development, men and women have different experiences does not explain with any precision the observed sex differences in supportive messages and related variables. Precise, compelling explanations must draw from constructs that are more proximal to the behaviors of interest. In particular, because message production processes are cognitive in nature, more detailed explanations of sex differences in emotional support will necessarily be grounded in the psychological processes underlying message production.

The papers in this special issue of Communication Reports present empirical assessments of conceptual models that connect biological sex and emotionally supportive communication via different psychological mediators. Diverse aspects of the emotional support process are examined in these papers. Sex differences have been found in previous work for each aspect of emotional support examined, and the current papers extend existing research by further documenting sex differences in the construct of interest, often exploring these differences in new contexts or with innovative methodologies. More important, each of the papers in this issue reports an empirical assessment of the mediating role of some psychological construct believed to explain (in whole or part) the association between biological sex and emotionally supportive communication.

The studies by Samter and MacGeorge, Gillihan, and Clark both seek to explain sex differences in the production of "person-centered" comforting strategies, messages that explicitly acknowledge, elaborate, and. legitimize the feelings and perspective of a distressed other. Not surprisingly, previous work has found that women are better able to produce such messages than men. Samter explores the extent to which individual differences in cognitive complexity explain sex differences in the production of these messages, while MacGeorge et al. explore the extent to which perceived self-efficacy for supporting others may account for the observed sex difference. Kunkel seeks to explain small, but quite reliable, sex differences in the evaluation of person-centered comforting messages. Differences in evaluations of these message forms are important since they may influence the inclination to use such messages. Kunkel assesses the extent to which the types of interaction goals individuals form for support situations account for sex differences in message evaluations. Interaction goals become the dependent variable of interest in the study by Burleson and Gilstrap. These researchers assess a model that depicts the gender-linked personality variables of expressivity and instrumentality as mediating the effect of sex on the intention to pursue several different interaction goals in support situations. Finally, Mortenson examines how culturally influenced self-construals (i.e., individualism versus collectivism) mediate sex differences in the value placed on supportive communication by members of two distinct cultures, American and Chinese. In sum, these papers seek to explain sex differences in varied aspects of the emotional support process by referring these differences to underlying psychological variables that, presumably, constitute a proximal influence on the process of interest.

Several people made this special issue of CR possible through exemplary cooperation, hard work, and dedication. First and foremost, I want to thank Beth Le Poire, the Editor of Communication Reports, who responded enthusiastically to an initial inquiry about the possibility of such an issue. Beth's excitement for this project helped turn a remote possibility into a concrete reality, and her warm encouragement at every phase of the project's development smoothed inevitable bumps in the road. Beth's editorial assistant in Santa Barbara, Heather Clark, was most helpful, supplying needed information and service in a timely and professional way. Ten different scholars provided the gifts of their time and wisdom by serving as the guest editorial board, identified in the front of this issue. Each of these individuals supplied helpful, detailed reviews, and did so within a very short time frame. The papers in this issue were improved substantially by the thoughtful, constructive criticisms contributed by these referees. Finally, I want to thank the contributors to this issue for sharing their scholarship in this forum, making (mostly!) all of several very tight deadlines, and being willing to shape their individual projects to fit a larger whole.

REFERENCES

Barbee, A. P., Cunningham, M. R., Winstead, B. A., Derlega, V. J., Gulley, M. R., Yankeelov, P. A., & Druen, P. B. (1993). Effects of gender role expectations on the social support process. Journal of Social Issues, 49, 175-190.

Burleson, B. R. (1997). A different voice on different cultures: Illusion and reality in the study of sex differences in personal relationships. Personal Relationships, 4, 229-241.

Canary, D. J., & Dindia, K. (Eds.). (1998). Sex differences and similarities in communication. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Cunningham, M. R., & Barbee, A. P. (2000). Social support. In C. Hendrick & S. S. Hendrick (Eds.), Close relationships.. A sourcebook (pp. 272-285). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Cutrona, C. E. (1996). Social support in couples. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Goldsmith, D. J., & Dun, S. A. (1997). Sex differences and similarities in the communication of social support. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 14, 317-337.

Gottlieb, B. H., & Wagner, F. (1991). Stress and support processes in close relationships. In J. Eckenrode (Ed.), The social context of coping (pp. 165-188). New York: Plenum.

Gray, J. (1992). Men are from Mars, women are from Venus. New York: Harper Collins.

Kunkel, A. W., & Burleson, B. R. (1998). Social support and the emotional lives of men and women: An assessment of the different cultures perspective. In D. J. Canary & K. Dindia (Eds.), Sex differences and similarities in communication (pp. 101-125). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Kyratzis, A. (2001). Children's gender indexing in language: From the separate worlds hypothesis to considerations of culture, context, and power. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 34, 1-13.

Shields, S. A. (2000). Thinking about gender, thinking about theory: Gender and emotional experience. In A. H. Fischer (Ed.), Gender and emotion: Social psychological perspectives (pp. 3-23). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Tannen, D. (1990). You just don't understand.. Women and men in conversation. New York: William Morrow.

Vangelisti, A. L. (1997). Gender differences, similarities, and interdependencies: Some problems with the different cultures perspective. Personal Relationships, 4, 243-253.

Vaux, A. (1985). Variations in social support associated with gender, ethnicity, and age. Journal of Social Issues, 41, 89-110.

Wills, T. A. (1991). Social support and interpersonal relationships. In M. S. Clark (Ed.), Prosocial behavior.. Review of personality and social psychology (Vol. 12, pp. 265-289). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Wood, J. T. (1995). Relational communication. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Wood, J. T. (1997a). Clarifying the issues. Personal Relationships, 4, 221-228.

Wood, J. T. (1997b). Communication, gender, and culture(2nd ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Wood, J. T., & Dindia, K. (1998). What's the difference? A dialogue about differences and similarities between women and men. In D. J. Canary & K. Dindia (Eds.), Sex differences and similarities in communication (pp. 19-40). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Brant R. Burleson (Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1982) is a professor in the Department of Communication, Purdue University, 1366 LAEB 2114, West Lafayette, IN 47907-1366, email brantb@purdue.edu.