How gender and cognitive complexity influence the provision of emotional support: a study of...

The current study examined the extent to which cognitive complexity--a well known predictor of message behavior--mediated sex differences in the production of person-centered comforting messages. Two hundred and eight students (102 men and 106 women) representing a variety of majors at a large

midwestern university participated in the study. They responded to Crockett's (1965) Role Category Questionnaire (a measure of cognitive complexity) and three hypothetical situations designed to elicit their levels of comforting ability. Responses to the comforting scenarios were coded for their degree of person-centeredness (Burleson, 1984). Results demonstrated the partial mediating effects of cognitive complexity. However, the effects of sex were large and remained significant even when controlling for complexity.

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* Sex is an important variable underlying the attitudes and behaviors relevant to emotional support. Studies suggest that, compared to men, women are more likely to (a) offer support both spontaneously and when requested (e.g., Trobst, Collins, & Embree, 1994); (b) value skills aimed at the management of others' emotions (e.g., Burleson, Kunkel, Samter, & Werking, 1996); and (c) feel confident in their ability to engage in effective support efforts (e.g., Clark, 1993). Consistent with these broader sex differences, at least three studies (e.g., Borden, 1979; Burleson, 1982; Hale, Tighe, & Mongeau, 1997) have found that women are more inclined than men to use highly "person-centered" messages when seeking to comfort a distressed other.

According to constructivist researchers (e.g., Delia, 1987; O'Keefe & Delia, 1982), person-centered messages demonstrate an awareness of and adaptation to the subjective, affective, and relational aspects of communicative contexts. The primary instrumental goal being pursued by interactants determines the particular manner in which person-centeredness is reflected in message strategies (see Burleson & Caplan, 1998). Within comforting situations, a high degree of person-centeredness occurs when speakers explicitly acknowledge, elaborate, and legitimize a distressed other's feelings; person-centered comforting strategies also encourage extended articulation of affective reactions and attempt to place these reactions in a broader context (see Applegate, 1980a, 1980b; Burleson, 1982, 1983). In contrast, position-centered comforting messages disconfirm the emotions experienced because of a distressful event and fail to provide the target with any sort of broader perspective.

The associations between sex and the use of person-centered comforting strategies tend to be moderate in magnitude. For instance, in a study of first-through twelfth-graders, Burleson (1982) reported a small, but significant difference in the highest level comforting strategy males and females produced (approximate d = .50), with females generating messages exhibiting higher levels of person centeredness. More recently, Hale et al. (1997) observed a correlation of .14 between sex and person-centered comforting ability among adults. While somewhat less than substantial in magnitude, such associations are nonetheless important given that a growing body of research indicates that highly person-centered comforting messages are both perceived as more sensitive and effective than less person-centered messages (e.g., Burleson & Samter, 1985), and actually do a better job of relieving emotional distress (Jones & Guerrero, in press). Moreover, several studies indicate that both men and women view person-centered comforting messages as the most sensitive and effective ways of handling emotional distress (Jones & Burleson, 1997; Kunkel & Burleson, 1999; Samter, Burleson, & Murphy, 1987; Samter, Whaley, Mortenson, & Burleson, 1997).

Thus, there is compelling evidence that both sexes regard the person-centered strategies women more commonly produce in situations calling for emotional support to be better ways of managing distress than the less person-centered strategies men more typically utilize. Women's tendency to employ more person-centered comforting responses may help explain why they are preferred as sources of emotional support by both male and female recipients (for reviews of these studies, see Goldsmith & Dun, 1997; Kunkel & Burleson, 1998).

Person-centered messages are not just different from their less person-centered counterparts, they represent both structurally and developmentally more sophisticated forms of behavior (Burleson & Caplan, 1998; Samter, Burleson, & Basden-Murphy, 1989). As Burleson and Samter (1985) explain, the explicit articulation and elaboration of another's feelings characteristic of person-centered comforting strategies requires advanced social-cognitive abilities through which the other's perspective can be recognized, internally represented, understood, and responded to. In other words, person-centered messages are regarded as formally better--or more skillful--than non-person-centered messages in that they reflect a greater degree of complexity in thinking about people, social situations, and the process of communication.

Theorists have thus suggested that advanced social-cognitive skills underlie the production of such sophisticated message forms. Consistent with this line of reasoning, numerous studies have found the use of highly person-centered comforting strategies to be positively associated with various assessments of sophisticated social-cognitive functioning, including cognitive complexity (e.g., Applegate, 1980a, 1980b; Burleson, 1983, 1984). Cognitive complexity is generally understood as an information-processing variable that indexes the level of sophistication with which individuals discern and process information about the social world. Cognitive complexity reflects the development of one's interpersonal constructs--the cognitive structures through which individuals comprehend the social world. Highly complex individuals interpret the world using differentiated (i.e., a greater number), abstract (i.e., more psychologically-centered), and integrated (i.e., hierarchically organized) systems of interpersonal constructs, whereas less complex individuals interpret the world via fewer, less well integrated systems of behaviorally-, and/or role-based constructs (see Delia, 1987).

Complex systems of interpersonal constructs not only allow individuals to orient to situations in terms of instrumental, identity, and relational concerns, but also to address these concerns when formulating communicative goals and message strategies (O'Keefe & Delia, 1985). Thus, it is not surprising that a substantial body of work indicates that cognitively complex individuals use more person-centered messages than noncomplex individuals across a variety of domains, including the domain of emotional support. For instance, in studies of children and adolescents (e.g., Applegate, Burleson, & Delia, 1992; Burleson, 1984), strong correlations have been observed between cognitive complexity and the production of person-centered comforting messages (rs range from .47 to .78; average effect size = .63). The lone exception to this pattern comes from an investigation conducted by Ritter (1979) in which no association was observed between construct system development and the level of comforting skill adolescents exhibited. Although correlations between cognitive complexity and the production of person-centered comforting messages appear to become less substantial as individuals age, they nevertheless remain significant. Samter and Burleson (1984), for example, reported a correlation of .22 between cognitive complexity and the use of sophisticated comforting strategies. Winters and Waltman (1997) observed an average correlation of .20 between cognitive complexity and the production of person-centered strategies. And Applegate, Burke, Burleson, Delia, and Kline (1985) found that mothers' levels of construct system development and comforting abilities were moderately related (r = .24).

Consistent with work demonstrating sex differences in the use of person-centered comforting messages, research has found sex differences in cognitive complexity, with women showing somewhat higher levels than men (e.g.; Burleson & Denton, 1992; Crockett, 1965). In studies where the association between sex and construct system development has been assessed via correlational analysis (e.g., Applegate & Woods, 1991; Little, 1969; Woods, 1996, 1998), reported associations range from .34 to .49, with an average effect size of .42.

Together, these findings suggest that one reason why women, as a group, are more likely than men to use person-centered comforting messages is because they are better equipped cognitively to produce such messages. That is, sex differences in comforting message production may be due to underlying sex differences in social cognitive ability. Although plausible, no work to date has directly assessed whether individual differences in cognitive complexity mediate sex differences in the use of person-centered comforting strategies. The current study was designed to examine this possibility. More specifically, it was hypothesized that sex would exert its strongest and most direct effect on individuals' levels of cognitive complexity and that such complexity would, in turn, directly influence the production of skilled comforting behavior.

METHOD

Participants and Procedures

Two hundred and eight students (102 men and 106 women) representing a variety of majors at a large midwestern university participated in the study. The mean age of individuals in the sample was 20.52 years and the vast majority were Euro-American. Missing data reduced the analyzed sample to 185 (89 men and 96 women). Participants attended two experimental sessions during which time they responded to a variety of instruments including Crockett's (1965) Role Category Questionnaire (an index of cognitive complexity) and three hypothetical situations designed to elicit comforting messages. Each of these measures is described below.

Cognitive Complexity

A standard, two-role version of Crockett's (1965) Role Category Questionnaire (RCQ) was employed to assess participants' levels of interpersonal cognitive complexity (for a full description of administration and coding procedures, and data concerning reliability and validity, see Burleson & Waltman, 1988). The RCQ asks individuals to describe, in writing, two peers well known to them, one of whom they like and one whom they dislike. Participants were instructed to describe each peer in as much detail as possible, focusing on his/her habits, traits, and personality characteristics. Participants were given approximately ten minutes during the first experimental session to complete the RCQ.

Each impression was scored for the number of interpersonal constructs it contained according to procedures detailed by Crockett, Press, Delia, and Kenney (1974; also see Burleson & Waltman, 1988). In early work, assessments of cognitive complexity tended to include three attributes of construct system development: differentiation, abstractness, and organization. More recently, however, cognitive complexity has been equated with differentiation alone since assessments of different construct system attributes tend to be highly correlated (see Burleson & Caplan, 1998). Thus, an index of cognitive complexity was formed by summing the number of constructs in each impression (only psychological constructs, as opposed to behavioral-or role-based constructs, were counted toward complexity scores). Coding reliability was assessed by having two independent judges each score approximately 20% of the protocols (n = 39). Interrater reliability, as assessed by Pearson correlation, was .99.

Comforting Skill

In the current project, comforting strategies were defined as verbal messages aimed at alleviating the negative feelings which arise from everyday hurts and disappointments (Burleson, 1983, 1984). Thus, the hypothetical situations employed to elicit comforting responses portrayed events in which the distress stemmed from a common life trial as opposed to more extreme forms of depression or grief. Each of the situations meeting this criterion was developed for use in prior studies (e.g., Applegate, 1980a, 1980b; Burleson, 1983) and has proven to yield highly reliable and valid assessments of comforting skill (see Burleson & Caplan, 1998).

The first comforting scenario to which participants responded appeared in the test booklet they completed during the initial experimental session. This scenario portrayed a same-sex friend who was experiencing emotional distress at having been recently dropped by a long-term boyfriend or girlfriend. The remaining situations were presented to participants in the second experimental session. They depicted a same-sex friend who was upset about failing an important exam and a same-sex friend whose distress stemmed from failing to receive a major academic scholarship. In all cases, participants were encouraged to state what they would say to make the other feel better.

The nine-level hierarchical scheme for coding comforting messages was originally developed by Applegate (1980a, 1980b) and revised by Burleson (1982). The system contains three major divisions reflecting the extent to which the feelings of a distressed other are recognized and elaborated. Within the first major division, position-centered comforting messages explicitly deny another's feelings by condemning particular emotional states, challenging the legitimacy of those emotional states, or telling the other how he/she should feel. Messages scored within the second major division of the hierarchy implicitly recognize and attend to the other's feelings and emotions. Finally, within the third major division, person-centered comforting strategies not only legitimize particular affective reactions, but also encourage extended articulation of those reactions and attempt to place them in a broader context. Detailed presentations of this coding system appear in several published sources (e.g., Burleson, 1982, 1984; Burleson & Samter, 1985).

To assess coding reliability, two coders independently evaluated 111 messages. Exact agreement was reached on 85% of the messages. Coding reliability, as assessed by Cohen's kappa, was .83. Disagreements between coders were resolved by consensus. An index of comforting skill was constructed by averaging scores over the three hypothetical situations; the standardized Cronbach's alpha for this measure was .69.

RESULTS

Means and standard deviations for variables included in the study are presented in Table 1. Regression analyses were used to examine the mediating effects of cognitive complexity on the association between sex and comforting ability. Prior to performing these analyses, correlations were computed to test whether the conditions of a mediational model were met; these conditions require that both the independent and mediating variables be associated with one another as well the dependent variable. Sex (the independent variable) was significantly associated with both cognitive complexity (the mediating variable; r = .42, p < .001) and comforting skill (the dependent variable; r = .46, p = < .001). A significant, positive association was also observed between cognitive complexity and comforting skill (r = .27, p < .001). The magnitude of this latter association is consistent with those observed in other investigations examining the relationship between construct system development and the use of person-centered comforting strategies in adult populations. Thus, the conditions for the test of mediation were met.

Following procedures outlined by Biddle and Marlin (1987), two regression equations were calculated. In the first equation, sex was entered at the initial step and cognitive complexity was entered at the second step. The order of entry for the two predictors was reversed in the second equation. The amount of variance in the dependent variable mediated by cognitive complexity can be determined by comparing the increments of explained variance for each predictor in the two equations.

The results of the regression analyses are summarized in Table 2. Sex and cognitive complexity collectively explained a significant amount of variance in comforting skill, [R.sup.2] = .22, F(2, 182) = 25.99, p < .001. When entered into the regression equation first, sex explained a statistically significant 21.4% of the variance in comforting message production; however, when entered after cognitive complexity, sex explained only 14.7% of the variance in comforting ability. The amount of sex-related variance in participants' comforting responses mediated by cognitive complexity was determined by calculating the difference between [R.sup.2] for sex when it was entered into the first regression equation on the first step and when it was entered into the second regression equation on the second step (i.e., .214 - .147 = .067 or 6.7%). This number was then divided by the amount of variance explained by sex in the first regression equation (i.e., .067/.214 = .313 or 31.3%). Thus, approximately 31.3% of the sex-related variance in participants' comforting responses was mediated by cognitive complexity. Sex continued to exert a significant, direct effect on comforting skill even when controlling for cognitive complexity (p < .001). Cognitive complexity uniquely accounted for a nonsignificant 1% of the variance in comforting message production.

DISCUSSION

The purpose of this project was to examine whether social cognitive ability mediated the effects of sex on the production of skillful comforting messages. Controlling for cognitive complexity, an index of social cognitive ability, did diminish the extent to which sex accounted for variability in the person-centeredness of comforting strategies generated by men and women in the current sample; approximately one-third of the sex-related variance in comforting ability was explained by cognitive complexity. This suggests that sex differences in message production are partially attributable to sex differences in underlying social perception processes.

Differences in men's and women's proclivity to provide support--and in the messages they employ to accomplish this goal--are typically explained via socialization. Scholars argue, for example, that parents not only encourage little girls to express their own feelings, but also to monitor those of others (e.g., Gottman & Carrere, 1994; Maccoby & Jacklin, 1987; for a review, see Haslett & Samter, 1997). From an early age, then, women are invested with the role of "feeling specialist"--a role that carries with it the responsibility of knowing when and how to help others through difficult times. While interesting, socialization accounts of gender differences in communication cannot explain the details of message production. In other words, knowing that men and women are taught to communicate differently tells us little about the underlying cognitive structures and processes that give rise to sex differences in situated communication.

The mediating effects of cognitive complexity observed in the current study suggest that socialization directly influences the cognitive structures boys and girls (and ultimately men and women) develop for perceiving and interpreting features of the social world--especially those features pertinent to emotional support episodes. It is these respective views of (and orientations to) the social world that, in turn, guide subsequent message behavior. Boys' attention is focused on group activities in which influencing, leading, and entertaining others is highly valued (e.g., Maccoby & Jacklin, 1987; Thorne, 1986); thus, they may develop fewer, less abstract, and less psychologically-centered ways of perceiving people and social situations than girls, whose attention is directed toward expressing and managing emotions. As a result, it may be on average somewhat more difficult for men than for women to discern others' emotions, dispositions, motivations, and perspectives--all key features around which skillful or effective comforting messages are organized. Indeed, a range of research indicates that women are more empathic than men (e.g., Trobst et al., 1994) and are better able to read nonverbal cues and recognize the affective states of others (see the review by Hall, Carter, & Horgan, 2000).

Although these findings offer a promising explanation for why sex influences the ways in which men and women seek to support others, it is important to remember that social cognitive ability accounted for only a fraction of the sex-related variance in comforting behavior. That is, the effects of sex on the use of skillful comforting strategies were fairly large and remained significant even when controlling for cognitive complexity. This may be due, in part, to other potentially influential mediating variables such as motivation.

MacGeorge and her colleagues (MacGeorge, Gillihan, Samter, & Clark, 2001) have recently argued that sex differences in the quality or sophistication of comforting messages can be explained, in part, by situational factors that influence the motivation to engage in certain forms of communication. Two such factors are sex of the support seeker and perceived femininity of comforting and other nurturant behaviors. First, studies suggest that both men and women regard requests for help--particularly help for emotional assistance--to be inconsistent with the traditional male sex role; thus, when made, such requests may be seen as inappropriate and undeserving of skillful support responses. As Brody (2000, p. 25) puts it, "The expression of sadness, depression, fear, and dysphoric self-conscious emotions such as shame and embarrassment are viewed as `unmanly,' and men who display such emotions are not only evaluated more negatively than females, but are also less likely to be comforted than are women." Mickelson, Helgeson, and Weiner (1995) report one example of this, finding that compared to women's requests for emotional assistance, men's support-seeking behaviors were more likely to elicit responses from both sexes that minimized the problem, changed the topic, or lectured the other on how to feel or act. Second, work by Kunkel and Burleson (1998, 1999) has shown that highly person-centered comforting messages are perceived by both sexes as much more feminine than masculine in nature. According to MacGeorge et al., these two lines of research raise the possibility that "men who are otherwise capable of producing highly person-centered messages may be inhibited from doing so by the perception that such behavior is feminine, especially when the message target is a male who may be expected to evaluate one's masculinity" (p. 10).

This may have been the case in the current project. Men were asked to think of a close, same-sex friend when formulating their responses to the hypothetical scenarios. Because the target was a same-sex other, the methods employed in the present study may have artificially inflated men's tendency to respond in characteristically masculine ways. Moreover, anxiety about exhibiting person-centered--or feminine--behavior may have been particularly strong for the men in the present sample given that they were relatively young. Studies demonstrate that the motivation to engage in stereotypical sex-role behavior peaks during young adulthood and attenuates with age (e.g., Cupach & Canary, 1995). Thus, in addition to social-cognitive ability, motivation may also play an important role in mediating the influence of sex on the production of sensitive and effective support messages. Had the current study included appropriate measures of motivation, the variance due to sex in comforting skill might have been further explained. Clearly, this is something future studies should pursue.

Of course, this is only one potential explanation for the current results and there may be others. For instance, Hale et al. (1997) recently found that while women generally produced higher level comforting strategies than men in response to "daily events" (e.g., failing an exam), the sexes were much closer in their levels of comforting skill when reacting to dilemmas in which more major events were portrayed (e.g., coping with parental divorce). This suggests that perceptions regarding the severity of a problem may also mediate the relationship between sex and the use of person-centered messages. In addition, it is important to remember that participants in the current study represent a narrow portion of the adult population. The magnitude of differences in men's and women's levels of cognitive complexity and comforting ability may vary according to ethnicity as well as the age cohort to which they belong. Again, these are important questions for future research.

In sum, a significant limitation in research exploring sex differences in emotional support is its tendency to document rather explain such differences. Given mounting evidence that sensitive and effective emotional support is a key feature of relationship quality for both men and women (see Goldsmith & Dun, 1997), it would seem useful--even essential--to under stand why women produce more skillful messages in this domain than men do. Even though sex differences in comforting ability are small in absolute terms, their magnitude is comparable to sex differences found in other areas of social science research, and the effects of even modest sex differences can be profound (Eagly & Wood, 1991). As Acitelli and Young (1996, p. 149) maintain, scholars who wish "to dismiss sex-difference findings as inconsequential, must do the same for many other" social psychological and communicative results.

TABLE 1
Means and Standard Deviations for Variables in the Study

        Variable                 Men            Women

Cognitive Complexity        16.38 (5.98)    22.80 (7.37)
Comforting Skill             4.43 (1.17)     5.64 (1.16)

NOTE: N = 89 men and 96 women. Figures in parentheses are
standard deviations.
TABLE 2
Summary of Regression Analyses Assessing the Mediating Effects
of Cognitive Complexity on the Association Between Sex and
Comforting Skill

                    Sex Entered First        Sex Entered Second

                 [R.sup.2]                 [R.sup.2]
Predictor          Change     F Change       Change      F Change

Sex                .214       49.92 **      .147         34.38 ***
Cognitive          .008        1.83         .075         14.89 ***
  Complexity

NOTE: N = 185. *** p < .001.

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Wendy Samter (Ph.D., Purdue University, 1989) is an Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Delaware, Department of Communication, 250 Pearson Hall, Newark, DE, 19716; phone: 302-831-8025; fax: 302-831-1892; email: samter@udel.edu. A version of this article was presented at the annual meeting of the International Communication Association, Washington, DC, May, 25-28, 2001.