Support Seeking in Personal Relationships

Abstract

This paper introduces a new model of interactive support seeking and describes a study derived from it. Task vs relationship type of problem and gender of support seeker were examined for their effect on the selection of same-sex vs opposite-sex friends to provide social support. Male and female undergraduates were asked to vividly imagine each of two task and two relationship problems and to indicate for each problem the friend to whom they would prefer to talk. Participants were also asked to anticipate the specific interactive coping behaviors that their same-and opposite-sex friends would offer in response to each problem. We found that both males and females preferred to talk to their same-sex friends rather than their opposite-sex friends about both relationship and task problems. Yet males indicated that they would rather talk about task than relationship issues with their male friends and expected the male friends to use more dismiss behaviors in response to a relationship problem. Females expected their female friends to use more solve and support behaviors in response to relationship than task problems, and for their male friends to use more dismiss and escape behaviors in response to problems. Directions for future research on interactive support seeking are suggested.

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