The analyzed articles “Interpersonal Motives and Supportive Communication” by Frisby & Martin (2010) and “Emotional Support, Conflict, Depression, and Relationship Satisfaction in a Romantic Partner” by Cramer (2004) aimed to find the correlation of the supportive behavior with other variables, such as communication motives in the first article and relationship satisfaction in the second one. Both papers present a deeper insight into the notion of support communication, how it is usually organized, which factors influence the outcomes of such communication and why people change various types of supportive behavior. The researchers did not focus on the verbal or non-verbal expressions of support, but assessed the general attitude of the participants towards this types of interrelation.
It is worth comparing two articles in order to decide, which approach is likely to better discover and analyze supportive schemes in our society. Summary of similar and distinct features can help to assess the advantages and disadvantages of each method. The scholars defined and stated the initial hypothesis and the research question of the study. Frisby and Martin (2010) were more explicit about the principal focus of their study and aimed to find out, whether individuals, who reported communicating for pleasure, relaxation, affection or inclusion motives, used more supportive behaviors (Frisby & Martin 322). Subsequently the results of their findings presented support of the initial hypothesis with the exception of relaxation motive, which was unlikely to be associated with frequent supportive behavior. Cramer (2004) did not use the terms of initial hypothesis or research question, but clearly indicated the goal of his study – to determine the contribution of support and conflict to the overall satisfaction with a relationship and wanted to compare his findings with those of Pasch and Bradbary (1998), who wrote that conflict and support equally contributed to the relationship success, but eventually concluded, that the direct comparison was impossible. Although both scholarly groups presented a detailed and large literature review of their topics, Frisby and Martin (2010) were more consistent and clear in their definitions. They presented the explanation of the key terms, types of support and six interpersonal communication motives, whereas Cramer (2004) did not exactly show, what terms support, conflict and satisfaction meant, so the reader has to rely on his or her personal experience and intuition. This difference makes one believe, that the first articles is probably aimed at a wider and rather lay audience.
Another distinct feature is the construction of research samples and selection of the target studied group: Frisby and Martin (2010) asked their student to recruit one friend and parent, Cramer (2004) examined the students themselves, observed the dating couples and emphasized the gender distinction in that case. The choice of participants can be explained by the actual aim of the study, because in the first case the authors wanted to investigate various types of supportive behaviors and in the second study, the author wanted to test people’s being ready to support and general level of relationship satisfaction. In both academic contributions survey was used as a primary instrument of the study and each participant was to fill out the questionnaire to assess his or her support models. The sample of the first article was larger and there were the 119 parents and 133 friends involved, whereas the second study included 76 women and 35 men, who were currently engaged in the romantic relationship. Cramer (2004) justified his choice of self-report rather than observational measures, stating that asking and observing of couples would have many drawbacks, such as time limitations, personal distress and avoidance of certain problematic issues (Cramer 534). As for me, I consider such a kind of elicitation to be not entirely appropriate, because it is very subjective and just as in discourse completion tasks, when people need to finish the statements, may be very subjective and biased. However, I do understand that video- or tape-recording would be even more effort- and time-consuming. I would also suggest to conduct observational studies of the couple interpersonal communication or parents talking to their children, because this kind of empirical research would bring up more objective and bias-free facts about supportive models and approaches.
Frisby and Martin (2010) used the Social Support Behavior Scale and Interpersonal Communication Motives Scale to asses the support and Cramer (2004) used the Relationship Assessment Scale to measure the relationship satisfaction. Both groups of researchers analyzed the obtained data with the help of statistical analysis, providing medians and standard deviations within the observed groups of participants. In the first case canonical correlation analysis was used to assess the data, because it enabled the researchers to show the correlation between two sets of variables, namely between supportive behaviors and communication motives. Cramer (2004) used the structural equation modeling LISREL to show the path of each construct to its indicator and therefore, he was able to show whether the measured variable of relationship satisfaction was largely dependent on the conflict and support latent variables. All in all, both studies presented very accurate and precise accounts of information, logical assumptions and induction helped to verify or falsify the initial ideas of the authors.
Such studies are very important, because they can solve and interpret a number of social and interpersonal phenomena, find the reasons for problem of miscommunication and misunderstanding and serve as good starting points for further research and experiments in the sphere of interpersonal communication.
Works cited
Cramer, Dunkan. “Emotional Support, Conflict, Depression, and Relationship Satisfaction in
a Romantic Partner”. The Journal of Psychology 138(6) 2004: 532-542. Web. 22 May 2016.
Frisby, Brandi; Martin, Matthew. “Interpersonal Motives and Supportive Communication”.
Communication Research Reports 27 (4) 2010: 320-329. Web. 22 May. 2016.
