Discovering the Fabric of Supportive Conversations: A Typology of Speaking Turns and Their Contingencies

This study examines messages that problem disclosers and supportive listeners enact during conversations about everyday stressors. We coded 402 dyadic interactions between strangers, friends, and romantic couples using Stiles’s (1992) verbal response modes (VRM) and Burleson’s (1982) verbal person centeredness (PC) typology to explore whether (a) listener and discloser utterances coalesce into types of speaking turns, (b) listener turn types vary in person-centered quality, (c) listener turns relate to discloser responses, and (d) discloser responses relate to listener turns. Analyses revealed a typology for both listener and discloser turns: acknowledgment, advisement, question, elaboration, hedged disclosure, and reflection. The relative proportion of those types varied as a function of conversational role and relationship context, and these speech acts varied only minimally in PC. Configural frequency analyses revealed four greater-than-chance contingencies across data sets. The discussion highlights implications for a dyadic and dynamic understanding of supportive communication.

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Work Title Discovering the Fabric of Supportive Conversations: A Typology of Speaking Turns and Their Contingencies
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Open Access
Creators
  1. Graham D. Bodie
  2. Susanne M. Jones
  3. Miriam Brinberg
  4. Amy M. Joyer
  5. Denise Haunani Solomon
  6. Nilam Ram
License In Copyright (Rights Reserved)
Work Type Article
Publisher
  1. Journal of Language and Social Psychology
Publication Date March 1, 2021
Publisher Identifier (DOI)
  1. https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927X20953604
Deposited January 19, 2022

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  • Created
  • Added Discovering_Fabric__all__FINAL.docx
  • Added Creator Graham D. Bodie
  • Added Creator Susanne M. Jones
  • Added Creator Miriam Brinberg
  • Added Creator Amy M. Joyer
  • Added Creator Denise Haunani Solomon
  • Added Creator Nilam Ram
  • Published
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