Who talks? The social psychology of illness support groups.
TL;DR: Support seeking was highest for diseases viewed as stigmatizing and was lowest for less embarrassing but equally devastating disorders, such as heart disease, and implications for social comparison theory and its applications in health care are discussed.
Abstract: More Americans try to change their health behaviors through self-help than through all other forms of professionally designed programs. Mutual support groups, involving little or no cost to participants, have a powerful effect on mental and physical health, yet little is known about patterns of support group participation in health care. What kinds of illness experiences prompt patients to seek each other's company? In an effort to observe social comparison processes with real-world relevance, support group participation was measured for 20 disease categories in 4 metropolitan areas (New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Dallas) and on 2 on-line forums. Support seeking was highest for diseases viewed as stigmatizing (e.g., AIDS, alcoholism, breast and prostate cancer) and was lowest for less embarrassing but equally devastating disorders, such as heart disease. The authors discuss implications for social comparison theory and its applications in health care.
Citations
More filters
06 May 2016
9 citations
01 Aug 2015
9 citations
Cites background from "Who talks? The social psychology of..."
...Anonymity also impacts disclosure habits; for example, people with stigmatized conditions are more likely to participate in OSGs partially because they can reap the benefits of a traditional support group without having to reveal their identity (Davison et al., 2000; Lawlor & 32 Kirakowski, 2014)....
[...]
...It’s also easier to be passive, or to lurk, in an OSG, while it is much more difficult to lurk in a face-to-face support group, which requires more reciprocity from members (Davison et al., 2000)....
[...]
...Furthermore, different diseases have different representation online: people with rare diseases or stigmatized conditions are more likely to seek support from OSGs when compared with more common or less stigmatized diseases (Davison et al., 2000; Howard, 2014)....
[...]
TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on what some would regard as the primary goal of research in communication, i.e., the chance that their theories and investigations can help people have better lives.
Abstract: Ours is a voluntary walk of life. A person can fall into being a store manager or broker, but not a professor. We must choose it, aim at it, and persist in it for many years. This highlights the importance of our personal motivations, matters that are systematically omitted from our research reports and CV’s. Some of us come to this profession for no more reason than that it is intellectually engaging. But many choose this path (or hold to it) because it offers the chance of helping people, individually or in groups. This motivation can vary from radical activism at one extreme to quiet supportiveness on the other. We hope, of course, that we are improving the lives of the students we teach. Some aim to do this with their research as well. This forum is concerned with what some would regard as a primary goal of research in communication*the chance that our theories and investigations can help people have better lives. This might be reflected in their relational satisfactions, their emotional or physical health, the opportunity to find peace in a challenging moment, or some other private benefit. This Forum’s four contributing scholars are each notable for having done work that is simultaneously recognized as being both theoretically advanced and immediately beneficial. The three essays of course began with the writers’ own work, but insistently expanded to more general matters. Can we develop procedures that will reliably improve the quality of other people’s lives? Can we extend emotional resources to people who need them? Can we learn to control our angry verbal impulses? The papers have value not only for their answers to these particular questions, but also as exemplars of work that has been self-consciously directed at improving the lives of people outside the academy.
9 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the issue of stigma has been cited as a contributing factor for the fact that most people do not seek help for their gambling problems, and the inherent advantages of the Internet (privacy, convenience, safety and portability) help to ensure that assistance for problem gamblers is always available and that concerns about stigma are neutralized.
Abstract: Despite an increasing prevalence of gambling problems, evidence suggests that most people do not receive help for their problems. The issue of stigma has been cited as a contributing factor. Technological advances have now made it possible for individuals who are concerned about stigma to seek help for their problems without making any personal disclosures. In this way, the inherent advantages of the Internet (privacy, convenience, safety and portability) help to ensure that assistance for problem gamblers is always available and that concerns about stigma are neutralized. Unfortunately, many who might benefit from Internet-based help are unaware of these possibilities, and treatment specialists and other health-care professionals may not direct problem gamblers to these services. This paper considers: 1. What is available to problem gamblers through the Internet? 2. What is known about the efficacy of such services?, and 3. Possible reasons why problem gamblers have not been referred to the Internet by point-of-entry personnel. Implications for future action will be discussed.
9 citations
References
More filters
TL;DR: In this article, the authors pointed out that there is a strong functional tie between opinions and abilities in humans and that the ability evaluation of an individual can be expressed as a comparison of the performance of a particular ability with other abilities.
Abstract: Hypothesis I: There exists, in the human organism, a drive to evaluate his opinions and his abilities. While opinions and abilities may, at first glance, seem to be quite different things, there is a close functional tie between them. They act together in the manner in which they affect behavior. A person’s cognition (his opinions and beliefs) about the situation in which he exists and his appraisals of what he is capable of doing (his evaluation of his abilities) will together have bearing on his behavior. The holding of incorrect opinions and/or inaccurate appraisals of one’s abilities can be punishing or even fatal in many situations. It is necessary, before we proceed, to clarify the distinction between opinions and evaluations of abilities since at first glance it may seem that one’s evaluation of one’s own ability is an opinion about it. Abilities are of course manifested only through performance which is assumed to depend upon the particular ability. The clarity of the manifestation or performance can vary from instances where there is no clear ordering criterion of the ability to instances where the performance which reflects the ability can be clearly ordered. In the former case, the evaluation of the ability does function like other opinions which are not directly testable in “objective reality’. For example, a person’s evaluation of his ability to write poetry will depend to a large extent on the opinions which others have of his ability to write poetry. In cases where the criterion is unambiguous and can be clearly ordered, this furnishes an objective reality for the evaluation of one’s ability so that it depends less on the opinions of other persons and depends more on actual comparison of one’s performance with the performance of others. Thus, if a person evaluates his running ability, he will do so by comparing his time to run some distance with the times that other persons have taken. In the following pages, when we talk about evaluating an ability, we shall mean specifically the evaluation of that ability in situations where the performance is unambiguous and is known. Most situations in real life will, of course, present situations which are a mixture of opinion and ability evaluation. In a previous article (7) the author posited the existence of a drive to determine whether or not one’s opinions were “correct”. We are here stating that this same drive also produces behavior in people oriented toward obtaining an accurate appraisal of their abilities. The behavioral implication of the existence of such a drive is that we would expect to observe behaviour on the part of persons which enables them to ascertain whether or not their opinions are correct and also behavior which enables them accurately to evaluate their abilities. It is consequently
16,927 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1878
TL;DR: The Red River of the North basin of the Philippines was considered a part of the Louisiana Purchase by the United States Department of Commerce in the 1939 Census Atlas of the United Philippines as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: 1 Includes drainage basin of Red River of the North, not a part of any accession, but in the past sometimes considered a part of the Louisiana Purchase. i Includes Baker, Canton, Enderbury, Rowland, Jarvis, Johnston, and Midway Islands; and also certain other outlying islands (21 square miles). 3 Commonwealth of the Philippines, Commission of the Census; 1939 Census, Census Atlas of the Philippines. Source: Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census.
10,650 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1970TL;DR: Yalom as mentioned in this paper described the course of therapy from both the patient's and the therapist's viewpoint in Encounter Groups: First Facts (1973) and Every Day gets a Little Closer: A Twice-Told Therapy (1974).
Abstract: This book first appeared in 1970 and has gone into two further editions, one in 1975 and this one in 1985. Yalom is also the author of Existential Psychotherapy (1980), In-patient Group Psychotherapy (1983), the co-author with Lieberman of Encounter Groups: First Facts (1973) and with Elkin of Every Day Gets a Little Closer: A Twice-Told Therapy (1974) (which recounts the course of therapy from the patient's and the therapist's viewpoint). The present book is the central work of the set and seems to me the most substantial. It is also one of the most readable of his works because of its straightforward style and the liberal use of clinical examples.
4,235 citations
"Who talks? The social psychology of..." refers background in this paper
...In a similar vein, Yalom (1995) has asserted that self-help groups offer a unique venue for growth, social experimentation, and change....
[...]
TL;DR: Greater use of the Internet was associated with declines in participants' communication with family members in the household, declines in the size of their social circle, and increases in their depression and loneliness.
Abstract: The Internet could change the lives of average citizens as much as did the telephone in the early part of the 20th century and television in the 1950s and 1960s. Researchers and social critics are debating whether the Internet is improving or harming participation in community life and social relationships. This research examined the social and psychological impact of the Internet on 169 people in 73 households during their first 1 to 2 years on-line. We used longitudinal data to examine the effects of the Internet on social involvement and psychological well-being. In this sample, the Internet was used extensively for communication. Nonetheless, greater use of the Internet was associated with declines in participants' communication with family members in the household, declines in the size of their social circle, and increases in their depression and loneliness. These findings have implications for research, for public policy and for the design of technology.
4,091 citations
3,765 citations