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Better off saying nothing at all?: Improving difficult social interactions by understanding fears and language use

最好什么都不说？：通过理解恐惧和语言使用来改善困难的社交互动

基本信息

批准号：
ES/R004838/1
负责人：
Gillian Sandstrom
金额：
$ 30.57万
依托单位：
University of Essex
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Research Grant
财政年份：
2018
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2018 至无数据
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FR004838%2F1
关键词：
Better off saying nothing Improving

项目摘要

Humans are social beings who need to feel connected to people, and understood by others in order to thrive. When this need to belong is not met, there are serious negative consequences for physical and mental health. Indeed, loneliness puts people at as much risk of early death as smoking, and at greater risk than obesity (Holt-Lunstad, Smith & Layton, 2010). Loneliness is a widespread social issue in the UK; a recent poll conducted by the Jo Cox commission on loneliness found that "almost three-quarters of older people in the UK are lonely" (The Guardian, 2017). Given the prevalence of loneliness, and its negative consequences, it is crucial to understand the intrapersonal and situational barriers that discourage people from talking to one another, and thus constrain people from fulfilling their need to belong. An understanding of these barriers will form the basis of interventions to encourage more frequent - and more positive - interactions. People generally enjoy socializing and spend a great deal of time talking, but in certain situations they struggle to know what words to say. For example, most people find it challenging to talk to someone who is experiencing a difficult situation (e.g., a cancer diagnosis, the loss of a loved one). It is said that in times of trouble, you find out who your real friends are; the people who let you down decide they're better off to say nothing at all rather than say the "wrong" thing. What exactly are people worried about, and are there actually "wrong" things to say? This project will address these questions, and draw upon the answers to identify ways of increasing the frequency and quality of interactions, thus improving the social support people receive when they need it most.My recent research has focused on talking to strangers - another situation that finds many people at a loss for words. I have found that, although talking to strangers is generally enjoyable and makes people feel connected, people report a wide range of worries about doing it. The proposed project will build upon this work by examining not only how people feel before social interactions, but also what they say during interactions. Importantly, this project will go beyond the single situation of talking to a stranger, to test the extent to which these predictors of interaction success (i.e., how people feel and what they say) are similar across situations (e.g., talking to a person of a different ethnicity, a wheelchair user, a cancer patient). Evidence of similarities across people and situations will prove invaluable in developing interventions to improve interaction success. This project will begin by collecting descriptive information about 1) the worries people have when considering different types of social interactions ("fears"; e.g., their partner might not talk enough, or might not like them), and 2) the things people wish that others would and would not say ("phrases"; e.g., both cancer patients and people living with disability dislike it when people tell them they're "so brave"). Next, I will extract themes from these qualitative responses, and develop survey instruments to assess fears and phrase use. This will allow me to quantitatively examine the extent to which fears and phrase use vary between people (i.e., related to individual differences) and within people (i.e., related to the situation). Then I will run experiments to examine the effects of fears and phrases on interaction success in real-life social interactions, ultimately testing interventions with the goal of increasing interaction success. The research findings will be of interest to health care professionals, and a range of social organisations that work to fight loneliness, to encourage social acceptance and integration (e.g., for the disabled, for minority ethnic people), or to support people confronting difficult situations (e.g., bereavement, serious illness).

人类是社会性的存在，他们需要感受到与人的联系，并被他人理解，才能茁壮成长。当这种归属感得不到满足时，就会对身心健康造成严重的负面后果。事实上，孤独使人们面临与吸烟一样的早逝风险，并且比肥胖的风险更大(Holt-Lunstad，Smith&Layton，2010)。孤独感在英国是一个普遍的社会问题；乔·考克斯委员会最近进行的一项关于孤独感的民意调查发现，“英国近四分之三的老年人感到孤独”(《卫报》，2017)。鉴于孤独的普遍存在及其负面后果，了解个人内部和情景障碍至关重要，这些障碍阻碍了人们相互交谈，从而限制了人们满足归属感的需求。对这些障碍的理解将构成干预措施的基础，以鼓励更频繁、更积极的互动。人们通常喜欢社交，花大量时间交谈，但在某些情况下，他们很难知道该说什么。例如，大多数人发现与正在经历困难处境(例如癌症诊断、失去亲人)的人交谈是一件具有挑战性的事情。据说，在遇到麻烦的时候，你会发现谁是你真正的朋友；那些让你失望的人认为，他们最好什么都不说，而不是说错的事情。人们到底在担心什么，真的有什么“错误”的事情要说吗？这个项目将解决这些问题，并从答案中找出提高互动频率和质量的方法，从而在人们最需要的时候改善他们得到的社会支持。我最近的研究集中在与陌生人交谈--另一种情况下，许多人无话可说。我发现，尽管与陌生人交谈通常是一件令人愉快的事情，并让人感觉到彼此之间的联系，但人们报告说，人们对这样做有广泛的担忧。拟议的项目将建立在这项工作的基础上，不仅考察人们在社交互动之前的感受，还考察他们在互动过程中说了什么。重要的是，这个项目将超越与陌生人交谈的单一情况，测试这些预测互动成功的因素(即，人们的感受和他们说的话)在不同情况下(例如，与不同种族的人交谈、轮椅使用者、癌症患者)的相似程度。事实证明，不同人和不同情况之间相似之处的证据在制定干预措施以改善互动成功方面将是非常宝贵的。这个项目将首先收集关于1)人们在考虑不同类型的社交互动时的担忧(“恐惧”；例如，他们的伴侣可能说得不够多，或者可能不喜欢他们)的描述性信息，以及2)人们希望别人说和不想说的事情(“短语”；例如，癌症患者和残疾人都不喜欢别人告诉他们他们“太勇敢了”)。接下来，我将从这些定性的回答中提取主题，并开发调查工具来评估恐惧和短语的使用。这将使我能够定量地检查人与人之间(即与个体差异有关)和人内部(即与情况有关)的恐惧和短语使用的不同程度。然后，我将进行实验，以检验恐惧和短语对现实社会互动中互动成功的影响，最终测试干预措施，目标是增加互动成功。卫生保健专业人员以及致力于战胜孤独、鼓励社会接纳和融合(如残疾人、少数族裔)或支持面临困难处境(如丧亲、重病)的人的一系列社会组织将对研究结果感兴趣。