Support's effects differ - above and below baselines!

Announcing a new paper (principal author - Eran Bar-Kalifa) showing that support receipt matters mostly up to individualized baselines. Congratulations, Eran!

Here's the summary pargraph from the paper:

Our findings, inspired by Social Baseline Theory (Beckes & Coan, 2011) and utilizing piecewise

within-person analyses, demonstrated how, when considered in reference to these baseline

points, emotional support exerts positive effects as long as it does not exceed one’s

baseline but becomes rather inert beyond this baseline. These findings stress the complex

nature of dyadic emotional support, and the need for appropriately complex methods and

measures to study this important relational construct. Moreover, they can inform relationship

scientists and practitioners who are interested in increasing the skillfulness of

dyadic support. Currently, most relationship-focused prevention and intervention programs

tend to highlight communication and problem-solving skills (e.g., Markman,

Renick, Floyd, Stanley, & Clements, 1993), whereas fewer programs address social support

processes (cf., Bodenmann & Randall, 2012). SBT, and particularly its implications

for dyadic support and coping evident in our findings, may offer a valuable addition to

such programs and may increase the utility of addressing social support within them.

The full paper can be found here.

Update: See the July 10th 2014 blog entry about this paper - and Eran's interview on JSPR's official podcast!