Responsive support: A matter of psychological need fulfillment (a new paper in Current Opinion in Psychology)

We're excited to announce a new theoretical article by Elad Refoua and Eshkol, published in Current Opinion in Psychology as part of a special issue on "Listening & Responsiveness" edited by our colleagues, Guy Itzchakov and Harry Reis.

The broader special issue explores recent research on the roles of high-quality listening and of perceived responsiveness in shaping social connections. Our paper, which appears alongside contributions from a really stellar group of social, clinical, developmental, and organizational relationship researchers, posits that responsive support might be best understood by thinking about psychological need fulfillment. Here's the abstract:

Skillful responsive support facilitates coping with stressors and overcoming challenges. We posit that support responsiveness is best understood through the prism of psychological need fulfillment and as varying along two dimensions. The horizontal dimension speaks to the specificity and breadth of support (i.e., which needs, and how many, are addressed by it, respectively). The vertical dimension speaks to the degree to which support is enacted, or perceived to be enacted, in ways that touch on self-coherence needs for meaning and identity, needs tied most strongly to recipients’ core selves. Empathic identification of psychological needs and of their deeper structure, often achieved through good listening, is argued to be the key for effective responsive support.

The special issue: https://www.sciencedirect.com/special-issue/10LRDZMTMXS

The article itself: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352250X23001367