Success Bias and Inflation Bias After Planning and Communicating Emotional Support
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Success Bias and Inflation Bias After Planning and Communicating Emotional Support Colter D. Ray 1
&
Kory Floyd 2 & Paul A. Mongeau 3 & Ashley K. Randall 4
# American Association for Cancer Education 2019
Abstract This study investigates the potential for cancer patients’ supporters to experience cognitive biases after communicating emotional support messages. A success bias was predicted, such that those who planned their messages would rate those messages as more effective in comparison with those who did not plan their messages (H1a-H1c). An inflation bias was also predicted, such that supporters would rate their messages as more effective than cancer patients who also rated the messages (H2a-H2c). One hundred laboratory participants were randomly assigned to a planning or distraction task before recording an emotional support message for a friend who had hypothetically been diagnosed with cancer. Laboratory participants rated their own messages in terms of relational assurances, problem-solving utility, and emotional awareness. Subsequently, cancer patients viewed and rated the laboratory participants’ messages on the same characteristics. Participants who planned their messages rated their messages significantly higher than those who did not plan their messages in terms of relational assurance and problem-solving utility but not emotional awareness. Irrespective of planning or distraction condition, participants also rated their messages significantly higher on all three dependent variables than did cancer patients. Supporters should be aware of the propensity to overrate their supportive abilities and guard against the assumption that planning messages results in more effective support messages. Keywords Cancer . Oncology . Inflation bias . Success bias . Emotional support . Message planning . Cognitive bias
Most adults possess the cognitive abilities to plan messages before communicating and often engage in message planning to achieve a variety of social goals [1, 2]. One important social goal following a cancer diagnosis is effectively communicating emotional support messages to the diagnosed individual. Indeed, receiving emotional support is an important part of the coping process for cancer patients [3–5]; however, not all emotional support messages are equally effective [6, 7]. Although some emotional support messages may be perceived negatively for a variety of reasons [6], and although supporters * Colter D. Ray [email protected] 1
School of Communication and Center for Communication, Health, and the Public Good, San Diego State University, 5500 Campanile Drive, San Diego, CA 92182-4560, USA
2
Department of Communication, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA
3
Hugh Downs School of Human Communication, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA
4
Department of Counseling and Counseling Psychology, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA
recognize the potential for supportive interactions to go poorly [8], people rarely assess the effectiveness of their planned messages [1, 9]. Furthermore, th
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