Andrew C High
Biographic Data
| ID | 761912 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Andrew C High |
| GIVEN NAMES | Andrew C |
| FAMILY NAME | High |
| SIGNATURE | HIGH A C |
| AFFILIATIONS | Pennsylvania State University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9397-6875 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 35 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 151 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 35 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Direct and Indirect Effects of Communication Channel and Perceived Affordances on Perceptions of Support
This project investigated a dyadic account of supportive conversations among friends across different communication modalities. An affordance-based framework explored whether and how different communication channels shaped support receivers’ or providers’ perceptions of supportive conversations. Friends (N = 246 dyads) participated in an experiment by engaging in a supportive conversation that occurred either face-to-face, via text messaging, or …
The Role of Supportive Messages, Appraisals, and Attributions in Facilitating Cognitive Reappraisal of Bullying
This study examined how supportive messages that varied in their levels of person-centeredness or conveyed the notion that bullies can change influenced people’s cognitions about bullying. The sample included 304 adults who were facing ongoing bullying, and they provided their appraisals and attributions of the situation before and after receiving experimentally manipulated messages. Unexpectedly, repeated measures analyses revealed that low pers…
The Effects of Closeness and Relational Uncertainty on Support Gaps
The current study examines the influence of relational characteristics, in particular closeness and relational uncertainty, on the prevalence of the support gaps people experience with a romantic partner. Participants currently in a romantic relationship responded to a questionnaire about their relationship, a stressful event they recently experienced, and how much support they desired and received from their partner. Results indicate that closen…
Measurement invariance of core communication constructs across race, nationality, and age
Communication science has been criticized for relying on WEIRD samples. One question that arises from such criticisms is whether core communication constructs and measures generalize to different demographic groups. In other words, are measures of common communication variables interpreted similarly across groups? In this study, we assess the measurement invariance of numerous scales that are used commonly in research on communication science acr…
Conflicting Goals When Seeking Support for Mental Health Concerns
A stigma support activation model (SSAM) describing how stigma influences support and impression management goals, which in turn shape support seeking message characteristics is proposed. The model was empirically tested with a national sample of people with mental health concerns ( N = 317), who completed an online survey about a recent time they sought support for their mental health. Results were generally consistent with the proposed model, s…
Stigma and Supportive Communication in the Context of Mental or Emotional Distress
Supportive communication can benefit people coping with the stigma that often accompanies mental or emotional distress; however, people might be reluctant to seek support effectively, if at all, for these types of stressors. Guided by the paradox of support seeking, this study expands understanding of how and why people seek support by examining multiple dimensions of stigma, exploring factors that hinder or facilitate people’s decision to seek s…
Advice Response Theory
Since its inception, advice response theory (ART) has generated considerable research on informational support. Because empirical support for the theory is not uniform, we conducted a series of meta-analyses to synthesize existing evidence and evaluate theoretical claims. Consistent with ART, advice message features were positively associated with advice outcomes; however, the associations between provider characteristics and advice outcomes rece…
Associations between interactions with support providers and depression during times of isolation
Integrating aspects of social interaction and communicating via technology, this study examines perceived support as a mechanism through which frequent interactions with support providers are linked to depression. Building off of Taylor and Bazarova’s (2018) developments to media multiplexity theory, it also theorizes and tests the moderating effect of multiple forms of media multiplexity, including average multiplexity, overall multiplexity, and…
On the nature of influence
An important component of theoretical and applied work on social influence is identifying influential people. Boster et al.'s theoretical framework on superdiffusers provides one method of doing so, but important questions on the nature of influence remain. In particular, because existing studies have primarily sampled U.S. college students, it remains unclear whether (a) the framework adequately characterizes superdiffusers in different populati…
Examining the Attributional Links Between Message Quality and Outcomes of Emotional Support Received on Facebook
Facebook users can receive high quality emotional support in response to their posts, but not all emotional support is of the same quality nor does it all benefit support receivers. Receivers’ perceptions of supportive messages influence the outcomes they experience. This study assessed support receivers’ attributions for the helpful support offered to them on Facebook to understand how their perceptions of the causes of that support may explain …
Beyond ‘Lulz' and ‘Keyboard warriors'
Despite the similar psychological profiles of internet trolls and radicalized political actors, as well as the historical connections between trolling and the alt-right, little research has studied how trolling corresponds with the process of radicalization. Our study examines this relationship between trolling and radicalization by interrogating two pieces of folk wisdom about internet trolls, that they only care about ‘the lulz’ and that they a…
Seeking Support Online
The affordances of online channels can influence communication, and communicators sometimes value affordances differently in different relationships. This study examines how two affordances, anonymity and visibility, combine with relationship closeness to shape how people seek support online. Participants ( N = 171) composed a support-seeking message they imagined sending to various audiences in one of several online channels. Participants and ou…
The exception proves the rule
Technology, relationships, and well-being
Technology, relationships, and well-being represent three influential parts of our daily lives. They also represent a common area of research for scholars in a variety of disciplines. Here, we offer guidance for researchers interested in studying the connections among these issues and introduce the special issue in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships focused on the confluence of these topics. We take each issue in turn, along with th…
Computer-Mediated Communication and Well-Being in the Age of Social Media
The association between computer-mediated communication (CMC) and well-being is a complex, consequential, and hotly debated topic that has received significant attention from pundits, researchers, and the media. Conflicting research findings and fear over negative outcomes have spurred both moral panic and further research into these associations. To create a more comprehensive picture of trends, explanations, and future directions in this domain…
Using racial discourse communities to audit personalization algorithms
Personalization algorithms are the information undercurrent of the digital age. They learn users’ behaviors and tailor content to individual interests and predicted tastes. These algorithms, in turn, categorize and represent these users back to society—culturally, politically, and racially. Researchers audit personalization algorithms to critique the ways bias is perpetuated within these systems. Yet, research examining the relationship between p…
Caregiving in academia
In the face of prolonged stress, care professionals, including educators, often experience higher rates of burnout and worsened mental well‐being. As school systems across the United States reconsidered their instructional practices in an effort to curtail the spread of COVID‐19, educators have had to navigate a new academic landscape hallmarked by change, stress, burnout, and hopefully resilience. Guided by the theory of resilience and relationa…
Language use in online support provision
People benefit from high-quality supportive messages online, yet the production of these messages is a complex process that is shaped by multiple factors. As informed by the lens model, this study seeks to investigate the interplay of third party’s supportive messages as a form of behavioral residue and the support seeker’s seeking strategy as an identity claim on providers’ language use in supportive messages conveyed in public and private chann…
I Get by With a Little Help From My Bots
In this manuscript we discuss the increasing use of machine agents as potential sources of support for humans. Continued examination of the use of machine agents, particularly chatbots (or “bots”) for support is crucial as more supportive interactions occur with these technologies. Building off extant research on supportive communication, this manuscript reviews research that has implications for bots as support providers. At the culmination of t…
Trust in Online Search Results During Uncertain Times
Drawing from the layer model of trust, this study examines what factors influence the perceived quality of search results. Participants (N = 256) conducted searches about current events and evaluated the quality of the results they received along with their trust in technology and attitudes toward the search topic. Consistent with the layer model of trust, people’s propensity to trust technology corresponded with greater perceptions of search qua…
Indirect effects of video chat on outcomes of receiving support
This study integrates theorizing about supportive communication and computer-mediated communication to investigate how features of the interactional context, social presence, and evaluations of supportive messages shape recipients’ emotional improvement. Participants (N = 139) reported to the lab with a friend, where they were randomly assigned to experimental conditions that varied the lighting quality of the physical setting and screen size of …
The Effects of Person-Centered Social Support Messages on Recipient Distress Over Time within a Conversation
Although prior research documents the benefits of supportive messages containing higher levels of verbal person centeredness (VPC), the effects of this message property over time within a discussion are not well understood. This project evaluated predictions about the effects of high and low VPC messages over time drawn from the theory of conversationally induced reappraisals and the dual-process model of supportive communication outcomes. Partic…
Examining relationships among strategies of social information seeking on Facebook and perceived accuracy of information through warranting value and source trust
Strategies of information seeking (IS) about other people on social network sites have been examined in various interpersonal relationships. However, research has yet to account for whether, how, or why different strategies yield information of different quality. This study employs perceived warranting value and characteristics of a source as explanatory mechanisms to account for the relationship between strategies of IS and the perceived accurac…
Broadcasting for help
Social network sites are desirable media through which to seek supportive communication, and users can signal a need for assistance to large, diverse pools of potential support providers with a single message. According to social information processing theory, support seekers adapt to the lack of nonverbal cues online by leveraging the verbal elements of messages. This study classifies the variety of verbal strategies that Facebook users employ t…
Receiving supportive communication from Facebook friends
This study distinguishes perceptions of, preferences for, and outcomes related to people's social ties online. It expands understanding of when and why using social network sites (SNSs) provides people with several types of supportive communication by integrating users' social capital and preference for weak tie support. Prior research is synthesized and extended to build a heuristic model of social ties and supportive communication in SNSs that …
An Examination of Support (In)Adequacy
This study investigated gaps between the supportive communication people desire and receive in the context of infertility. Our findings advance the notion of support adequacy by positioning social support as a dynamic resource that is contributed to from a variety of sources in numerous ways. A community sample of 301 infertile women indicated that they experience discrepancies in the support they desire compared to what they receive from their s…
Widening the gap
Women frequently turn to other women for support to cope with stressors. The support they receive, however, is often not what they need or even expect from a friend. Based upon differences in racial backgrounds, this study tests whether the racial composition of female friendship dyads influences the experience of support gaps, or discrepancies among the types and amount of support women need, expect, and receive, as well as the outcomes associat…
Examining Family Communication Patterns and Seeking Social Support Direct and Indirect Effects Through Ability and Motivation
Seeking social support remains a relatively understudied aspect of supportive communication. By integrating the literatures on family communication patterns (FCPs) and supportive communication, this study examines dispositional factors that influence support seeking in particular situations. Specifically, communicative ability and motivation to seek support were theorized to mediate the relationship between FCPs and recalled strategies of support…
Communication Channel, Sex, and the Immediate and Longitudinal Outcomes of Verbal Person-centered Support
This study extended research on verbal person-centered (VPC) support by studying VPC in conversations, examining perceptions of support providers and receivers, testing the influence of different communication channels, and evaluating longitudinal outcomes. Two hundred fifty-five dyads composed either of two men, two women, or one man and one woman interacted in a laboratory wherein channel and level of VPC were manipulated. Evaluations of suppor…
Explaining the Durable Effects of Verbal Person-Centered Supportive Communication
Researchers have documented benefits from receiving supportive messages high in verbal person-centeredness (VPC), but the processes through which such messages produce longitudinal effects remain unclear. This study evaluated two perspectives (i.e., indirect effects and invisible support) that address how supportive messages can produce durable effects and tested sex differences in those effects. 255 dyads completed a laboratory-based interaction…
Receiving supportive communication from Facebook friends
This study distinguishes perceptions of, preferences for, and outcomes related to people's social ties online. It expands understanding of when and why using social network sites (SNSs) provides people with several types of supportive communication by integrating users' social capital and preference for weak tie support. Prior research is synthesized and extended to build a heuristic model of social ties and supportive communication in SNSs that …
Anyone free to chat?” Using technological features to elicit quality support online
This study examines how support seekers can integrate verbal and nonverbal cues in social network sites (SNSs) to elicit quality support from others. Building from sensitive interaction systems theory and verbal person centeredness (VPC), participants (N = 579) evaluated a SNS profile that contained manipulated levels of directness in status updates used to seek support and nonverbal emotional expression in profile pictures. To capture the transa…
Technology, relationships, and well-being
Technology, relationships, and well-being represent three influential parts of our daily lives. They also represent a common area of research for scholars in a variety of disciplines. Here, we offer guidance for researchers interested in studying the connections among these issues and introduce the special issue in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships focused on the confluence of these topics. We take each issue in turn, along with th…
An idealized self or the real me? Predicting attraction to online dating profiles using selective self-presentation and warranting
Online daters construct their profiles to attract potential partners and viewers’ assessments are based on the content of dating profiles. However, little is known about the mechanisms or nature of the associations that connect variations in profile content to outcomes. This study examined the presence of selective self-presentation (SSP) and warranting content as predictors of viewers’ impressions and intentions to act on dating profiles. A nati…
Compliance Dynamics Within a Friendship Network II
Social networks play a critical role in people's responses to influence attempts, determining whether a person seeks the support of others as an alternative to compliance or as a way to cope with being the target of an influence attempt. In 2 experiments (N = 458 and N = 105), sociograms were used to represent social relationships and to investigate the social network member who would be sought for social support after an influence attempt. Resul…
Examining relationships among strategies of social information seeking on Facebook and perceived accuracy of information through warranting value and source trust
Strategies of information seeking (IS) about other people on social network sites have been examined in various interpersonal relationships. However, research has yet to account for whether, how, or why different strategies yield information of different quality. This study employs perceived warranting value and characteristics of a source as explanatory mechanisms to account for the relationship between strategies of IS and the perceived accurac…
Broadcasting for help
Social network sites are desirable media through which to seek supportive communication, and users can signal a need for assistance to large, diverse pools of potential support providers with a single message. According to social information processing theory, support seekers adapt to the lack of nonverbal cues online by leveraging the verbal elements of messages. This study classifies the variety of verbal strategies that Facebook users employ t…
Indirect effects of video chat on outcomes of receiving support
This study integrates theorizing about supportive communication and computer-mediated communication to investigate how features of the interactional context, social presence, and evaluations of supportive messages shape recipients’ emotional improvement. Participants (N = 139) reported to the lab with a friend, where they were randomly assigned to experimental conditions that varied the lighting quality of the physical setting and screen size of …
Using racial discourse communities to audit personalization algorithms
Personalization algorithms are the information undercurrent of the digital age. They learn users’ behaviors and tailor content to individual interests and predicted tastes. These algorithms, in turn, categorize and represent these users back to society—culturally, politically, and racially. Researchers audit personalization algorithms to critique the ways bias is perpetuated within these systems. Yet, research examining the relationship between p…
The Stuff That Verbal Person-Centered Support Is Made of
Although the functions of messages varying in verbal person centeredness (PC) are well-established, we know less about the linguistic content that differentiates messages with distinct levels of PC. This study examines the lexicon of different levels of PC comfort and seeks to ascertain whether computerized analysis can complement human coders when coding supportive conversations. Transcripts from support providers trained to enact low, moderate,…
A Review and Meta-Analysis of Person-Centered Messages and Social Support Outcomes
An Examination of Support (In)Adequacy
This study investigated gaps between the supportive communication people desire and receive in the context of infertility. Our findings advance the notion of support adequacy by positioning social support as a dynamic resource that is contributed to from a variety of sources in numerous ways. A community sample of 301 infertile women indicated that they experience discrepancies in the support they desire compared to what they receive from their s…
Communication Channel, Sex, and the Immediate and Longitudinal Outcomes of Verbal Person-centered Support
This study extended research on verbal person-centered (VPC) support by studying VPC in conversations, examining perceptions of support providers and receivers, testing the influence of different communication channels, and evaluating longitudinal outcomes. Two hundred fifty-five dyads composed either of two men, two women, or one man and one woman interacted in a laboratory wherein channel and level of VPC were manipulated. Evaluations of suppor…
Examining Family Communication Patterns and Seeking Social Support Direct and Indirect Effects Through Ability and Motivation
Seeking social support remains a relatively understudied aspect of supportive communication. By integrating the literatures on family communication patterns (FCPs) and supportive communication, this study examines dispositional factors that influence support seeking in particular situations. Specifically, communicative ability and motivation to seek support were theorized to mediate the relationship between FCPs and recalled strategies of support…
Compliance Dynamics Within a Friendship Network II
Social networks play a critical role in people's responses to influence attempts, determining whether a person seeks the support of others as an alternative to compliance or as a way to cope with being the target of an influence attempt. In 2 experiments (N = 458 and N = 105), sociograms were used to represent social relationships and to investigate the social network member who would be sought for social support after an influence attempt. Resul…
An idealized self or the real me? Predicting attraction to online dating profiles using selective self-presentation and warranting
Online daters construct their profiles to attract potential partners and viewers’ assessments are based on the content of dating profiles. However, little is known about the mechanisms or nature of the associations that connect variations in profile content to outcomes. This study examined the presence of selective self-presentation (SSP) and warranting content as predictors of viewers’ impressions and intentions to act on dating profiles. A nati…
Explaining the Durable Effects of Verbal Person-Centered Supportive Communication
Researchers have documented benefits from receiving supportive messages high in verbal person-centeredness (VPC), but the processes through which such messages produce longitudinal effects remain unclear. This study evaluated two perspectives (i.e., indirect effects and invisible support) that address how supportive messages can produce durable effects and tested sex differences in those effects. 255 dyads completed a laboratory-based interaction…
Anyone free to chat?” Using technological features to elicit quality support online
This study examines how support seekers can integrate verbal and nonverbal cues in social network sites (SNSs) to elicit quality support from others. Building from sensitive interaction systems theory and verbal person centeredness (VPC), participants (N = 579) evaluated a SNS profile that contained manipulated levels of directness in status updates used to seek support and nonverbal emotional expression in profile pictures. To capture the transa…
The Stuff That Verbal Person-Centered Support Is Made of
Although the functions of messages varying in verbal person centeredness (PC) are well-established, we know less about the linguistic content that differentiates messages with distinct levels of PC. This study examines the lexicon of different levels of PC comfort and seeks to ascertain whether computerized analysis can complement human coders when coding supportive conversations. Transcripts from support providers trained to enact low, moderate,…
Broadcasting for help
Social network sites are desirable media through which to seek supportive communication, and users can signal a need for assistance to large, diverse pools of potential support providers with a single message. According to social information processing theory, support seekers adapt to the lack of nonverbal cues online by leveraging the verbal elements of messages. This study classifies the variety of verbal strategies that Facebook users employ t…
Receiving supportive communication from Facebook friends
This study distinguishes perceptions of, preferences for, and outcomes related to people's social ties online. It expands understanding of when and why using social network sites (SNSs) provides people with several types of supportive communication by integrating users' social capital and preference for weak tie support. Prior research is synthesized and extended to build a heuristic model of social ties and supportive communication in SNSs that …
Widening the gap
Women frequently turn to other women for support to cope with stressors. The support they receive, however, is often not what they need or even expect from a friend. Based upon differences in racial backgrounds, this study tests whether the racial composition of female friendship dyads influences the experience of support gaps, or discrepancies among the types and amount of support women need, expect, and receive, as well as the outcomes associat…
Examining relationships among strategies of social information seeking on Facebook and perceived accuracy of information through warranting value and source trust
Strategies of information seeking (IS) about other people on social network sites have been examined in various interpersonal relationships. However, research has yet to account for whether, how, or why different strategies yield information of different quality. This study employs perceived warranting value and characteristics of a source as explanatory mechanisms to account for the relationship between strategies of IS and the perceived accurac…
The Effects of Person-Centered Social Support Messages on Recipient Distress Over Time within a Conversation
Although prior research documents the benefits of supportive messages containing higher levels of verbal person centeredness (VPC), the effects of this message property over time within a discussion are not well understood. This project evaluated predictions about the effects of high and low VPC messages over time drawn from the theory of conversationally induced reappraisals and the dual-process model of supportive communication outcomes. Partic…
I Get by With a Little Help From My Bots
In this manuscript we discuss the increasing use of machine agents as potential sources of support for humans. Continued examination of the use of machine agents, particularly chatbots (or “bots”) for support is crucial as more supportive interactions occur with these technologies. Building off extant research on supportive communication, this manuscript reviews research that has implications for bots as support providers. At the culmination of t…
Trust in Online Search Results During Uncertain Times
Drawing from the layer model of trust, this study examines what factors influence the perceived quality of search results. Participants (N = 256) conducted searches about current events and evaluated the quality of the results they received along with their trust in technology and attitudes toward the search topic. Consistent with the layer model of trust, people’s propensity to trust technology corresponded with greater perceptions of search qua…
Indirect effects of video chat on outcomes of receiving support
This study integrates theorizing about supportive communication and computer-mediated communication to investigate how features of the interactional context, social presence, and evaluations of supportive messages shape recipients’ emotional improvement. Participants (N = 139) reported to the lab with a friend, where they were randomly assigned to experimental conditions that varied the lighting quality of the physical setting and screen size of …
Computer-Mediated Communication and Well-Being in the Age of Social Media
The association between computer-mediated communication (CMC) and well-being is a complex, consequential, and hotly debated topic that has received significant attention from pundits, researchers, and the media. Conflicting research findings and fear over negative outcomes have spurred both moral panic and further research into these associations. To create a more comprehensive picture of trends, explanations, and future directions in this domain…
Using racial discourse communities to audit personalization algorithms
Personalization algorithms are the information undercurrent of the digital age. They learn users’ behaviors and tailor content to individual interests and predicted tastes. These algorithms, in turn, categorize and represent these users back to society—culturally, politically, and racially. Researchers audit personalization algorithms to critique the ways bias is perpetuated within these systems. Yet, research examining the relationship between p…
Caregiving in academia
In the face of prolonged stress, care professionals, including educators, often experience higher rates of burnout and worsened mental well‐being. As school systems across the United States reconsidered their instructional practices in an effort to curtail the spread of COVID‐19, educators have had to navigate a new academic landscape hallmarked by change, stress, burnout, and hopefully resilience. Guided by the theory of resilience and relationa…
Language use in online support provision
People benefit from high-quality supportive messages online, yet the production of these messages is a complex process that is shaped by multiple factors. As informed by the lens model, this study seeks to investigate the interplay of third party’s supportive messages as a form of behavioral residue and the support seeker’s seeking strategy as an identity claim on providers’ language use in supportive messages conveyed in public and private chann…
Examining the Attributional Links Between Message Quality and Outcomes of Emotional Support Received on Facebook
Facebook users can receive high quality emotional support in response to their posts, but not all emotional support is of the same quality nor does it all benefit support receivers. Receivers’ perceptions of supportive messages influence the outcomes they experience. This study assessed support receivers’ attributions for the helpful support offered to them on Facebook to understand how their perceptions of the causes of that support may explain …
Beyond ‘Lulz' and ‘Keyboard warriors'
Despite the similar psychological profiles of internet trolls and radicalized political actors, as well as the historical connections between trolling and the alt-right, little research has studied how trolling corresponds with the process of radicalization. Our study examines this relationship between trolling and radicalization by interrogating two pieces of folk wisdom about internet trolls, that they only care about ‘the lulz’ and that they a…
Seeking Support Online
The affordances of online channels can influence communication, and communicators sometimes value affordances differently in different relationships. This study examines how two affordances, anonymity and visibility, combine with relationship closeness to shape how people seek support online. Participants ( N = 171) composed a support-seeking message they imagined sending to various audiences in one of several online channels. Participants and ou…
The exception proves the rule
Psychology (30 works) · Social Psychology (25 works) · Attachment and Relationship Dynamics (18 works) · Computer Science (18 works) · Social Psychology (15 works) · Social support (15 works) · Impact of Technology on Adolescents (8 works) · Perception (8 works) · Clinical Psychology (6 works) · Communication (6 works)