The Language and Social Psychology of Savoring

Savoring is a well-established construct in positive psychology referring to one's capacity to recognize and appreciate enjoyable life experiences. Guided by phenomenological inquiry and constructivist grounded theory, I propose communication savoring as a new dimension of social savoring that has theoretical and practical relevance in the fields of positive communication and language and social psychology. Evidence is drawn from young adults' narrative descriptions of communication moments they savored. From these narratives, I proffer a typology of communication savoring that includes aesthetic communication, communication presence, nonverbal communication, recognition and acknowledgment, relational communication, extraordinary communication, and implicitly shared communication. I also describe the phenomenological experiences of savoring social interactions in the past, present, and future. To advance the communication model of savoring, I offer initial conceptual and operational definitions of communication savoring and recommend future directions for research within interpersonal and intergroup relationships

Cognitive psychology · Developmental psychology · Interpersonal communication · Linguistics · Narrative · Nonverbal communication · Organizational communication · Social science · Sociology · Communication in Education and Healthcare · Cultural Differences and Values · Media Influence and Health · Psychology · Social Psychology

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• Theoretical Approaches to Communicative Practices in the Study of Intergenerational Communication and Aging

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• Those conversations are extremely vivid in my mind some 40+ years later. They haunt me.” investigating reconstrual, final conversations, and posttraumatic growth in a military context

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• The Identity Crisis in Language Motivation Research

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• Older Adults’ Recalled Memorable Messages About Death, Dying, and the Afterlife and Their Associations with Successful Aging

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• Epilogue

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• Prologue

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• Relational savoring in long-distance romantic relationships

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