Feeling Supported
Participants make a list of people who they feel supported by, write down brief descriptions of their connection to each person on their list, and then write down the supportive and caring qualities that their list of people all have in common. Then, they recall a situation where one of the people from their list provided support or helped them and describe this experience in writing.
Reasoning
Feeling interpersonally supported increases feelings of personal safety and agency, i.e. like the world is a more navigable, less threatening place where social bonds that are trustworthy and comforting enable pursuit of resources and goals. Social integration, i.e. having supportive interpersonal connections, is associated with lifelong advantages to health and well-being. When people feel safer, they are able to allocate more attention and effort towards novelty seeking, problem solving, creative pursuits, and engaging prosocially with others. Reflecting on the people who have provided or still provide meaningful support in one’s life can orient perception to favor empathic, approachable, trusting, and benevolent interpretations about oneself, others, and the world, and be a reminder of aspirational virtuous characteristics and qualities. Bringing morally kind and compassionate principles to mind through personal experience primes people to behave more supportively and generously when they themselves encounter another person in need, which strengthens social bonds in ways that benefit well-being.
Procedure
Participants are instructed to make a list of people who they currently feel, or have felt, truly supported by in their life, and to briefly describe their relationship to each person on the list. Considering their list of supportive people, participants are asked to reflect on qualities that they most appreciate about the people on their list. Then, participants are instructed to write down at least 6 qualities that the people on their list all have in common. Finally, participants are instructed to think of a specific time where they themselves were feeling distressed or upset where one of the people from their list comforted or helped them, and describe this experience in writing. Participants are instructed to include details about the recalled event, including details about the context, how they felt, and how being supported or helped by the other person made them feel.
Primary Citation & Study Summary:
Mikulincer, M., Shaver, P. R., Gillath, O., & Nitzberg, R. A. (2005). Attachment, caregiving, and altruism: Boosting attachment security increases compassion and helping. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84(2), 377-389.
Study participants reflected on a supportive relationship and wrote down characteristics of supportive people in their life and an example of a time when they were supported through a difficult experience. Participants in the control condition thought and wrote about an acquaintance or a professional relationship. Subsequently, the people who reflected on the supportive relationship reported greater compassion for--and willingness to help--a person in distress.
Evidence
Meta-analyses have reported links between attachment security priming, through being exposed to stimuli or consciously reflecting upon and writing about people that evoke feelings of love and support, can benefit mental health (McGuire, 2018) and emotional well-being (Rowe, 2020). Specifically, studies that have instructed participants to think about people who support them in their lives and write about experiences where they felt close and supported report increases in positive affect, decreases in negative affect, greater feelings of secure attachment (e.g. interpersonal trust, psychological safety), and prosocial orientation (Mikuincer, 2005) all of which are linked to greater emotional well-being (Gillath, 2022).
Additional cited References
Gillath O, Karantzas GC, Romano D, Karantzas KM. Attachment Security Priming: A Meta-Analysis. Pers Soc Psychol Rev. 2022 Aug;26(3):183-241. doi: 10.1177/10888683211054592. Epub 2022 Feb 24.
Across 120 published and unpublished studies, exposing people to sensory stimuli that reminded them of loving support from another person or instructing them to think and write about who makes them feel supported or an experience of being supported leads to moderate increases in attachment security, which has cognitive, affective, and behavioral implications that promote emotional well-being. Some effects are moderated by attachment style, i.e. effect sizes vary amongst people with more insecure attachment style.