My Partner and I Finish Each Other’s…Sandwiches

post also by: Mathew Birnbaum (Green)
There is nothing better than an afternoon filled with reading other people’s depressing problems and Google Groups has the best, most depressing stories out there! My fellow coder and I stumbled across a group called alt.support.marriage where we heard the heartfelt story from Bob Thompson, a 31 yr old male. (http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.marriage/browse_thread/thread/63d9fa48b00895e4/5765eede5e903c3f?lnk=st&q=midlife+crisis#
Bob has been married to his current wife for four years and has two children. His message and “cry for help” pertained to his recent failing marriage which subsequently coincided with increased financial stress and complications concerning his second child’s birth.

After analyzing 20 messages within this marriage support group—using the coding and model of Braithwaite’s study—my partner and I discovered the following results:

% inter-rater reliability:0.8666667
frequency % of msgs
Information 19 0.95
Tangible assistance 1 0.05
Esteem support 13 0.65
Network support 3 0.15
Emotional support 11 0.55
Humor 5 0.25

We accumulated an inter-rater reliability of 86.7%, a score slightly higher than reliability score found in the Braithwaite study—80%. This small difference may be due to the fact that unlike the original study, the several elements of social support (information, tangible assistance, etc.) were not further dissected into smaller subcategories(i.e. advice, referral, situation appraisal, etc.). Additionally, our examination of social support found a much higher percentage of information support, 95%, when compared to Braithwaite’s finding of 31.3%. This is in agreement with Cutrona and Suhr’s optimal matching model (OMM), which states situations deemed more in the control of the individual, will warrant more information social support. Bob’s failing marriage can be viewed as more in his control opposed to the disability situations which Braithwaite dealt with. Even Bob’s message title outright called for help and information—the actual title cannot be reproduced here due to its somewhat crude language. However, unlike OMM, there was still a relatively high percentage of Emotional support, 55%, similar to the findings in the original study, 40%. Despite conflicting with OMM, this finding does make intuitive sense because some group members responded to Bob saying it was “not his fault” and out of his control. These responses focused on how Bob’s depressed wife caused the stress on their marriage and that Bob is just feeling the circumstantial wrath. We also found results similar to Braithwaite concerning tangible assistance and network support. Specifically for network support, our findings agreed with the study’s notion that simply being an active member of these support groups provided a good amount of network support in itself. “Members met their needs for network support simply by participating in Support Network. Therefore, members did not need to make network support the object of their message” (Braithwaite, pg. 143).
Walther and Boyd’s four dimensions of attraction to online support also are evident in the case of Bob and his long list of concerned support group members. The social distance dimension allowed Bob to have access to a much larger pool of resources and individuals. This lager scope potentially contained individuals with greater expertise and knowledge in the subject of failing marriages compared to Bob’s immediate group of friends and family. However, this element of social distance, in both our and the Braithwaite study, may have partially caused the low rates of tangible assistance. It is difficult to promise and initiate tangible support with the social distance present in CMC support groups. Additionally, the notion of access was very prominent in the support group. The times of when the posts were made are recorded which showed messages and responses spanning the wee hours of the night and morning. It can be very comforting to receive a consoling message from CJ at 3 in the morning rather that having to wait to the next morning when it is considered a more appropriate time. The concept of anonymity online was also an important factor in that it allowed Bob to be very honest and open about his situation and in turn allowed people to respond with honest opinions and advice. Anonymity is a dimension of attraction to online support groups because it removed pressure for individuals to censor their comments. For example, there may not have been as much humor in people’s responses if they had been identifiable to others in the support network. The fourth dimension, interaction management, was an apparent attraction to online support because there was no pressure to respond immediately. Users have the ability to read through already posted messages, and comment whenever they choose to do so. Although this may interrupt the flow of messages, it gives people more time to put more thought into their responses.