Listening and perceived responsiveness: Unveiling the significance and exploring crucial research endeavors

Observers of social media discussions about racial discrimination condemn denial but also adopt it

Sharing experiences with racism (racial discrimination disclosure) has the power to raise awareness of discrimination and spur meaningful conversations about race. Sharing these experiences with racism on social media may prompt a range of responses among users. While previous work investigates how disclosure impacts disclosers and listeners, we extend this research to explore the impact of observing discussions about racial discrimination online-what we call vicarious race talk. In a series of experiments using real social media posts, we show that the initial response to racial discrimination disclosure-whether the response denies or validates the poster's perspective-influences observers' own perceptions and attitudes. Despite observers identifying denial as less supportive than validation, those who observed a denial response showed less responsive attitudes toward the poster/target (Studies 1-3) and less support for discussions about discrimination on social media in general (Studies 2-3). Exploratory findings revealed that those who viewed denial comments also judged the transgressor as less racist, and expressed less support and more denial in their own comments. This suggests that even as observers negatively judge denial, their perceptions of the poster are nonetheless negatively influenced, and this impact extends to devaluing the topic of discrimination broadly. We highlight the context of social media, where racial discrimination disclosure-and how people respond to it-may be particularly consequential.

Attachment Orientation and Preferences for Partners' Emotional Responses in Stressful and Positive Situations

Attachment theory proposes that close relationships help us to regulate our emotions in stressful and positive situations. However, no previous studies have examined preferences for a partner's emotional response to one's own stressful and positive situations or tested whether these preferences differ based on attachment orientation. This study examines the association of attachment orientation and preferences for partners' emotional responses relative to one's own emotional responses in stressful and positive contexts among 425 United States adults who were currently in a committed relationship of ≥6 months. Data were collected in 2020. Overall, participants preferred their partners to feel and express less distress, less worry, more calm, and more hope than themselves during stressful situations and for their partners to feel and express more excitement, pride, and hope than themselves during positive situations. Higher attachment anxiety predicted preferences for partners to feel and express more distress/worry in stressful situations, whereas higher attachment avoidance predicted preferences for partners to feel and express less hope in stressful situations. Statistical interactions of attachment anxiety × attachment avoidance indicated that the combination of low attachment anxiety and high attachment avoidance (dismissing avoidance) was associated with preferences for partners to feel and express less positive emotions in positive situations, whereas the combination of high attachment anxiety and high attachment avoidance (fearful avoidance) was associated with preferences for partners to feel and express more negative emotions in stressful situations and less positive emotions in positive situations. This investigation provides novel evidence for links between attachment orientation and preferences for partners' emotional responses in two theoretically important contexts, which has implications for the nature and function of emotion regulation in close relationships. Future research is needed to determine the generalizability of these findings to more collectivist cultural contexts.