Direct and Indirect Strategies of Mobilization as Determinants of Social Support Provided for Cancer Patients¹

Social support must often be mobilized actively from network members by using communicative strategies. Direct strategies are characterized by communicative clearness and imply an offer of some type of relationship toward the potential support provider. This might be especially important when cancer patients portray their own coping in ruminative ways that cause distress in others. Male and female participants ( N =189) read descriptions of an encounter with a cancer patient (protagonist). The directness of mobilization and the protagonist's coping portrayal were manipulated between participants. Action tendencies toward sustained support, short‐term encouragement, and the intensity of specific emotions were dependent variables. In the condition of a coping portrayal with rumination, participants showed higher tendencies toward momentary encouragement than sustained support. Explicit (compared to implicit) requests of support mostly reduced participants' fear of becoming distressed themselves and compensated the deteriorating effects of a ruminative coping portrayal on participants' sustained support.