Description
The exploration of social support messages has been both empirically and theoretically linked to a myriad of outcomes. The level of person-centered messages has been well studied and examined within the literature, but there is a gap in its application in non- English language research. This article serves as an exploratory analysis of how a recipient’s culture and language provide insight into how social support is interpreted and the moderating or interactive effects on the relationship between stress and health. The article reports a cross-sectional analysis testing the association between person-centered messages and social support outcomes for English and Spanish messages. Participants received hypothetical social support messages based on conditions regarding failing an exam. Each participant was assigned to read a message that Qualtrics randomly assigned in either English or Spanish, which instructed them to engage in a confidential mock text message providing support. I used data from our survey that explored message effectiveness, source credibility, and affective improvement. I ran a statistical analysis to determine if the social support message’s language influenced each of the previously mentioned variables. Moreover, the data suggest that native Spanish speakers who received support messages in Spanish reported greater affective improvement than those who received support messages in English.
