Communicating Advice: Introduction to the Special Issue

Advice is a consequential exchange in virtually every social and cultural context (MacGeorge & Van Swol, 2018), from personal relationships (Branch & Hall, 2018) and families (Hill, 2018) to workplaces (Bonaccio & Paik, 2018) and organizations (Van Swol & Prahl, 2018), and of course, online (Feng et al., 2018). Defined as a recommendation on how to act, think, or feel in response to a problem (MacGeorge et al., 2008), advice is a fundamentally communicative behavior, conveyed through messages and situated in interactions (Guntzviller, 2018). Prototypically, advice represents an advisor’s intention, based on perceived expertise, to assist and influence an advisee (MacGeorge & Van Swol, 2018). Correspondingly, it functions as both social support and social influence, and based on these functions it affects advisors’ and advisees’ status, relationships, and social capital (Bonaccio & Dalal, 2006; MacGeorge et al., 2018).

For all these reasons, advice has received considerable research attention from scholars in communication, psychology, sociolinguistics, and allied disciplines, especially in the last two decades (for reviews, see MacGeorge & Van Swol, 2018; MacGeorge, Feng, et al., 2016). Several theoretical and methodological paradigms inform this work, notably including advice response theory (Feng & MacGeorge, 2010; MacGeorge, Guntzviller, et al., 2016) and the integrated model of advice (Feng, 2009, 2014) from communication, and the judge-advisor paradigm in psychology (for a review, see Bonaccio & Dalal, 2006).

Nonetheless, there remain ample unanswered questions pertaining to advice messages and interactions. Recent reviews have identified key limitations in existing efforts to explain advice evaluation and outcomes. These include insufficient attention to the influence of the relationship between advisors and advisees (Branch & Hall, 2018), the interactional context of advice (Guntzviller, 2018), the perspective of the advisor (MacGeorge & Van Swol, 2018), and the process of advice-seeking (Feng et al., 2018; MacGeorge & Van Swol, 2018). More broadly, critics have called for greater theoretical integration and cross-fertilization (Branch & Hall, 2018; Guntzviller, 2018), expansion of the range and sophistication of methods for studying advice (MacGeorge & Van Swol, 2018), and testing of theoretical propositions “initially developed based on particular methods and populations in the broader range of real-world contexts where advising interactions take place” (MacGeorge & Van Swol, 2018, p. 416).

The seven studies included in this special issue address these critiques in several ways. Theoretical critique, extension, and integration run throughout the articles. Guntzviller, Pulido, Liao, and Butkowski combine the integrated model of advice (Feng, 2009, 2014) with theorizing about interaction goals (Samp & Solomon, 1998, 1999) to generate hypotheses about the influence of advisors’ goal strength and complexity on recipients’ outcomes. Foley, MacGeorge, Brinker, Li, and Zhou critique advice response theory’s focus on recipients’ perceptions of advice and test the influence of advisors’ verbal elaboration on multiple topics. Drawing on social penetration theory, Wingate, Feng, Kim, Pan, and Jang explore whether the content of support-seekers’ disclosures influence the objective quality of advice they receive online, while Malloch, Feng, Wang, and Kim test an extension of the integrated model of advice that relies on the cognitive-emotional theory of esteem support messages (Holmstrom, 2012). Brisini and Solomon’s work on married couples’ claims about expertise to advise about problems at work or at home draws in theorizing about relational dimensions of messages (Dillard et al., 1999), and Van Swol, Paik, and Prahl utilize planning theory (Berger, 1997, 2015) to ground their hypotheses about the influence of advice recipients’ problem descriptions on their evaluation of the advice they receive.

The studies featured in this issue also showcase improvements and innovations in methods for studying advice. Some researchers utilized useful techniques for eliciting more realistic responses from participants in experimental studies. In Wingate et al.’s study, research participants encountered a mock website and provided advice in response to “posts” created by the researchers. In Van Swol et al.’s lab-based study, participants generated descriptions of their own problems under the impression that they were sending those descriptions to peers in an adjacent room; the “peer” was actually a research assistant-confederate. Other researchers developed coding systems to capture theoretically relevant dimensions of content in participant-generated messages and interactions. Wingate et al.’s approach to assessing advice quality involved coding participants’ messages for pro-advice argumentation based on advice response theory (Feng & MacGeorge, 2010) and for the placement of advice relative to other supportive behaviors based on the integrated model of advice (Feng, 2009, 2014). Foley et al. developed a system for coding health care providers’ advice not only for elaboration on its efficacy, feasibility, and limitations as defined by advice response theory, but also its “negative feasibility” (i.e., difficulties involved in taking the advised action), negative consequences of following the advice, and instruction in how to carry out the advice. Finally, Guntzviller et al.’s work features the unusual approach of combining quantitative and qualitative methods, each method complementing the other’s insight into relationships between advisors’ goals, advising behaviors in interaction, and advisee responses.

Finally, several studies make important forays into underexplored relationships or contexts where advising occurs, helping expand the scope of theoretical boundaries and applications. Brisini and Solomon direct attention to the exchange of advice between married partners, while Malloch et al. encourage greater understanding of effective advice-seeking in online environments. Two studies focus on the health care context—where advice is ubiquitous and highly consequential but undertheorized (D’Angelo & D’Angelo, 2018). Foley et al. and MacGeorge et al.’s studies both address health care providers’ advice as relevant to reducing unnecessary antibiotic use and addressing the public health crisis of antibiotic resistance. Foley et al.’s study focused on symptom management (e.g., over-the-counter drugs) advice for young adults’ upper respiratory infections, whereas MacGeorge et al.’s work examines advice on “watchful waiting” (rather than immediate antibiotic use) given to parents whose children have ear infections. These studies demonstrate that scholars who engage with “applied” questions encounter opportunities to pit their theories against real-world advising encounters and strengthen both their scholarship and society.

In sum, this special issue of Journal of Language and Social Psychology highlights advancements in theory, method, and application in the study of advice messages and interactions. As guest editor, I hope these articles will inspire further interest in the communication of advice and stimulate further improvements in our understanding of this important form of social support and social influence.