Why Validation Is the Best Way to Show Someone That You Care

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Validating someone's feelings of distress may be the best way to offer comfort and support during stressful situations, according to a new study.

The Penn State researchers found that the "comforting process" works best when support messages validate what someone is feeling, along with his or her current emotions and personal experience. The findings (Tian, Solomon, & Brisini, 2020) on "How the Comforting Process Fails" were published on February 18 in the Journal of Communication.

Although this research was conducted and published before the COVID-19 pandemic, the findings offer valuable insights on what type of language is most likely to provide comfort and support to loved ones during this stressful period of social distancing and "shelter-in-place" isolation.

"One recommendation is for people to avoid using language that conveys control or uses arguments without sound justification," Xi Tian, who is a graduate assistant in communication arts and sciences at Penn State, said in a March 25 news release. "For example, instead of telling a distressed person how to feel, like 'don't take it so hard' or 'don't think about it,' you could encourage them to talk about their thoughts or feelings so that person can come to their own conclusions about how to change their feelings or behaviors."

How you phrase support messages can make all the difference; messages that diminish emotions tend to fail, while messages that validate a person's feelings are more likely to help.

The main objective of this research was to pinpoint why well-intentioned efforts to comfort others often fail. "We wanted to examine the underlying mechanism that explains why some supportive messages may produce unintended consequences," co-author Denise Solomon, who is the department head and professor of communication arts and sciences at Penn State, said in the news release. "We also wanted to understand how people cognitively and emotionally respond to insensitive social support."

After analyzing the swaths of data, the researchers concluded that low "person-centered" support messages don't facilitate the comforting process and usually fail to reduce emotional distress. On the flip side, according to the research findings, messages that are highly person-centered and validate someone's feelings work best at reducing emotional distress.

"It makes sense that you'd be really upset about this" is an example of a support message that is high on the scale of person-centeredness. Conversely, sending a message of intended support, like "It isn't worth getting upset about this," or "Stop being so emotional!" reflects a low level of person-centeredness and lacks the key ingredient of validation.

The researchers found that messages of intended support that lacked person-centeredness were often perceived as unempathetic and dominating. "Those messages induced more resistance to social support, such that the participants reported feeling angry after receiving the message. They also reported actually criticizing the message while reading it," Tian said.

To circumvent psychological reactance to social support when someone is in distress, the researchers recommend sticking to support messages that validate emotions and are high on the "person-centeredness" scale. "There was a significant, indirect effect between person-centeredness and emotional improvement conveyed by a perceived threat to freedom and psychological reactance," the authors conclude.

"Another recommendation that can be taken from this research is that people may want to use moderately to highly person-centered messages when helping others cope with everyday stressors," Solomon added.

Some specific phrases and language that the researchers recommend for expressing sympathy and concern include: "I'm sorry you are going through this. I'm worried about you and how you must be feeling right now," and "It's understandable that you are stressed out."

The key to offering support messages that provide validation is to acknowledge the other person's feelings without trying to sugarcoat a bad situation, add spin, or convince someone to feel differently about his or her distress.

These findings dovetail with a mindfulness meditation technique known as "mindful acceptance" or the "Let It Be" approach to emotion regulation. (See "What Can A Buddhist Monk Teach Us About Panic and the Brain.")

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