The Impact of Mindfulness on Supportive Communication Skills: Three Exploratory Studies

Supportive communication, which conveys care, empathy, and encouragement, plays a crucial role in how well people are able to cope with difficult emotions and aversive situations. But supportive communication can be conveyed more or less skilled. One possible mechanism that may link nonverbally and verbally conveyed emotional support and improved affective outcomes is mindfulness, conceived as enhanced nonreactive attention to and awareness of current internal and external stimuli. We present a theoretical model of mindful supportive communication and report the results of three exploratory studies that test the relationship between mindfulness and three factors that influence the supportive communication process, namely social skills, communicative coping, and reappraisals. Study 1 detected relationships between mindfulness facets and social skills. Studies 2 and 3 examine the impact of brief mindful interventions on social skills, communicative coping skills, and reappraisals.