The Effect of Prior Experiences on Advice for Others in Distress

Abstract

The effect of similar experience has been studied on many dimensions from empathy to social support. Nonetheless, little attention has been paid to whether and how prior similar experiences affect the specific way people give advice about affective concerns. Across four studies, I found that the experienced who had a similar experience were believed to and actually did give more helpful advice, with unique words of advice compared to the inexperienced. Specifically, Study 1 showed that people believed that the experienced would give better advice about their hardship. Lay belief was confirmed by the results of Study 2, where actual pieces of advice about post-breakup distress from the experienced (vs. the inexperienced) were evaluated as more helpful and empathetic. Further, Study 3 revealed that the gap in the evaluation originated primarily from the quality of the content rather than from the information that the advisor had a similar experience or not per se. Lastly, the results of content analysis in Study 4 showed that the advice from the experienced had more features of supportive messages and more words associated with cognitive reappraisal.