Download or read book Being the Best Bearer of Bad Tidings written by Katharine M. Sweeny and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ABSTRACT: Giving bad news is an unpleasant task, and the medical literature provides numerous guidelines for giving bad news well. However, what people mean by "giving bad news well" is less clear. What should be the goal when communicating bad news? I suggest that the goal of news-givers should be to guide recipients toward a desired response. I propose a theoretical framework, the Bad News Response Model, for delivering bad news that draws from research in health and social psychology. The model is applicable to all forms of bad news and specifies that three characteristics of the news (controllability, likelihood, and severity) influence which response (watchful waiting, active change, or acceptance) will most often lead to the best quality of life for the recipient. Our studies examined three questions related to the Bad News Response Model: How does the type of bad news affect response choices? (Studies 1 and 2) How do people feel about responses to bad news? (Study 3) How do people view the effectiveness of responses to bad news? (Study 4) Results suggest that response choices are predictable based on the controllability, likelihood, and severity of news outcomes, as suggested by the model (Studies 1 and 2). In addition, results revealed that people may also make response choices based on the beliefs they have about response options (Study 3) and on the perceived effectiveness of each response (Study 4).