Communicating Social Support behind Bars: Experiences with the Pennsylvania Lifers' Association
Open Access
- Author:
- Huber, Frances N.
- Graduate Program:
- Communication Arts and Sciences
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- October 20, 2005
- Committee Members:
- Jon F Nussbaum, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Dennis Stephen Gouran, Committee Member
Michael L Hecht, Committee Member
John Henry Kramer, Committee Member - Keywords:
- Pennsylvania Lifers' Association
lifers
social support
prisoners - Abstract:
- The imprisonment rate in America has been steadily increasing. As the number of individuals in prison grows, so does the need to study this population. Little research has been conducted concerning the experiences of those with natural life sentences. This dissertation focuses on this population and its representatives’ experiences related to social support and the Pennsylvania Lifers’ Association. Previous research suggests that social support groups can be beneficial to members’ psychological, behavioral, physical, and relational well-being. Building from this research, the author interviewed members of the Pennsylvania Lifers’ Association, an activist and social support group, to investigate how members talk about their experiences. Observations of group meetings revealed how social support was communicated by group members. Furthermore, survey research was conducted in an effort to explore whether the conceptual structure of social support, as reported by those with natural life sentences, was similar to that in previous related research. The data suggested that Yalom’s theoretical model of social support is incomplete when applied to the experiences of SCI-Huntingdon’s board members of the Pennsylvania Lifers’ Association. This theoretical model is more comprehensive with the addition of the concept of reassurance of worth. This concept seems to be particularly salient to a group often labeled and stereotyped negatively by society. Findings from the interviews were consistent with other research in the Communication and Sociology disciplines. The participants tended to focus on 11 domains when discussing their experiences. The domains included decision to become a member, goals, control, solidarity, identity, intergroup bias, responsibility, member relations, group satisfaction, costs and benefits, and future. The data did not support the factor structure Cutrona and Russell’s (1987) Social Provisions Scale revealed, that is, the six dimensions of social support as described by Weiss. Instead, the data appeared to capture uni-dimensional constructs that were amendable to the label of social support. This suggested that current knowledge regarding the experiences of social support may not be generalizable to the prison context and that scholars may have an incomplete understanding of the natural life-sentenced population.