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When someone you care about is distressed, your first impulse is often to step in and fix the problem.

However, most people benefit more from emotional support than hearing others' advice.

Try asking if the person is looking for guidance or just wants someone to listen.

Imagine someone you care about is having a hard time. Maybe they’re going through a painful breakup, trudging through a stalled career, or trying to come to terms with a difficult diagnosis. They tell you about it, and somewhere in the middle of their story, you feel the very familiar pressure to be useful. To offer something, or say something comforting, that helps.

So, you tell them what you would do; you suggest a great therapist or book you know, and you mean every word of it. Yet somehow, inexplicably, they seem a little worse off than before you gave your well-meaning advice.

This is not a rare experience. It is, in fact, a well-documented one, and the research explaining it is both humbling and clarifying for anyone who considers themselves a caring person.

1. The Paradox at the Heart of ‘Supportive Advice’

The first thing to understand is that the relationship between giving support and actually being helpful is far weaker than most people assume.

A 2009 study published in Psychological Science examined support among 67 cohabiting couples using a daily-experience design, in which partners reported on support given and received each day. Their central finding was counterintuitive: although the perception of having available support was linked to........

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