I'm afraid I have something bad to tell you: Breaking bad news from the perspective of the giver

College students (N = 90) completed a questionnaire designed to assess thei r recollection of a time that they delivered bad news. Responses were provi ded about whether each of 72 possible characteristics of such transactions occurred in addition to the impact each had on the ease of delivering the n ews. Participants also provided information about the stress associated wit h the process and their perceptions of the anxiety experienced by the recei ver of the news. Three important findings emerged: (a) there was substantia l diversity in the type of bad news that givers recalled transmitting; (b) students reported a wide variety of experiences associated with the bad-new s process, with a sizable cluster of these experiences seeming to typify su ch transactions across students and news type; and (c) the level of stress associated with the bad-news process was generally high, and it was associa ted with what students thought about and did during the transaction.