Relationships and Marital Behavior
Marital behavior, oxytocin, vasopressin, and wound healing
Jean-Philippe Gouin et al.
Psychoneuroendocrinology, August 2010, Pages 1082-1090
Abstract:
Animal studies have implicated oxytocin and vasopressin in social bonding, physiological stress responses, and wound healing. In humans, endogenous oxytocin and vasopressin levels covary with perceptions of relationship quality, marital behaviors, and physiological stress responses. To investigate relationships among marital behavior, oxytocin, vasopressin, and wound healing, and to determine the characteristics of individuals with the highest neuropeptide levels, 37 couples were admitted for a 24-h visit in a hospital research unit. After small blister wounds were created on their forearm, couples participated in a structured social support interaction task. Blister sites were monitored daily following discharge to assess wound repair speed. Blood samples were collected for oxytocin, vasopressin, and cytokine analyses. Higher oxytocin levels were associated with more positive communication behaviors during the structured interaction task. Furthermore, individuals in the upper oxytocin quartile healed blister wounds faster than participants in lower oxytocin quartiles. Higher vasopressin levels were related to fewer negative communication behaviors and greater tumor necrosis factor-α production. Moreover, women in the upper vasopressin quartile healed the experimental wounds faster than the remainder of the sample. These data confirm and extend prior evidence implicating oxytocin and vasopressin in couples' positive and negative communication behaviors, and also provide further evidence of their role in an important health outcome, wound healing.
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Composing Effective Teams through Team Dating
Petru Curşeu, Patrick Kenis, Jörg Raab & Ulrik Brandes
Organization Studies, July 2010, Pages 873-894
Abstract:
Previous research showed that short initial interaction in dyads accurately predicts future relation development. The paper extends these results from dyads to teams and demonstrates that data collected from short initial contacts (reciprocal relational preferences) are a sound basis for designing effective teams. In the approach we propose, potential team members have short initial contacts (popularly known as ‘speed dating') and we use the information on interpersonal evaluations to create teams by maximizing the number of reciprocal relational preferences within a team. In a sample of 76 teams (N = 378, 36 attribute-based teams and 40 team-dating teams), we show that teams formed based on relational data are more effective than teams formed by maximizing within team diversity (gender and nationality). Team-dating teams show a better teamwork quality and develop more complex collective knowledge structures compared with attribute-based teams.
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When Positive Processes Hurt Relationships
James McNulty
Current Directions in Psychological Science, June 2010, Pages 167-171
Abstract:
Based on a robust literature indicating that happy couples tend to think and behave more positively in their relationships than less happy couples do, most interventions designed to treat and prevent marital distress tend to encourage couples to engage in more-positive cognitive and behavioral processes and avoid more-negative ones. Consistent with the limited effectiveness of such interventions, however, findings from four independent longitudinal studies of newlyweds indicate that positive processes may not only fail to help distressed couples, they may hurt them. Specifically, although more-positive expectations, more-positive attributions, less-negative behavior, and more forgiveness most effectively maintained satisfaction among spouses facing infrequent and minor problems, less-positive expectations, less-positive attributions, more-negative behavior, and less forgiveness most effectively maintained satisfaction among spouses facing more-frequent and more-severe problems, partly because those processes helped spouses acknowledge, address, and resolve those problems. Accordingly, distressed and at-risk couples may benefit from interventions that teach them to think and behave in ways that motivate them to resolve their problems, even if those thoughts and behaviors are associated with negative emotions in the moment.
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Soonhee Lee, Ronald Rogge & Harry Reis
Psychological Science, June 2010, Pages 857-864
Abstract:
Using two longitudinal samples, we sought to identify the beginnings of relationship decay by validating the partner-focused go/no-go association task (partner-GNAT), an implicit measure assessing evaluations of romantic partners. In Study 1, we assessed positive and negative attitudes using generic positive and negative stimulus words (e.g., gift and death, respectively) as targets, whereas in Study 2, we used relationship-specific positive and negative stimulus words (e.g., accepting and attacking, respectively) as targets. Results from both samples showed that positive implicit partner evaluations were associated with a reduced risk of breakup over the following 12 months, even after controlling for self-reported relationship satisfaction, hostile conflict, and neuroticism. This suggests that the earliest seeds of relationship decay might be found within attitudes that subjects might be unaware of or are unable or unwilling to report. Both studies also offered support for the importance of negative implicit partner evaluations. In Study 1, this support was in the form of an interaction (revealing that individuals with both low positive and high negative evaluations were at greatest risk for breakup). In Study 2, this support was in the form of a main effect (negative implicit partner evaluations marginally predicted increased risk of breakup).
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Impact of Collective Gender Identity on Relationship Quality: When Men Feel Devalued
Corinne Moss-Racusin, Jessica Good & Diana Sanchez
Psychology of Men and Masculinity, January 2010, Pages 65-75
Abstract:
Although heterosexual men typically hold positions of dominance in society, negative aspects of masculinity could lead some men to feel that their gender group is not valued by others (D. A. Prentice & E. Carranza, 2002). Previous research has largely overlooked the impact of men's own perceptions of their gender group membership on their relationship outcomes. To address this gap, we posited that when heterosexual men feel that their gender identity is devalued, they may relate better to close others who have devalued identities (e.g., their female romantic partners). Specifically, we predicted that heterosexual men who view their masculine gender identity as important but devalued would more successfully take the perspective of their female partner. Results confirmed predictions, such that for undergraduate men whose gender identity was important, lower levels of perceived group value predicted greater ability to take perspective with their romantic partners. Implications for men's relationships and identity research are discussed.
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Adolescents' sense of community on MySpace and Facebook: A mixed-methods approach
Stephanie Reich
Journal of Community Psychology, July 2010, Pages 688-705
Abstract:
Communities are foundational to the field of Community Psychology yet they are difficult to define and measure. Once viewed as social groups with ties to geographical locations, online communities interact free of physical or face-to-face contact. This cyberexistence makes the study of communities more challenging. Social networking sites (SNS), such as Facebook and MySpace, are referred to as online communities; however, research has yet to explore whether these sites engender a psychological sense of community (PSC) for users. This study reanalyzes focus group and survey data from high school and college students to investigate whether uses of SNS demonstrate key components of PSC (i.e., membership, influence, immersion, shared emotional connection, and an integration and fulfillment of needs). This mixed-method analysis synthesizes data through a top-down (confirming PSC categories) and bottom-up (identifying emergent patterns/themes) analytic procedure. Results suggest that typical adolescent uses of SNS represent networked individualism, rather than online communities.
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Marriage and divorce: A genetic perspective
Beth Jerskey et al.
Personality and Individual Differences, October 2010, Pages 473-478
Abstract:
Marriage is considered one of the most important sources of social support that an individual receives as an adult. Although hypotheses have been formulated as to why individuals may dissolve a marriage, the determinants of marital success or failure are still relatively unknown. Behavioral geneticists have found that both marriage and divorce are, in part, genetically influenced. The goal of this research was to determine the degree of shared genetic and environmental variance between the two marital statuses. Participants were 6225 twin pairs from the Vietnam Era Twin Registry. Data were obtained on marital history, and if the individual was no longer married, how the marriage ended. Univariate analyses were performed to determine the extent of genetic and environmental influences each of the marital statues (i.e., marriage and divorce), followed by a novel bivariate analysis to test the shared variance between marriage and divorce. Results from this analysis revealed that the two different marital statuses were influenced by entirely distinct genetic and environmental factors.
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Genetic and environmental influences on global family conflict
Briana Horwitz, Jenae Neiderhiser, Jody Ganiban, Erica Spotts, Paul Lichtenstein & David Reiss
Journal of Family Psychology, April 2010, Pages 217-220
Abstract:
This study examined genetic and environmental influences on global family conflict. The sample comprised 872 same-sex pairs of twin parents, their spouses/partners, and one adolescent child per twin from the Twin and Offspring Study in Sweden. The twins, spouses, and child each reported on the degree of family conflict, and there was significant agreement among the family members' ratings. These shared perspectives were explained by one common factor, indexing global family conflict. Genetic influences explained 36% of the variance in this common factor, suggesting that twins' heritable characteristics contribute to family conflict, via genotype-environment correlation. Nonshared environmental effects explained the remaining 64% of this variance, indicating that twins' unique childhood and/or current family experiences also play an important role.
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When Harry and Sally met Dick and Jane: Creating closeness between couples
Richard Slatcher
Personal Relationships, June 2010, Pages 279-297
Abstract:
This study investigated how friendships between couples form and implications for within-couple process. Sixty couples were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 conditions where they engaged in a 45-min interaction with another couple. In 1 condition, couples carried out self-disclosure tasks; in the other, couples engaged in nonemotional small talk. Compared to the small-talk condition, those in the high-disclosure condition felt closer to the couples they interacted with and were more likely to meet up with them again during the following month. Further, couples in the high-disclosure condition felt closer to their own partners. Actor-partner interdependence model analyses showed these effects to be mediated by increases in positive affect. Implications for studying the interplay of social networks and romantic relationships are discussed.
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The Timing of Cohabitation and Engagement: Impact on First and Second Marriages
Scott Stanley, Galena Rhoades, Paul Amato, Howard Markman & Christine Johnson
Journal of Marriage and Family, August 2010, Pages 906-918
Abstract:
Using a multistate sample of marriages that took place in the 1990s, this study examined associations between premarital cohabitation history and marital quality in first (N = 437) and second marriages (N = 200) and marital instability in first marriages (intact N = 521, divorced N = 124). For first marriages, cohabiting with the spouse without first being engaged or married was associated with more negative interaction, higher self-reported divorce proneness, and a greater probability of divorce compared to cohabiting after engagement or marriage (with patterns in the same direction for marital positivity). In contrast, there was a general risk associated with premarital cohabitation for second marriages on self-reported indices of marital quality, with or without engagement when cohabitation began.
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Robin Simon & Anne Barrett
Journal of Health and Social Behavior, June 2010, Pages 168-182
Abstract:
Although social scientists have long assumed that intimate social relationships are more closely associated with women's than men's mental health, recent research indicates that there are no gender differences in the advantages of marriage and disadvantages of unmarried statuses when males' and females' distinct expressions of emotional distress are considered. These findings have led to the conclusion that there has been a convergence in the importance of intimate relationships for men's and women's mental health. However, these patterns may not be evident for nonmarital romantic relationships among current cohorts of young adults. In this article, we examine the associations among several dimensions of these relationships and symptoms of both depression and substance abuse/dependence in a diverse sample of young adults in Miami, Florida. We find gender differences that vary across dimensions of relationships: While current involvements and recent breakups are more closely associated with women's than men's mental health, support and strain in an ongoing relationship are more closely associated with men's than women's emotional well-being. Our findings highlight the need to consider the period in the life course as well as experiences of specific cohorts of men and women when theorizing about gender differences in the importance of intimate relationships for mental health.
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The 20-year trajectory of marital quality in enduring marriages: Does equity matter?
Alfred DeMaris
Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, June 2010, Pages 449-471
Abstract:
I examine the trajectory of marital quality as a function of relationship equity with data from a six-wave panel study of 704 married respondents between 1980 and 2000. Reporting that one "gives more" to the marriage (subjective underbenefit) is more likely for women than men at any given marital duration. Respondents' relative contribution to income, paid labor, housework, and health (objective underbenefit) raises this probability for women of average religiosity. For the more religious, objective underbenefit has no effect on women's sense of underbenefit, but reduces men's sense of underbenefit. Objective underbenefit lowers women's, but raises men's, marital quality, at any marital duration. The relevance of equity was not diluted by the passage of time in marriage.
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Work-Related Health Limitations, Education, and the Risk of Marital Disruption
Jay Teachman
Journal of Marriage and Family, August 2010, Pages 919-932
Abstract:
Despite progress in identifying the covariates of divorce, there remain substantial gaps in the knowledge. One of these gaps is the relationship between health and risk of marital dissolution. I extend prior research by examining the linkages between work-related health limitations and divorce using 25 years of data (N = 7919) taken from the 1979 National Longitudinal Study of Youth (NLSY-79). I found that work-related health limitations among husbands, but not wives, were linked to an increased risk of divorce. In addition, I found that this relationship was moderated by education in a fashion that varies according to race. For White men, education exacerbated the effect of health limitations, but for Black men, education attenuated the effects of work-related health limitations.
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In Concert and Alone: Divorce and Congregational Experience
Kathleen Jenkins
Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, June 2010, Pages 278-292
Abstract:
Sociologists have paid little attention to the experience of divorce in religious congregations. Numerous quantitative studies suggest that religion can provide health and wellness during such life disruptions, but we know little about the social and individual processes that might foster these benefits. I address this gap in the literature drawing from data collected in a four-year ethnographic study of divorce and ending life partnerships across six religious traditions. I analyze the experiences of 41 individuals who ended life partnerships while active in their congregations. Despite intense points of communal connection through ritual, respondents named largely private strategies for settling heightened emotion, physical and psychological pain, and creating a new self. Permeating their communal experiences was a marked sense of aloneness, resulting from individual shame and congregational silence, as well as their understanding of divorce-work as ultimately private self-work.
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A Comparison of Law Enforcement Divorce Rates with Those of Other Occupations
Shawn McCoy & Michael Aamodt
Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology, April 2010, Pages 1-16
Abstract:
It is a common belief that the divorce rate for police officers is higher than that of the general population. This belief is commonly held in spite of the fact that there is no empirical research supporting such a belief. To compare the divorce rate of law enforcement personnel with the rates for other occupations, we analyzed data from the 2000 U.S. Census. The results of this analysis indicate that the divorce rate for law enforcement personnel is lower than that of the general population, even after controlling for demographic and other job-related variables.
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Social attitudes modulate automatic imitation
Jane Leighton, Geoffrey Bird, Caitlin Orsini & Cecilia Heyes
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
In naturalistic interpersonal settings, mimicry or ‘automatic imitation' generates liking, affiliation, cooperation and other positive social attitudes. The purpose of this study was to find out whether the relationship between social attitudes and mimicry is bidirectional: Do social attitudes have a direct and specific effect on mimicry? Participants were primed with pro-social, neutral or anti-social words in a scrambled sentence task. They were then tested for mimicry using a stimulus-response compatibility procedure. In this procedure, participants were required to perform a pre-specified movement (e.g. opening their hand) on presentation of a compatible (open) or incompatible (close) hand movement. Reaction time data were collected using electromyography (EMG) and the magnitude of the mimicry / automatic imitation effect was calculated by subtracting reaction times on compatible trials from those on incompatible trials. Pro-social priming produced a larger automatic imitation effect than anti-social priming, indicating that the relationship between mimicry and social attitudes is bidirectional, and that social attitudes have a direct and specific effect on the tendency to imitate behavior without intention or conscious awareness.