Momentary patterns of covariation between specific affects and interpersonal behavior: Linking relationship science and personality assessment

Predicting Caregiver Communications in a Geriatric Clinic

The current study evaluated the use of a machine learning model to determine benefit of medical record variables in predicting geriatric clinic communication requirements. Patient behavioral symptoms and global cognition, medical information, and caregiver intake assessments were extracted from 557 patient records. Two independent raters reviewed the subsequent 12 months for documented (1) incoming caregiver contacts, (2) outgoing clinic contacts, and (3) clinic communications. Random forest models' average explained variance in training sets for incoming, outgoing, and clinic communications were 7.42%, 3.65%, and 6.23%, respectively. Permutation importances revealed the strongest predictors across outcomes were patient neuropsychiatric symptoms, global cognition, and body mass, caregiver burden, and age (caregiver and patient). Average explained variance in out-of-sample test sets for incoming, outgoing, clinic communications were 6.17%, 2.78%, and 4.28%, respectively. Findings suggest patient neuropsychiatric symptoms, caregiver burden, caregiver and patient age, patient body mass index, and global cognition may be useful predictors of communication requirements for patient care in a geriatric clinic. Future studies should consider additional caregiver variables, such as personality characteristics, and explore modifiable factors longitudinally.

Variance Decomposition of the Continuous Assessment of Interpersonal Dynamics (CAID) system: Assessing sources of influence and reliability of observations of parent-teen interactions

The Continuous Assessment of Interpersonal Dynamics (CAID) is an observational tool that measures warmth and dominance dynamics in real time and is sensitive to individual, dyadic, and contextual influences. Parent-adolescent interpersonal dynamics, which conceptually map onto parenting styles, are an integral part of positive adolescent adjustment and protect against risky outcomes. The current study's goal was to test the degree to which sources of influence on CAID data observed in a previous study of married couples generalize to a sample of parent-adolescent dyads. We examined data from ten raters who rated moment-to-moment warmth and dominance using CAID in a sample of 61 parent-adolescent dyads (N = 122) who were largely non-Hispanic White (62%) or African American (30%) based on parent report (adolescent M age = 14; 57% female). Dyads interacted in four different discussion segments (situations). We applied Generalizability Theory to delineate several sources of variance in CAID parameters and estimated within and between-person reliability. Results revealed a number of different influences, including the person, kinsperson (adolescent versus parent), dyad, rater, situation, and interactions among these factors, on ratings of parent-adolescent interpersonal behavior. These results largely replicate results from married couples, suggesting that the factors that influence ratings of interpersonal interactions largely generalize across sample types.

Interpersonal Complementarity and Affect in Daily Life

The current study examines the associations between interpersonal complementarity and affective reactions during social interactions in daily life, as well as contextual moderators of these associations. This research aims to understand how satisfaction/frustration of interpersonal motives (operationalized as interpersonal complementarity) impacts affect, using Contemporary Integrative Interpersonal Theory as a guiding framework. Participants (N = 227) rated actor and partner agency and communion in interpersonal interactions in 6 prompted surveys per day for 21 days. Results suggested that communal and agentic complementarity was associated with more positive affect valence, though this association was stronger for communal complementarity. Additionally, agentic complementarity impacted affect in cold interactions, while communal complementarity impacted affect in warm interactions, indicating that there are potentially more agentic motives driving cold interactions and communal motives driving warm interactions. An increase in communal complementarity was associated with an increase in affect arousal, while an increase in agentic complementarity was associated with a decrease in affect arousal, indicating affect arousal may communicate something other than satisfaction/frustration of motives. The moderating role of type of interaction partner was also explored. Overall, the results of this study support fundamental assumptions of Contemporary Integrative Interpersonal Theory.

Always in flux: the role of attentional focus in emotion regulation dynamics

Flexible emotion regulation (ER) in response to contextual changes is important for well-being. However, little is known about predictors of ER dynamics or their consequences. We investigated these questions in 113 romantic couples by priming self-, partner-, or relationship-focus in one partner prior to a 10-min conflict discussion. Afterwards, participants reported their ER using a video-recall task, and independent coders rated participants' affective behaviours. Couples focused on their relationship were more likely to switch between ER strategies, as expected. Switching predicted increased positive affect (PA), and this effect was stronger for couples in the self-focus condition than those in the partner-focus condition. Results suggest that focusing on a wider range of contextual information leads to more dynamic regulation. Further, regulating dynamically may generally be beneficial, especially if one does not neglect the self.

Full throttle: Demonstrating the speed, accuracy, and validity of a new method for continuous two-dimensional self-report and annotation

Research on fine-grained dynamic psychological processes has increasingly come to rely on continuous self-report measures. Recent studies have extended continuous self-report methods to simultaneously collecting ratings on two dimensions of an experience. For all the variety of approaches, several limitations are inherent to most of them. First, current methods are primarily suited for bipolar, as opposed to unipolar, constructs. Second, respondents report on two dimensions using one hand, which may produce method driven error, including spurious relationships between the two dimensions. Third, two-dimensional reports have primarily been validated for consistency between reporters, rather than the predictive validity of idiosyncratic responses. In a series of tasks, the study reported here addressed these limitations by comparing a previously used method to a newly developed two-handed method, and by explicitly testing the validity of continuous two-dimensional responses. Results show that our new method is easier to use, faster, more accurate, with reduced method-driven dependence between the two dimensions, and preferred by participants. The validity of two-dimensional responding was also demonstrated in comparison to one-dimensional reporting, and in relation to post hoc ratings. Together, these findings suggest that our two-handed method for two-dimensional continuous ratings is a powerful and reliable tool for future research.

Six assumptions of contemporary integrative interpersonal theory of personality and psychopathology

Contemporary integrative interpersonal theory is an evidence-based model of personality, psychopathology, and intervention. In this article, we review six assumptions of contemporary integrative interpersonal theory that distinguish it from other frameworks and suggest five particularly promising and important areas for future research.

Psychological Antecedents of Refugee Integration (PARI)

The successful management of refugee immigration, including refugee integration in host societies, requires a sound understanding of underlying psychological processes. We propose the psychological antecedents of refugee integration (PARI) model, highlighting perceived forcedness (i.e., coercion and loss of control from “push” factors) and ensuing perils (risks and potential suffering during migration) as distinctive factors of refugee (vs. voluntary) migration. According to our model, perceptions and subjective representations of forcedness and associated perils activate specific psychological processes relevant to refugee integration and thus moderate responses to the demands and stressors of the immigration situation. We conceptualize these distinctive influences for integration-relevant processes in both refugees and in residents. By pinpointing the unique features of refugee migration, PARI generates novel and specific hypotheses about psychological processes predicting refugee integration. For instance, refugees’ memories of forcedness and associated perils should lead to a high level of preoccupation with the restoration of basic needs after arrival in a receiving country that interferes with integration-related activities. Conversely, residents’ perceptions of forcedness and related perils may enhance empathy with refugees but may also magnify feelings of anxiety and threat. Implications for refugee integration are discussed for the domains of occupational work, education, and mental health.

The Trust Game for Couples (TGC): A new standardized paradigm to assess trust in romantic relationships

Trust between couples is a prerequisite for stable and satisfactory romantic relationships. However, there has been no valid research tool to assess partner-specific trust behavior including costly investments in the trustworthiness of the romantic partner. We here present a comprehensive validation of the newly developed Trust Game for Couples (TGC) by means of various self-report and implicit relationship-related measures. The TGC operationalizes trust by measuring an individual's willingness to invest his or her own financial resources in pro-relationship attitudes of their romantic partner (collected by dichotomous responses to relationship-relevant items, e.g., answering yes to "I am absolutely sure that I love my partner"). Thirty-five healthy couples between 20 and 34 years completed the TGC in an interactive (both partners present), but anonymous setting (no information on the partner's responses revealed). Trust, as measured by the TGC, correlates positively with self-reported trust, satisfaction, and felt closeness in the relationship, but not with general interpersonal trust, confirming both its convergent and discriminant validity. In addition to explicit criteria for construct validity, implicit measures of partner valence and confidence explained variance in the TGC, demonstrating that it constitutes an economical measure of implicit and explicit ingredients of trust between couples. In sum, the TGC provides a novel, specific behavioral tool for a sensitive assessment of trust in dyadic relationships with potential for numerous research fields.

Research on Marital Satisfaction and Stability in the 2010s: Challenging Conventional Wisdom

Although getting married is no longer a requirement for social acceptance, most people do marry in their lifetimes, and couples across the socioeconomic spectrum wish their marriages to be satisfying and long-lasting. This review evaluates the past decade of research on the determinants of satisfaction and stability in marriage, concluding that the scholarship of the past ten years has undermined three assumptions that were formerly accepted as conventional wisdom. First, research exploiting methods like latent class growth analyses reveal that, for most couples, marital satisfaction does not decline over time but in fact remains relatively stable for long periods. Second, contrary to predictions of behavioral models of marriage, negative communication between spouses can be difficult to change, does not necessarily lead to more satisfying relationships when it is changed, and does not always predict distress in the first place. Third, dyadic processes that are reliably adaptive for middle-class and more affluent couples may operate differently in lower-income couples, suggesting that influential models of marriage may not generalize to couples living in diverse environments. Thus, the accumulated research of the last ten years indicates that the tasks of understanding and promoting marital satisfaction and stability are more complex than we appreciated at the start of the decade, raising important questions that beg to be answered in the years ahead.

The Relationship Between Neuroticism Fit and General Well-Being: The Mediating Effect of Psychological Resilience

BACKGROUND

The dominance complementarity theory argues that effective and continuing interpersonal relationships require complementary dominance and submission values. This theory has been widely applied to interpersonal interaction studies. Although studies have demonstrated the correlation between neurotic personality traits and general well-being (GWB) in older adults, the interpersonal interactions and psychological mechanisms underlying this effect remain unclear.

AIM

Using this theory, we explored the effect of the neuroticism fit between older adults and primary caregivers on older adults' GWB and examined the mediating role of psychological resilience (PR).

METHODS

One hundred sixty-one dyads of older adults and primary caregivers in nursing homes completed scales that included the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire-Revised Short Scale, the 10-Item Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale, and the GWB Schedule. We performed a cross-level polynomial regression, response surface modeling and mediating effect test to analyze the data.

RESULTS

(1) Older adults' GWB was higher when the neuroticism fit between older adults and primary caregivers was incongruent rather than congruent (p < 0.01). (2) In cases of incongruence, older adults' GWB was higher only if their neuroticism was lower than that of their primary caregivers (p < 0.01). (3) In cases of congruence, older adults' GWB was higher when the neuroticism of both sides was lower (p < 0.01). (4) PR partially mediated the relationship between neuroticism incongruence and older adults' GWB (indirect effect = 0.14, p < 0.01).

CONCLUSION

The neuroticism incongruence between older adults and primary caregivers was beneficial to older adults' GWB and was partially mediated by PR.

Properties of the Continuous Assessment of Interpersonal Dynamics Across Sex, Level of Familiarity, and Interpersonal Conflict

The Continuous Assessment of Interpersonal Dynamics (CAID) is a method in which trained observers continuously code the dominance and warmth of individuals who interact with one another in dyads. This method has significant promise for assessing dynamic interpersonal processes. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of individual sex, dyadic familiarity, and situational conflict on patterns of interpersonal warmth, dominance, and complementarity as assessed via CAID. We used six samples with 603 dyads, including two samples of unacquainted mixed-sex undergraduates interacting in a collaborative task, two samples of couples interacting in both collaborative and conflict tasks, and two samples of mothers and children interacting in both collaborative and conflict tasks. Complementarity effects were robust across all samples, and individuals tended to be relatively warm and dominant. Results from multilevel models indicated that women were slightly warmer than men, whereas there were no sex differences in dominance. Unfamiliar dyads and dyads interacting in more collaborative tasks were relatively warmer, more submissive, and more complementary on warmth but less complementary on dominance. These findings speak to the utility of the CAID method for assessing interpersonal dynamics and provide norms for researchers who use the method for different types of samples and applications.

DARMA: Software for dual axis rating and media annotation

Continuous measurement systems provide a means of measuring dynamic behavioral and experiential processes as they play out over time. DARMA is a modernized continuous measurement system that synchronizes media playback and the continuous recording of two-dimensional measurements. These measurements can be observational or self-reported and are provided in real-time through the manipulation of a computer joystick. DARMA also provides tools for reviewing and comparing collected measurements and for customizing various settings. DARMA is a domain-independent software tool that was designed to aid researchers who are interested in gaining a deeper understanding of behavior and experience. It is especially well-suited to the study of affective and interpersonal processes, such as the perception and expression of emotional states and the communication of social signals. DARMA is open-source using the GNU General Public License (GPL) and is available for free download from http://darma.jmgirard.com .

Modeling the complexity of dynamic, momentary interpersonal behavior: Applying the time-varying effect model to test predictions from interpersonal theory

This paper demonstrates a recently-popularized quantitative method, the time-varying effect model (TVEM), in describing dynamic, momentary interpersonal processes implicated by Interpersonal Theory. We investigated moment-to-moment complementarity in affiliation and control behaviors (i.e., correspondence in affiliation and reciprocity in control between married dyad members) in a five-minute interaction (N=135), and how complementarity changed over time. Overall, results supported complementarity in affiliation and control. Moreover, effects were time-varying: Complementarity in affiliation increased over time and complementary in control changed over time in a cyclical manner. Dyadic adjustment moderated the strength in complementarity in control during specific timeframes. We discuss implications of these results and future directions. The findings support the utility of TVEM for studying dynamic and time-dependent interpersonal processes.