The Importance of Both Individual Differences and Dyadic Processes in Children's Emotion Expression

Although children display strong individual differences in emotion expression, they also engage in emotional synchrony or reciprocity with interaction partners. To understand this paradox between trait-like and dyadic influences, the goal of the current study was to investigate children's emotion expression using a Social Relations Model (SRM) approach. Playgroups consisting typically of four same-sex unfamiliar nine-year-old children (N = 202) interacted in a round-robin format (6 dyads per group). Each dyad completed two 5-minute tasks, a challenging frustration task and a cooperative planning task. Observers coded children's emotions during the tasks (happy, sad, angry, anxious, neutral) on a second-by-second basis. SRM analyses provided substantial evidence of both the trait-like nature of children's emotion expression (through significant effects for actor variance, multivariate actor-actor correlations, and multivariate intrapersonal correlations) and the dyadic nature of their emotion expression (through significant effects for partner variance, relationship variance, dyadic reciprocity correlations, and multivariate interpersonal correlations).

What factors influence dyadic synchrony? A systematic review of the literature on predictors of mother-infant dyadic processes of shared behavior and affect

Dyadic behavioral synchrony is a complex interactional process that takes place between the mother and her infant. In the first year of life, when the infant is prelinguistic, processes such as synchrony enable the dyad to communicate through shared behavior and affect. To date, no systematic review has been carried out to understand the risk and protective factors that influence behavioral synchrony in the mother-infant dyad. The aim of this review was to identify and evaluate the factors that influence behavioral synchrony in the mother-infant dyad, when the infant is between 3 and 9 months old. Key electronic databases were searched between 1970 and April 2021, and 28 eligible studies were identified for review. As the results were largely heterogeneous, four subgroups of factors were identified: (i) infant demographics, (ii) physiological factors, (iii) maternal mental health, and (iv) miscellaneous factors. Identified risk factors and covariates suggest that social determinants of health, underpinned by biological factors, play a large role in influencing behavioral synchrony within the dyad. Implications for the need to identify additional risk and protective factors, as well as design support for at-risk families are discussed.

Regional COVID-19 Dynamics: Surrogate Synchrony in Case Infection Rates

As many jurisdictions consider in-person learning strategies (including at Institutions of Higher Education, IHE), implementing travel restrictions or quarantines, and/or establishing interstate pacts to reduce COVID-19 spread, this study explores the degree to which COVID-19 case infection rates in a group of neighboring, Southern and Midwestern U.S. states (namely, Arkansas and its contiguous neighbors) are patterned in a non-random way known as synchrony. Utilizing surrogate synchrony (SUSY) to estimate the dyadic coupling between the COVID-19 case infection rate processes in this region from March to December 2020, results indicate that significant synchrony is present between Arkansas and three of its neighbors. The highest level of instantaneous synchrony occurs between Arkansas and Tennessee, with the next highest level occurring between Arkansas and Missouri. There is evidence of directionality in the synchrony, indicating that Arkansas case infection rates lead Mississippi while rates in Missouri and Tennessee lead Arkansas. The lagged cross-correlations suggest the greatest synchrony to occur between 3 and 6 days. To explore the effect of IHE reopening on COVID-19, synchrony is compared between pre- and post-reopening windows. Results suggested that, following reopening, there are gains in detectable synchrony and that COVID-19 is in-flowing to Arkansas from all of its neighboring states. Taken together, results suggest that there is spatiality to COVID-19 with neighboring states having case infection rates that are significantly synchronous at a lag time that would be expected based on symptom onset. This synchrony is potentially strengthened by the in-flow and cross-border movement of IHE students.

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.

Modeling dyadic processes using Hidden Markov Models: A time series approach to mother-infant interactions during infant immunization

The focus of the present longitudinal study, to examine mother-infant interaction during the administration of immunizations at two and six months of age, used hidden Markov modeling, a time series approach that produces latent states to describe how mothers and infants work together to bring the infant to a soothed state. Results revealed a 4-state model for the dyadic responses to a two-month inoculation whereas a 6-state model best described the dyadic process at six months. Two of the states at two months and three of the states at six months suggested a progression from high intensity crying to no crying with parents using vestibular and auditory soothing methods. The use of feeding and/or pacifying to soothe the infant characterized one two-month state and two six-month states. These data indicate that with maturation and experience, the mother-infant dyad is becoming more organized around the soothing interaction. Using hidden Markov modeling to describe individual differences, as well as normative processes, is also presented and discussed.