Understanding in close relationships: An interpersonal approach

The Link between the Nature of the Human-Companion Animal Relationship and Well-Being Outcomes in Companion Animal Owners

Research into the impact of companion animals on well-being has been both extensive and inconclusive, with studies finding both positive and negative relationships. The present research explored three previously unexamined relationship science concepts that may help clarify whether companion animals provide well-being benefits: self-expansion (the process of adding positive content to the self through incorporating new resources and perspectives into one's identity or engaging in novel, exciting activities), perceived pet responsiveness, and perceived pet insensitivity; as well as attachment. We focused on dog and cat owners' depression, anxiety, positive and negative affect, and loneliness through an online survey with a large sample population (N = 1359). We found that perceived pet insensitivity is a significant positive predictor of depression, anxiety, negative affect, and loneliness; that attachment is a significant positive predictor of depression, anxiety, and loneliness, and a significant negative predictor of positive affect; and that self-expansion is a significant positive predictor of positive affect, and a significant negative predictor of loneliness. Loneliness emerged as a mediator in the relationship between perceived pet insensitivity, attachment, self-expansion, and all mental well-being outcome variables. These findings indicate that perceived pet insensitivity, attachment, and self-expansion may play an important yet neglected role in well-being outcomes.

Tugging at Their Heartstrings: Partner's Knowledge of Affective Meta-Bases Predicts Use of Emotional Advocacies in Close Relationships

Traditional studies of attitude change have focused on attempts between strangers, but what about in close relationships? The present article examines whether accuracy regarding a partner's meta-attitudinal bases can influence persuasion attempts. Because meta-bases reflect informationprocessing goals, we hypothesized that given partners with more affective meta-bases, greater accuracy regarding partners' meta-bases would predict use of emotional advocacies and their perceived persuasiveness. Self and partner ratings of meta-bases were assessed, and emotional advocacies as well as cognitive ones were provided to participants to present to their partners. Results revealed that the correspondence between perceptions of partner's affective meta-bases and use of emotional advocacies was greater among those whose partners rated themselves as having more affective meta-bases compared to those whose partners rated themselves as having less affective meta-bases. Results remained significant when controlling for perceived similarity. Implications of meta-bases for understanding interpersonal influence are discussed.

Human versus chatbot: Understanding the role of emotion in health marketing communication for vaccines

Based on the theoretical framework of agency effect, this study examined the role of affect in influencing the effects of chatbot versus human brand representatives in the context of health marketing communication about HPV vaccines. We conducted a 2 (perceived agency: chatbot vs. human) × 3 (affect elicitation: embarrassment, anger, neutral) between-subject lab experiment with 142 participants, who were randomly assigned to interact with either a perceived chatbot or a human representative. Key findings from self-reported and behavioral data highlight the complexity of consumer-chatbot communication. Specifically, participants reported lower interaction satisfaction with the chatbot than with the human representative when anger was evoked. However, participants were more likely to disclose concerns of HPV risks and provide more elaborate answers to the perceived human representative when embarrassment was elicited. Overall, the chatbot performed comparably to the human representative in terms of perceived usefulness and influence over participants' compliance intention in all emotional contexts. The findings complement the Computers as Social Actors paradigm and offer strategic guidelines to capitalize on the relative advantages of chatbot versus human representatives.

Longitudinal associations among adolescents' internalizing problems, well-being, and the quality of their relationships with their mothers, fathers, and close friends

RATIONALE

Internalizing problems (i.e., depressive and anxiety symptoms) are known to decrease adolescents' well-being, but knowledge about potential underlying mechanisms is limited. The qualities of adolescents' most proximal relationships with their parents and close friends are expected to play a role in the association between adolescents' internalizing problems and well-being.

OBJECTIVE

The present study was conducted to 1) investigate the indirect longitudinal association between internalizing problems and adolescents' well-being via the quality of adolescents' relationships with both their mothers and fathers and their close friends, and 2) test whether our findings were gender invariant.

METHODS

Data were collected via online questionnaires in two waves at a 12-month interval from adolescents attending three secondary schools in the Netherlands (N = 1298; M age = 13.7 years, 53.2% girls). The data were analyzed using a two-wave cross-lagged panel model in R. Multigroup analyses were performed to examine the gender invariance of the findings.

RESULTS

After controlling for baseline levels, results showed that (1) girls, but not boys, who reported more internalizing problems at T1 had lower well-being at T2; (2) girls and boys who reported more internalizing problems at T1 had lower-quality relationships with their mothers, fathers, and close friends at T2; and (3) boys, but not girls, who reported higher-quality friendships at T1 had higher well-being at T2. However, no significant indirect effects between internalizing problems and well-being via the quality of adolescents' relationships with their parents and close friends were detected.

CONCLUSIONS

The current study contributes to understanding internalizing problems as an important risk factor to the quality of adolescents' proximal social relationships (parents, friends) and their well-being. The findings support the importance of building high-quality relationships, particularly friendships, and recommend future research to study adolescents' internalizing problems and well-being including gender-specific examinations.

Spillover Effects When Taking Turns in Dyadic Coping: How Lingering Negative Affect and Perceived Partner Responsiveness Shape Subsequent Support Provision

When experiencing personal distress, people usually expect their romantic partner to be supportive. However, when put in a situation to provide support, people may at times (still) be struggling with issues of their own. This interdependent nature of dyadic coping interactions as well as potential spillover effects is mirrored in the state-of-the-art research method to behaviorally assess couple's dyadic coping processes. This paradigm typically includes two videotaped 8-min dyadic coping conversations in which partners swap roles as sharer and support provider. Little is known about how such dyadic coping interactions may feed back into one another, impacting the motivation and ability to be a responsive support provider. In three behavioral studies, we examined how sharers' experiences may spill over to affect their own support provision in a subsequent dyadic coping interaction. We hypothesized that the extent to which sharers perceive their partner as responsive to their self-disclosure increases the quality of their own subsequent support provision (Hypothesis 1), whereas sharers' lingering negative affect reduces the quality of their own subsequent support provision (Hypothesis 2). In line with our first hypothesis, perceived partner responsiveness predicted the provision of higher-quality support, though primarily as perceived by the partner. Sharers who perceived their partner to have been more responsive were somewhat more likely to subsequently engage in positive dyadic coping and were rated as more responsive by their partners. Negative dyadic coping behavior was unaffected. Evidence for our second hypothesis was mixed. While lingering negative affect did not affect positive dyadic coping behavior or perceived support, it did increase the chances of negative dyadic coping behavior. However, given the very low occurrences of negative affect and negative dyadic coping, these findings should be interpreted with caution. Taken together, these findings suggest that support interactions may feed back into one another, highlighting the complex and interdependent nature of dyadic coping. The strongest and most consistent findings concerned the spillover effect of perceived partner responsiveness on subsequent perceived support quality, speaking to the key role of believing that one's partner is responsive to one's needs in promoting healthy relationship functioning.

Reconsidering interactive resilience processes in mental health: Implications for child and youth services

Research consistently demonstrates resilience as an interactive process, drawing on personal assets together with relational and contextual resources, to support improved outcomes in contexts of nonnormative adversity. What remains unclear are the dynamics of this process and what drives it. This article draws on a prior scoping review of the literature to conceptually explore the positioning of the individual within this dynamic interplay of risks, resilience, and sociocultural context as it pertains to child and youth mental health. The paper begins by summarizing findings from this scoping review, highlighting core resilience elements and processes. These are then considered in relational to the global meaning theory, situating meaning-making as a key mechanism that mediates the interaction between individuals and their ecologies. Drawing on the literature, this article considers how this interaction shapes the particular ways in which resilience then manifests itself in the lives of individuals and becomes available as a resource to assist in the promotion of mental health.

Relational events are more consequential when accompanied by emotional similarity

Shared experience - i.e. commonality in inner states such as feelings, beliefs, or concerns - plays an important role in establishing and maintaining close relationships. Emotional Similarity (ES) can be thought of as one type of shared experience, but the exact role it plays in our responses to specific contexts (objects, events, circumstances) is not well understood. We sought to examine the day-level context-dependent roles of romantic partners' ES. We hypothesised that relational events (i.e. conflict and sexual activity) occurring on days with high ES would be more consequential. Two samples (N = 44, N = 80) of committed couples completed daily diaries for three and five weeks, respectively. Each evening, partners reported their currently-felt moods, relationship quality, and the occurrence of conflict and/or sex in the preceding 24 h. ES was operationalised as the profile similarity between the partners' moods on each day. Generally, ES moderated the associations between conflict or sex and relational outcomes: on days marked by greater ES, conflict and sex had stronger negative/positive outcomes, respectively. These findings highlight the importance of considering ES on a momentary basis and suggest that it may function as an amplifier of charged relational events.

Actual and Perceived Emotional Similarity in Couples’ Daily Lives

We used two experience sampling studies to examine whether close romantic partners’ feelings of love and perceived partner responsiveness are better predicted by their actual emotional similarity or by their perceived emotional similarity. Study 1 revealed that the more partners were emotionally similar, the more they perceived their partner as responsive. This effect was mediated by perceived similarity, indicating that emotional similarity had to be detected in order to exert an effect. Further, when people overperceived their emotional similarities, they also reported more perceived partner responsiveness. Study 2 replicated these findings, by revealing similar effects for actual and perceived similarity on the love people reported to feel toward their partner. Implications for understanding the factors that predict feelings of love and responsiveness in close relationships are discussed.

Accuracy of food preference predictions in couples

The goal of this study was to identify and empirically test variables that indicate how well partners in relationships know each other's food preferences. Participants (n = 2,854) lived in the same household and were part of a large, nationally representative panel study in Germany. Each partner independently predicted the other's preferences for several common food items. Results show that predictive accuracy was higher for likes and for extreme and stereotypical preferences as compared to dislikes and for moderate and idiosyncratic preferences. Accuracy was also higher for couples with a high similarity in preferences and with longer relationship duration but was independent of participants' age after controlling for relationship duration. The data also show that relationship duration was accompanied by higher similarity in couples' food preferences. There was a small positive correlation between partner knowledge and both partner similarity and satisfaction with family life, but no correlation between partner knowledge and general life satisfaction. The results reconcile both valence and base-rate accounts of preference prediction accuracy.

Relationships and the transition from spinal units to community for people with a first spinal cord injury: A New Zealand qualitative study

BACKGROUND

Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) can have substantial consequences for the injured person, and also their family/whānau (Māori word for extended family and social networks). Family members can adopt either formal or informal care roles when the person returns home, and people with high-level care requirements may also need non-family support workers.

OBJECTIVE

This study considers how SCI can impact relationships during the transition from spinal rehabilitation units to home.

METHOD

Nineteen SCI participants from the New Zealand longitudinal study were interviewed six months post-discharge from either of New Zealand's two spinal units. Data were analysed using the framework method.

RESULTS

Three themes captured participants' relationship experiences during the time of transition: Role Disruption, examines how participants' pre-SCI family/whānau relationships underwent change as previously understood parameters of engagement were disrupted. A Balancing Act, explores the challenge of renegotiating previously-understood parameters between participants and whānau. The Stranger in My/Our Room focuses on how the relationship between participants and support workers was (necessarily) new to the participant and their family/whānau who now had an 'outsider' episodically or continuously in their home. The specifics of 'their' relationship was also new to the support worker; and negotiating the parameters of this relationship could only occur on transition home.

CONCLUSION

SCI necessitates a renegotiation of relationships and, for some, also involves the negotiation of a new type of relationship with support workers. Understanding the ways a SCI may affect relationships can enable rehabilitation services to best support people with SCI and their family to prepare for their transition home.

Best friends and better coping: Facilitating psychological resilience through boys' and girls' closest friendships

This is a novel investigation of whether, and how, a single close supportive friendship may facilitate psychological resilience in socio-economically vulnerable British adolescents. A total of 409 adolescents (160 boys, 245 girls, four unknown), aged between 11 and 19 years, completed self-report measures of close friendship quality, psychological resilience, social support, and other resources. Findings revealed a significant positive association between perceived friendship quality and resilience. This relationship was facilitated through inter-related mechanisms of developing a constructive coping style (comprised of support-seeking and active coping), effort, a supportive friendship network, and reduced disengaged and externalising coping. While protective processes were encouragingly significantly present across genders, boys were more vulnerable to the deleterious effects of disengaged and externalizing coping than girls. We suggest that individual close friendships are an important potential protective mechanism accessible to most adolescents. We discuss implications of the resulting Adolescent Friendship and Resilience Model for resilience theories and integration into practice.

"More than words": social validation in close relationships

Conversations are susceptible to many disturbances: A speaker's hesitations, distractions, or, when communicating online, technical hiccups that may cause brief delays. Research among previously unacquainted individuals revealed that brief disruptions in conversational flow can have profound social consequences: Silences or delays in mediated communication threaten the need to belong and validate one's ideas. The present research, however, shows that when occurring in close relationships, flow disruptions may be ironically beneficial. We hypothesized that when flow disruptions occur, partners fall back on their relationship beliefs to infer mutual agreement and the existence of a shared reality. When a relationship is perceived as secure, partners may believe that "no words are needed" to understand each other. Flow disruptions can thus paradoxically make shared cognitions accessible and foster feelings of social validation. Data from two experiments, using partners in different types of relationships, supported this hypothesis.

Sexual Kindred Spirits

We examined whether sexual similarity, complementarity, and perceptual accuracy exist within a large sample of heterosexual couples. Partners exhibited similarity and complementarity of sexual preferences, and they perceived each other’s preferences with a considerable degree of accuracy; these effects were greater than found in randomly assigned pseudocouples. In addition, people overperceived sexual similarity and complementarity, and they overperceived the accuracy with which their partner knew their preferences. We suggest these three forms of overperception are the result of motivated cognitive processes in service of sexual relationship maintenance. Using actor–partner interdependence modeling (Kenny, Kashy, & Cook, 2006), overperception predicted sexual satisfaction, as did complementarity, but similarity and accuracy did not. These findings indicate that motivated cognition may foster sexual satisfaction, as theories of motivated relationship cognitions suggest.

An examination of behavioral antecedents to individuals' participation in a social mentoring network from a protégé's perspective

The present study seeks to identify the behavioral antecedents to individuals' participation as protégé in a social mentoring network (SMN). It draws on social psychology and vocational literature and applies the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to understand and predict the specific behavioral context. A SMN was operationally defined as a special case of informal mentoring coupled with a social networking platform. Two additional variables--similarity and self-disclosure--were incorporated into the standard TPB model to improve its predictive power. A total of 376 respondents completed their first- and second wave questionnaires in a 2-week-longitudinal survey design. Two hierarchical multiple regressions were performed to determine the unique contributions made by the extended TPB model to the variance in behavioral intention and behavior. The results indicate that intention was demonstrated as a single significant variable in determining the behavior. Furthermore, intention was significantly influenced by respondents' attitudinal and normative beliefs toward the behavior, weighted by their internal mechanism that establishes the importance of necessary preconditions for the development of successful mentoring relationship. These preconditions include protégés' need for similarity with their mentor as well as willingness to self-disclose themselves to the SMN.