Creating and Testing the Reliability of a Family Maltreatment Severity Classification System.

Child maltreatment and intimate partner abuse determinations often include judgments (e.g., severity) that go beyond whether or not the allegations are founded.

Development of a multilevel prevention program for improved relationship functioning in active duty military members.

The relationships and families of active duty (AD) service members have been tremendously strained by deployments and high operations' tempo. This study involves the first steps in developing a multilevel approach to preventing relationship problems that integrates universal, selective, and indicated prevention/intervention. Such an approach has tremendous empirical support for parenting problems, but no similar program exists for couple problems.

The honeymoon effect: does it exist and can it be predicted?

The population-level decrease over time in newlyweds' marital satisfaction is well established. Yet decreasing marital satisfaction does not occur for all spouses to the same extent, if at all. In the present article, we test for the presence and predictability of a "honeymoon effect"-initially high, but rapidly decreasing, marital satisfaction in newlywed couples.

Boundaries of schizoaffective disorder: revisiting Kraepelin.

Importance: Established nosology identifies schizoaffective disorder as a distinct category with boundaries separating it from mood disorders with psychosis and from schizophrenia. Alternative models argue for a single boundary distinguishing mood disorders with psychosis from schizophrenia (kraepelinian dichotomy) or a continuous spectrum from affective to nonaffective psychosis.

Objective: To identify natural boundaries within psychotic disorders by evaluating associations between symptom course and long-term outcome.

Biological sensitivity to context in couples: why partner aggression hurts some more than others.

Objective: Cardiovascular reactivity to laboratory stressors was investigated as (a) a moderator of associations of partner aggression with affective functioning, alcohol problems, and parenting; and (b) a consequence of partner aggression.

Method: Cohabiting adult couples (N = 453) with 3- to 7-year-old children were recruited by random digit dialing and completed questionnaires assessing couple physical aggression, discipline practices, anger, stress, depressive symptoms, and problem alcohol use. Heart rate and blood pressure were measured at rest and in response to laboratory stressors (mental arithmetic and video presentations of family conflict).