How Do Third Parties Respond to Intimate Partner Violence? The Role of the Victim's Justification of Violence.

Previous research shows that victims of intimate partner violence (IPV) often justify violence, which can play a role in the persistence of violence. The present studies examined whether the victim's justification of violence negatively affects third parties' evaluative responses toward the victim (general evaluation of the victim, victim blaming, and evaluation of the victim's response toward the violence) and negatively affects third parties' willingness to support and take action. We also examined whether this would occur especially when the violence had happened frequently in the past.

The role of trust in reducing confrontation-related social costs.

Confronting, or calling out people for prejudiced remarks, reduces subsequent expressions of prejudice. However, people who confront others incur social costs: Confronters are disliked, derogated, and avoided relative to others who have not confronted. These social costs hurt the confronter and reduce the likelihood of future confrontation.

Fostering Attachment Security: The Role of Interdependent Situations.

This work adopts an Interdependence Theory framework to investigate how the features of interdependent situations that couples face in their daily life (i.e., situations in which partners influence each other's outcomes) shape attachment security toward their current partners.

Support Processes Predict Declines in Attachment Avoidance Across the Transition to Parenthood.

Attachment orientations in adulthood can change over time, but the specific circumstances that directly affect change are not well understood. Bowlby proposed that those circumstances involve the assimilation of information that is incongruent with an individual's existing attachment orientation and underlying working models. In this study, 137 couples transitioning to parenthood were followed across the first 2 years of their firstborn child's life, with both partners providing data at five time-points.

Mind the Gap: Perceived Partner Responsiveness as a Bridge between General and Partner-Specific Attachment Security.

A core idea of attachment theory is that security develops when attachment figures are responsive to a person's connection needs. Individuals may be more or less secure in different relationships. We hypothesized that individuals who perceive a current relationship partner as being responsive to their needs will feel more secure in that specific relationship, and that the benefits of perceived partner responsiveness would be more pronounced for individuals who generally feel insecure.

Support Processes Predict Declines in Attachment Avoidance Across the Transition to Parenthood.

Attachment orientations in adulthood can change over time, but the specific circumstances that directly affect change are not well understood. Bowlby proposed that those circumstances involve the assimilation of information that is incongruent with an individual's existing attachment orientation and underlying working models. In this study, 137 couples transitioning to parenthood were followed across the first 2 years of their firstborn child's life, with both partners providing data at five time-points.

Machine learning uncovers the most robust self-report predictors of relationship quality across 43 longitudinal couples studies.

Given the powerful implications of relationship quality for health and well-being, a central mission of relationship science is explaining why some romantic relationships thrive more than others. This large-scale project used machine learning (i.e.

Cognitive Reframing of Intimate Partner Aggression: Social and Contextual Influences.

Intimate partner aggression violates U.S. culturally-accepted standards regarding how partners should treat each other.

Walking a security tightrope: relationship-induced changes in attachment security.

Little is known about how romantic relationships enhance long-term attachment security. Change is likely to involve revising deep-seated beliefs and expectations regarding one's self as being unworthy and others as untrustworthy (insecure internal working models). When individuals become anxious, partners can provide immediate reassurance, but the path to long-term security may hinge on addressing the individual's insecure self-perceptions; when individuals become avoidant, partners can 'soften' interactions that involve relational give-and-take, but long-term security may hinge on instilling positive associations with interdependence and trust.

Perceptions of Psychological Abuse: The Role of Perpetrator Gender, Victim's Response, and Sexism.

It is commonly assumed that male abuse is more damaging than female abuse, just as it previously has been assumed that physical abuse is more harmful than psychological abuse. We sought to examine gender assumptions given that they may cause people to overlook the harm that men experience with a psychologically abusive partner. The current experiment compared perceptions of male and female perpetrators of psychological abuse, and examined whether gendered perceptions were affected by sexist beliefs or participants' own sex.

Revising Working Models Across Time: Relationship Situations That Enhance Attachment Security.

We propose the Attachment Security Enhancement Model (ASEM) to suggest how romantic relationships can promote chronic attachment security. One part of the ASEM examines partner responses that protect relationships from the erosive effects of immediate insecurity, but such responses may not necessarily address underlying insecurities in a person's mental models. Therefore, a second part of the ASEM examines relationship situations that foster more secure mental models.

Personal standards for judging aggression by a relationship partner: How much aggression is too much?

What determines whether people tolerate partner aggression? This research examined how norms, relationship experiences, and commitment predict personal standards for judging aggressive acts by a partner. Studies 1a and 1b (n = 689) revealed that experiencing aggression in a current relationship and greater commitment predicted greater tolerance for common partner aggression. Study 2 longitudinally tracked individuals who had never experienced partner aggression (n = 52).

Intimate Relationships and Personal Distress: The Invisible Harm of Psychological Aggression.

Aggression in intimate relationships is pervasive, has been implicated in personal distress, and yet may not be perceived as harmful. Two studies (cross-sectional, longitudinal) examined whether being the target of psychologically aggressive behavior by a partner is uniquely associated with personal distress, beyond the effects of general couple functioning, perpetrating aggression, or experiencing physical aggression. New instances of psychological aggression by a partner predicted increases in personal distress.

Implementation Intentions Increase Parent-Teacher Communication Among Latinos.

This research tested an implementation intentions intervention to increase parent-teacher communication among Latino parents of young children. Parents (n=57) were randomly assigned to form implementation intentions or simply goal intentions to communicate with their child's teacher. They completed measures of communication and goal intentions immediately prior to the manipulation, and after the manipulation for 6 consecutive weeks.

Child and parental outcomes of a group parenting intervention for Latino families: A pilot study of the CANNE program.

Criando a Nuestros Niños hacia el Éxito (CANNE) is the Spanish adaptation of Parenting Our Children to Excellence (PACE). A pilot study conducted with 124 parents of preschoolers (mostly recent Mexican immigrants) provides preliminary evidence for the community acceptability and efficacy of CANNE. Eighty-eight of the 124 parents who enrolled in the program attended one or more of the 8 sessions (17% attended 1 session, 11% attended 2-4 sessions, and 72% attended 5 or more sessions), participated actively in sessions, and expressed high degrees of program satisfaction.

"When Will Your Program Be Available in Spanish?" Adapting an Early Parenting Intervention for Latino Families.

This paper describes the Spanish adaptation of PACE-Parenting Our Children to Excellence. Successfully offered in preschools and daycare centers since 2002, PACE is a research-based preventive intervention to support families in their parenting task through discussions and activities that address practical childrearing issues and promote child coping-competence. Developed in response to community calls, the new program is known as CANNE -Criando a Nuestros Niños hacia el Éxito.

Factors associated with acceptance of psychological aggression against women.

Are emotionally aggressive conflicts perceived to be more unacceptable than conflicts involving verbal or baseline levels of psychological aggression? Participants (n = 189) read a hypothetical marital conflict that varied the husband's level of aggression. Results show that participants did not perceive the perpetrator's behavior in the emotional aggression condition to be any worse than the verbal aggression condition and, in most cases, no worse than the baseline condition. More traditional participants and participants who were perpetrators of psychological aggression had more positive perceptions of the perpetrator; just world beliefs and participant sex did not predict perceptions.

Relationship perceptions and persistence: do fluctuations in perceived partner commitment undermine dating relationships?

The authors propose specific temporal profiles that reflect certainty versus doubt about where a partner stands with respect to a dating relationship over time. Two multiwave longitudinal studies focused on within-participant changes in perceived partner commitment. Results from multilevel modeling indicate that individuals whose perceptions of partner commitment fluctuate over time were more likely to be in a relationship that eventually ended than were individuals whose perceptions remained relatively steady.

Targets of partner violence: the importance of understanding coping trajectories.

Partner violence causes many negative outcomes for the target of the violence. Preventing negative outcomes in part hinges on altogether preventing the violence from occurring. There have been advances in violence prevention that the authors briefly review.

Adolescent dating violence: do adolescents follow in their friends', or their parents', footsteps?

Past research suggests that adolescents whose parents are violent toward one another should be more likely to experience dating violence. Having friends in violent relationships also may increase the odds of dating violence. The authors examined which antecedent, friend dating violence or interparental violence, if either, is more strongly predictive of own dating violence perpetration and victimization.

The ups and downs of dating: fluctuations in satisfaction in newly formed romantic relationships.

This research examined the association between relationship satisfaction and later breakup status, focusing on the temporal changes in satisfaction ratings of individuals in newly formed dating relationships. Growth curve analytic techniques were used in 2 longitudinal studies to create 4 predictors: each participant's initial level of satisfaction, linear trend in satisfaction over time, degree of fluctuation in satisfaction over time, and mean level of satisfaction. Consistent with hypotheses, individuals who exhibited greater fluctuation in their repeated satisfaction ratings were more likely to be in relationships that eventually ended, even after controlling for overall level of satisfaction.

An evaluation of Safe Dates, an adolescent dating violence prevention program.

Objectives: This study assessed the effects of the Safe Dates program on the primary and secondary prevention of adolescent dating violence.

Methods: Fourteen schools were randomly allocated to treatment conditions. Eighty percent (n=1886) of the eighth and ninth graders in a rural county completed baseline questionnaires, and 1700 (90%) completed follow-up questionnaires.

Willingness to sacrifice in close relationships.

The authors advance an interdependence analysis of willingness to sacrifice. Support for model predictions was revealed in 6 studies (3 cross-sectional survey studies, 1 simulation experiment, 2 longitudinal studies) that used a novel self-report measure and a behavioral measure of willingness to sacrifice. Willingness to sacrifice was associated with strong commitment, high satisfaction, poor alternatives, and high investments; feelings of commitment largely mediated the associations of these variables with willingness to sacrifice.

The Safe Dates Project: theoretical basis, evaluation design, and selected baseline findings.

Approximately 20% of adolescents have experienced violence from a dating partner. The Safe Dates Project tests the effects of a program on the primary and secondary prevention of dating violence among adolescents living in a rural North Carolina county. The program being evaluated aims to prevent dating violence by changing dating violence norms, gender stereotyping, conflict-management skills, help-seeking, and cognitive factors associated with help-seeking.