Rejection in romantic relationships: Does rejection sensitivity modulate emotional responses to perceptions of negative interactions?

Background: Rejection is a highly stressful experience and individuals tend to avoid it whenever possible. In intimate relationships, experiences of rejection can shape the interaction dynamics between partners. Highly rejection sensitive people fear that their romantic partner will reject them and they overreact to any ambiguous cues that might indicate rejection.

Attachment insecurities, emotion dynamics and stress in intimate relationships during the transition to parenthood.

Background: In intimate relationships, which are characterized by emotional interdependence, partners act as attachment figures which serve emotion regulation functions. The experience of emotions as well as the strategies that partners use to regulate them and to respond to relational experiences, especially during stressful periods, differ greatly according to their attachment orientation. An important aspect in emotion dynamics is emotional inertia, which reflects the degree to which a person's current affective state is resistant to change on a moment-to-moment basis.

Relationship difficulties and "technoference" during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has touched many aspects of people's lives around the world, including their romantic relationships. While media outlets have reported that the pandemic is difficult for couples, empirical evidence is needed to test these claims and understand this may be. In two highly powered studies ( = 3271) using repeated measure and longitudinal approaches, we found that people who experienced COVID-19 related challenges (i.

The Source of Power Matters: Positional Power as a Better Predictor of Sexual Interest Perceptions than Dispositional Power Among Men within a Military Context.

The current research examined the roles of positional power induced by one's hierarchical position in an organization and dispositional power (i.e., one's general feeling of power) in the perception of sexual interest in a military context.

Associations of conflict frequency and sexual satisfaction with weekly relationship satisfaction in Iranian couples.

Distressed couples report more conflicts, less sexual satisfaction, and lower relationship quality. The literature also suggests that frequent conflict is related to lower sexual satisfaction. While evidence for these associations has started to accumulate in recent years, the evidence is largely limited to Western samples.

Increased Reward-Related Activation in the Ventral Striatum During Stress Exposure Associated With Positive Affect in the Daily Life of Young Adults With a Family History of Depression. Preliminary Findings.

Being the offspring of a parent with major depression disorder (MDD) is a strong predictor for developing MDD. Blunted striatal responses to reward were identified in individuals with MDD and in asymptomatic individuals with family history of depression (FHD). Stress is a major etiological factor for MDD and was also reported to reduce the striatal responses to reward.

Comparing the effects of a mindfulness versus relaxation intervention on romantic relationship wellbeing.

There is increasing scientific interest in the potential association between mindfulness and romantic relationship wellbeing. To date, however, experimental studies using active control groups and testing dyadic effects (i.e.

Striatal reactivity to reward under threat-of-shock and working memory load in adults at increased familial risk for major depression: A preliminary study.

Introduction: Anhedonia, a core symptom of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), manifests as a lack or loss of motivation as reflected by decreased reward responsiveness, at both behavioral and neural (i.e., striatum) levels.

Trajectories of perceived superiority across the transition to marriage.

Perceived superiority, the tendency to regard one's own relationship as better than other people's relationships, is a key relationship maintenance mechanism. Little is known about whether and how it changes during the transition to marriage, a pivotal moment in most couples' life cycle. In a longitudinal study following 97 couples for three waves across the transition, men presented stable perceived superiority, whereas women presented a curvilinear change in superiority perceptions, with a substantial increase in perceived superiority between T1 and T2 and a significantly reduced change between T2 and T3.

Striatal responsiveness to reward under threat-of-shock and working memory load: A preliminary study.

Introduction: Reward and stress are important determinants of motivated behaviors. Striatal regions play a crucial role in both motivation and hedonic processes. So far, little is known on how cognitive effort interacts with stress to modulate reward processes.

If You Shared My Happiness, You Are Part of Me: Capitalization and the Experience of Couple Identity.

The way in which individuals react to a partner's disclosure of positive news (capitalization response) is associated with relational well-being. Two studies analyzed the role of couple identity in explaining the association between perceived capitalization responses and relationship quality. A daily diary study ( = 90 couples) revealed that on days people perceived their partners' responses as active-constructive, they reported higher levels of couple identity.

The role of daily couple communication in the relationship between illness representation and fear of cancer recurrence in breast cancer survivors and their spouses.

Objective: Previous studies have shown the significance of illness representation in maintaining of fear of cancer recurrence (FCR). The current study explored the association of illness representation and fear of cancer recurrence in daily life among breast cancer survivors and their spouses, considering the role of daily couple communication.

Methods: A total of 54 couples in which the wives were breast cancer survivors were recruited to complete Brief Illness Perception Questionnaire and to report their communication information and fear of cancer recurrence in daily life.

Explicit Stress Communication Facilitates Perceived Responsiveness in Dyadic Coping.

The present study was aimed at examining the role of explicit stress communication in the context of dyadic coping. The general aim of the present study was to test (a) whether explicit communication of daily stressful events predicted relationship satisfaction and (b) whether the perception of responsiveness in dyadic coping mediated the association between explicit stress communication and partners' satisfaction. We analyzed daily diary data from 55 married couples and multilevel analyses suggested that, although explicit stress communication was not associated with relationship satisfaction, it predicted both partners' responsiveness in dyadic coping behaviors.

Emotion dynamics and responsiveness in intimate relationships.

Responding appropriately to an intimate partner's emotional signals and needs requires that one's emotional responses be reactive to significant interpersonal experiences. The adaptive function of emotions is likely compromised if an individual's emotional states are insufficiently attuned to interpersonal events. The present studies examine how individual differences in moment-to-moment emotion dynamics affect interpersonal responsiveness and relationship satisfaction.

How does mindfulness modulate daily stress response: evidences from ambulatory assessment.

Objective: Mindfulness has been found to be associated with less adverse stress response. However, little is known about how mindfulness modulates stress response in the real daily life. The current study investigated the relation between daily stress and negative emotions, and explored a mediational link via perceived loss of control, and moderation by dispositional mindfulness, to better understand this association.

More Than Just Sex: Affection Mediates the Association Between Sexual Activity and Well-Being.

Positive interpersonal interactions such as affection are central to well-being. Sex is associated with greater individual well-being, but little is known about why this occurs. We predicted that experienced affection would account for the association between sex and well-being.

The difficulty of being a professional, a parent, and a spouse on the same day: Daily spillover of workplace interactions on parenting, and the role of spousal support.

Designing parenting interventions and preventions requires knowledge on the factors and processes that shape parenting behaviors. Using data collected over 10 days, during the last hour of work and before going to bed, this study examined the spillover of interpersonal work stresses into positive and negative parenting behaviors. Data were collected among 103 couples who had at least one child between the age of one and eight years.

Protective Processes Underlying the Links between Marital Quality and Physical Health.

Although the links between marital quality and physical health are now well established, the psychological processes through which marriage impacts health remain unclear. Additionally, prior research on the links between marriage and health has focused mainly on how negative aspects of relationships (e.g.

Satiety regulation in children with loss of control eating and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: A test meal study.

Children with loss of control (LOC) eating and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are at risk for excessive weight gain. However, it is unclear whether or not these children show disturbances in hunger and satiety regulation. The goal was to examine the food intake and sense of LOC over eating as well as LOC eating-related characteristics during test meal in children with LOC eating and ADHD.

Momentary Affective States Are Associated with Momentary Volume, Prospective Trends, and Fluctuation of Daily Physical Activity.

Several interventions aiming to enhance physical activity in everyday life showed mixed effects. Affective constructs are thought to potentially support health behavior change. However, little is known about within-subject associations between momentary affect and subsequent physical activity in everyday life.

Growing in times of grief: attachment modulates bereaved adults' posttraumatic growth after losing a family member to cancer.

This study explored whether attachment moderated the relationship between grief and posttraumatic growth. A total of 240 Chinese adults who have lost a family member to cancer reported on their grief (Prolonged Grief Questionnaire-13; PG-13), posttraumatic growth (Posttraumatic Growth Inventory; PTGI) and attachment (Experiences in Close Relationships; ECR). The results suggested that bereaved individuals who scored high on attachment anxiety showed a substantial and positive relationship between grief and posttraumatic growth, while their less anxiously attached counterparts showed no such association.

PERSONAL VULNERABILITIES AND ASSORTATIVE MATE SELECTION AMONG NEWLYWED SPOUSES.

Assortative-mating theories propose that individuals select romantic relationship partners who are similar to them on positive and negative qualities. Furthermore, stress-generation and intergenerational transmission of divorce models argue that one's depression history or family-of-origin relationship problems predict qualities of a marital partner that predispose them to relationship distress. We analyzed data from 172 newlywed couples to examine predictors and mediators of a marital partner's risk index.

Lean on me: susceptibility to partner affect attenuates psychological distress over a 12-month period.

Symptoms of psychological distress are associated with the experience of heightened negative affect, and the inability to successfully regulate one's emotions. Romantic partners can, however, influence and regulate each other's emotional experiences, especially during times of distress. Using daily diary measures taken 4 times per day over a 10-day period, we examined whether susceptibility to partner affect was associated with levels and trajectories of psychological distress over 12 months.

Are the costs of neuroticism inevitable? Evidence of attenuated effects in U.S. Latinas.

Neuroticism is the heritable and stable personality trait defined by the tendency to experience negative emotion, be easily stressed, and slow to soothe. Neuroticism poses a risk for poor social and health outcomes that has been identified as a major public health concern. To date, factors that attenuate neuroticism's costs have not been identified.