"Not Now, I Am Too Stressed": Stress and Physical Intimacy in Early Marriage.

Stressful events can disrupt couples' emotional connection, yet prior research is mixed regarding whether stress also disrupts couples' physical intimacy. This study considered whether stress must reach a critical threshold before hindering couples' sexual activity and physical affection (i.e.

Respiratory sinus arrhythmia as a dyadic protective factor in the transition to parenthood.

Considerable heterogeneity has been observed in couples' adjustment to the transition to parenthood (TTP). One potential yet understudied predictor of emotional adjustment to the TTP is the new parents' capacity for regulation. A widely accepted biological marker of this capacity is respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), which is closely tied to parasympathetic activation.

Acute salivary cortisol response among Mexican American adolescents in immigrant families.

Objectives: Though previous research has indicated that language brokering can be stressful, the findings are mixed, pointing to potential moderators of the association. Guided by an ecological perspective, we examined the role of individual, family, and environmental factors in Mexican American adolescents' acute cortisol responses to language brokering.

Method: The study consisted of 46 Mexican American adolescents recruited around a metropolitan city in Central Texas.

Reciprocal support and daily perceived control: Developing a better understanding of daily support transactions across a major life transition.

A paradox of social support has been well documented: believing that support is available and perceiving high levels of it has well-established mental health benefits, but the actual receipt of support is often found to be ineffective and even detrimental (see Gleason & Iida, 2015). Researchers have suggested that support receipt may be associated with negative mood because it is linked with a lack of self-efficacy or perceived control (Bolger & Amarel, 2007). Research on daily support transactions found that reciprocal emotional support exchanges counteracted the negative effects associated with support receipt, but there was significant variation between individuals in their reactions to support exchanges suggesting that a potential moderating variable of the support pattern exists.

Initial elevation bias in subjective reports.

People's reports of their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are used in many fields of biomedical and social science. When these states have been studied over time, researchers have often observed an unpredicted and puzzling decrease with repeated assessment. When noted, this pattern has been called an "attenuation effect," suggesting that the effect is due to bias in later reports.

The role of emotional capital during the early years of marriage: Why everyday moments matter.

Throughout a marriage couples will share countless ordinary moments together that may seem trivial, but which actually have potential to affirm and strengthen relational bonds. According to theories of emotional capital, the accumulation of shared positive moments in a relationship should serve as an essential resource for protecting the relationship against threats. To date, however, few empirical studies have explored the role emotional capital may play in shaping responses to negative relationship experiences.

Prevalence of Personality Disorders at Midlife in a Community Sample: Disorders and Symptoms Reflected in Interview, Self, and Informant Reports.

This report is concerned with the prevalence of symptoms of specific personality disorders in a representative community sample and draws attention to the importance of different sources of diagnostic information. We recruited a sample of 1,630 people between the ages of 55 and 64 to participate in a study regarding personality and health. Using careful recruitment methods, our participation rate was 43 %.

The role of locus of control in daily life.

Conceived of as a stable trait, locus of control has been linked with psychological and physical health outcomes. We investigated whether locus of control operates as a state variable, whether variation in daily locus of control is associated with anxiety and stressful events, and whether it predicts daily health behaviors and symptoms. Using a daily diary study of pregnant couples, we found daily variation in locus of control was predicted by daily hassles and anxiety such that high same-day and previous-day anxiety and hassles were associated with reports of lower levels of control.

Physicians' Use of Patients' Daily Reports of Quality of Life to Evaluate Treatment Response in Phase I Cancer Trials.

For cancer patients on Phase I trials, one of the most important physician decisions is whether or not patients are deriving benefit from therapy. With an increasing number of cytostatic treatment agents, the criteria to determine patient response to Phase I treatment has become harder to define. Physicians are increasingly looking to patient-reported outcomes (PROs) such as quality of life (QOL) to help evaluate treatment response.

The enduring impact of maladaptive personality traits on relationship quality and health in later life.

Over the past 5 years, the St. Louis Personality and Aging Network (SPAN) has been collecting data on personality in later life with an emphasis on maladaptive personality, social integration, and health outcomes in a representative sample of 1,630 adults aged 55-64 living in the St. Louis area.

Symptoms of borderline personality disorder predict interpersonal (but not independent) stressful life events in a community sample of older adults.

Individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD) often experience stressful life events at a higher frequency than those without BPD. It is less clear what specific types of events are involved in this effect, and it has not been determined whether some features of BPD are more important than others in accounting for this effect. The latter issue is important in light of the heterogeneous nature of this diagnostic construct.

Borderline but not antisocial personality disorder symptoms are related to self-reported partner aggression in late middle-age.

We examined the relationship between personality pathology and the frequency of self-reported psychological and physical partner aggression in a community sample of 872 adults aged 55-64. Previous research suggests that antisocial and borderline personality disorder (PD) symptoms are associated with partner aggression. Controlling for gender, education, alcohol dependence, and other personality pathology, we found that borderline PD symptoms, which include abandonment fears, unstable identity, and affective instability, were significantly related to the frequency of self-reported aggression toward one's partner.

The enduring impact of borderline personality pathology: risk for threatening life events in later middle-age.

Both neuroticism and borderline personality disorder (BPD) are associated with increased frequency of stressful life events in young adults. It is not clear, however, whether this effect extends to later life because BPD is apparently diminished in frequency and severity when people reach middle adulthood. This issue was examined in a representative, community sample of men and women between the ages of 55 and 64 (N = 1,234).

The influence of patient expectations regarding cure on treatment decisions.

Objective: To test whether cancer patients' expectations for cure prior to interacting with their oncologist influence their decisions to follow treatment recommendations. Further, to test whether patients' expectations for cure are affected by the strength of the oncologist-patient alliance or the extent to which companions (if present) share patients' expectations for cure.

Methods: Interactions of 101 patients (and 114 companions) with oncologists about treatment were coded for the strength of the oncologist-patient alliance.

Influence of clinical communication on patients' decision making on participation in clinical trials.

Purpose: To investigate how communication among physicians, patients, and family/companions influences patients' decision making about participation in clinical trials.

Patients And Methods: We video recorded 235 outpatient interactions occurring among oncologists, patients, and family/companions (if present) at two comprehensive cancer centers. We combined interaction analysis of the real-time video-recorded observations (collected at Time 1) with patient self-reports (Time 2) to determine how communication about trial offers influenced accrual decisions.

Receiving support as a mixed blessing: evidence for dual effects of support on psychological outcomes.

Although social support is thought to boost feelings of closeness in dyadic relationships, recent findings have suggested that support receipt can increase distress in recipients. The authors investigated these apparently contrary findings in a large daily diary study of couples over 31 days leading up to a major stressor. Results confirm that daily support receipt was associated with greater feelings of closeness and greater negative mood.

Overdiagnosis and underdiagnosis of personality disorders in older adults.

Objective: Recent evidence suggests that some of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition personality disorder (PD) criteria contain measurement bias across age groups. Specifically, this research showed that younger and older adults were differentially likely to endorse certain PD criteria, even when both groups were statistically matched using mechanisms of item response theory (IRT) for degree of PD pathology. For the analyses presented here, the authors used data from a large epidemiological study (N = 43,093), the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions, to examine the influence of this item-level measurement bias for reaching accurate algorithmic PD diagnoses of older adults.

An item response theory analysis of DSM-IV personality disorder criteria across younger and older age groups.

Many of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition (DSM-IV; American Psychiatric Association, 1994) personality disorder (PD) diagnostic criteria focus on a younger social and occupational context. The absence of age-appropriate criteria for older adults forces researchers and clinicians to draw conclusions based on existing criteria, which are likely inadequate. To explore which DSM-IV PD criteria contain age group measurement bias, the authors report 2 analyses of data on nearly 37,000 participants, ages 18-98 years, taken from a public data set that includes 7 of the 10 PDs (antisocial, avoidant, dependent, histrionic, obsessive-compulsive, paranoid, and schizoid).

Meta-perception for pathological personality traits: do we know when others think that we are difficult?

The self allows us to reflect on our own behavior and to imagine what others think of us. Clinical experience suggests that these abilities may be impaired in people with personality disorders. They do not recognize the impact that their behavior has on others, and they have difficulty understanding how they are seen by others.

Daily supportive equity in close relationships.

Receiving support in committed relationships has frequently been associated with negative psychological outcomes in the recipient, such as increased distress. The authors hypothesized that these negative effects could be offset by support recipients' reciprocation of support, that is, by creating a sense of supportive equity. To investigate this hypothesis, the authors obtained daily reports of mood and of received and given emotional support from both partners in 85 couples throughout a 4-week period.