Daily emotional stress reactivity in emerging adulthood: temporal stability and its predictors.

Background & Objectives: Emotional reactivity to stress is associated with both mental and physical health and has been assumed to be a stable feature of the person. However, recent evidence suggests that the within-person association between stress and negative affect (i.e.

Relational Effects on Physical Activity: A Dyadic Approach to the Theory of Planned Behavior.

Objective: Despite growing appreciation of how close relationships affect health outcomes, there remains a need to explicate the influence romantic partners have on health behavior. In this paper, we demonstrate how an established model of behavior change-the theory of planned behavior (TPB)- can be extended from an individual level to a dyadic (couple) model to test the influence that relationship partners have on a key determinant of health behavior-behavioral intentions.

Methods: Two hundred romantic couples (400 individuals) completed TPB measures regarding physical activity for themselves and their romantic partner as well as a measure of relationship quality.

A daily process examination of episode-specific drinking to cope motivation among college students.

Objective: Theory suggests that state- and trait-like factors should interact in predicting drinking to cope (DTC) motivation, yet no research to date has demonstrated this at the drinking episode level of analysis. Thus, we examined whether daily variation in positive and negative affect and avoidance and active coping were associated with DTC motivation during discrete drinking episodes and whether these associations were moderated by tension-reduction expectancies and other person-level risk factors.

Methods: Using a secure website, 722 college student drinkers completed a one-time survey regarding their tension reduction expectancies and then reported daily for 30 days on their affect, coping strategies, drinking behaviors and motives for drinking.

Effects of subtle and explicit health messages on food choice.

Objective: Explicitly--as opposed to subtly--labeling a food healthy may inadvertently license people to indulge, imply that the food tastes bad, or lead to reactance. We investigated the effects of explicit and subtle health messages on individuals' food selection in two field studies.

Method: We manipulated the signs on healthy foods such that they explicitly stated that the food was healthy, subtly suggested it with an image, or did not mention health.

Friends don't let friends eat cookies: effects of restrictive eating norms on consumption among friends.

Social norms are thought to be a strong influence over eating, but this hypothesis has only been experimentally tested with groups of strangers, and correlational studies using actual friends lack important controls. We manipulate an eating norm in the laboratory and explore its influence within established friendships. In two studies we randomly assigned groups of three friends to a restrictive norm condition, in which two of the friends were secretly instructed to restrict their intake of appetizing foods, or a control condition, in which the friends were not instructed to restrict their eating.

Not "capitalizing" on social capitalization interactions: the role of attachment insecurity.

Capitalization interactions, in which partners share positive events, typically produce positive relationship outcomes (Gable, Gonzaga, & Strachman, 2006). However, the limiting conditions of these interactions have not been examined. In this study, 101 dating couples discussed a positive event in the life of each partner.

Getting in under the radar. A dyadic view of invisible support.

There are many ways in which the provision of social support can be ineffective. Recent research suggests that the benefits of support may be maximized when it is provided invisibly. What remains unknown, however, is whether invisible support reflects the skillful behavior of support providers or recipients' blissful unawareness, as well as how invisible support is delivered during spontaneous social interactions.

Bringing everyday mind reading into everyday life: assessing empathic accuracy with daily diary data.

Individual differences in empathic accuracy (EA) can be assessed using daily diary methods as a complement to more commonly used lab-based behavioral observations. Using electronic dyadic diaries, we distinguished among elements of EA (i.e.