Understanding how communication processes contribute to well-functioning versus distressed couple relationships has relied largely on brief, laboratory-based conversations. Harnessing technological advancements, the present study extends the literature by capturing couples' naturalistic communication over one full day at Time 1 (T1). This study tested associations between data-driven categories of couple communication behaviors and relationship outcomes (i.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Eating disorders are serious psychiatric conditions predominantly affecting children, adolescents, and young adults. While family-based treatment (FBT) is the gold standard outpatient treatment approach for adolescents with restrictive eating disorders, there is not a universally recognized best practice within higher levels of care. There is a particular dearth of literature detailing recommended psychological and behavioral interventions in the inpatient medical setting.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPhysiological linkage refers to moment-to-moment, time-linked coordination in physiological responses among people in close relationships. Although people in romantic relationships have been shown to evidence linkage in their physiological responses over time, it is still unclear how patterns of covariation relate to in-the-moment, as well as general levels of, relationship functioning. In the present study with data collected between 2014 and 2017, we capture linkage in electrodermal activity (EDA) in a diverse sample of young-adult couples, generally representative and generalizable to the Los Angeles community from which we sampled.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDoes talking about loss with a romantic partner have salutary personal and relationship effects? Prior evidence reveals the benefits of emotional disclosure in couple relationships, yet disclosure about loss has been overlooked in research on couple communication. Using a novel communication paradigm with young-adult heterosexual romantic partners ( = 114 couples), we investigated emotions, physiological arousal (skin conductance responses [SCR]), and relationship closeness when narrating a personal loss and listening to the partner's loss, and compared these loss discussions to discussions about desired relationship changes. Based on partners' self-reports, narrating loss elicited more vulnerable and, unexpectedly, more antagonistic emotions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEveryday language use, including the pronouns people choose when speaking to romantic partners, may reflect underlying aspects of relationship functioning and may have important implications for understanding couple conflict and dating aggression more generally. The current study measured couples' hour-to-hour "we," "I," and "you" speech in daily life and examined symmetry in pronoun use, or the extent to which partners mirror each other in the frequency of the pronouns they use. First, we examined associations between symmetry in pronoun use and overall levels of dating aggression.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe present study investigated whether the presence of a romantic partner in daily life is associated with attenuated sympathetic nervous system responses. Additionally, romantic attachment style was tested as a moderator. For one day, 106 heterosexual young adult dating couples wore ambulatory sensors that monitored electrodermal activity (EDA) - an index of sympathetic arousal.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRespiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), an index of the parasympathetic nervous system, has recently gained attention as a physiological component of regulatory processes, social connectedness, and health. Within the context of romantic relationships, studies have operationalized and conceptualized RSA in disparate ways, obscuring a clear pattern of findings. This systematic review synthesizes the rapidly developing literature and clarifies the role of RSA in romantic relationships.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Although past longitudinal research demonstrates that romantic partners affect one another's health outcomes, considerably less is known about how romantic experiences "get under the skin" in everyday life.
Purpose: The current study investigated whether young couples' naturally occurring feelings of closeness to and annoyance with each other during waking hours were associated with their overnight cardiovascular activity.
Methods: Participants were 63 heterosexual young adult dating couples (Mage = 23.
Individuals exposed to aggression and who perpetrate aggression against others show differences in their physiological activation during stress; the goal of the present study is to investigate physiological stress reactivity as a factor contributing to the intergenerational transmission of aggression. To test associations between family-of-origin aggression (FOA), physiological reactivity in daily life, and dating aggression perpetration, we used ecological momentary assessment to monitor fluctuations in young adult (M = 23.1 years) dating couples' electrodermal activity (EDA) over an entire day and examined how naturally-occurring bouts of annoyance between partners relate to EDA, FOA, and dating aggression perpetration.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis study investigates bidirectional associations between adolescents' daily experiences of victimization and aggression perpetration within friendships. We investigated (a) across-day associations between victimization and aggression perpetration; (b) morning cortisol activity as a moderator of cross-day victimization and aggression links; and (c) potential sex differences in these patterns. For 4 consecutive days, 99 adolescents (M = 18.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: Childhood adversity is a risk factor for the development of obesity in adulthood. Dysregulated hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) activity, which has been associated separately with both adverse childhood experiences and obesity, has been posited as a mechanism by which stressful experiences influence body mass index (BMI); however, this mechanism has not yet been tested longitudinally. The present study uses multireporter, longitudinal data across three time points to test whether the adolescent cortisol awakening response (CAR), an index of diurnal HPA activity, mediates the association between adversity in childhood and BMI in adulthood.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLittle is known about factors influencing adolescents' justice attitudes. This online study investigates perspective-taking and experiences with discrimination for their associations with adolescents' beliefs about how justice is best served. Participants included 179 ethnically/racially diverse high school students (M = 16.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Child Adolesc Trauma
June 2016
This study investigated whether having friends who engaged in more prosocial than antisocial behaviors buffered the associations between family-of-origin aggression and later victimization. Adolescent participants (=125) and their parents reported on different types of family aggression in early adolescence. Approximately 5 years later, adolescents reported on their victimization experiences with dating partners and friends, and their friends' prosocial and antisocial behaviors.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFChildren who grow up in aggressive households are at risk of having problems with physiological regulation, but researchers have not investigated physiology as a mechanism in the intergenerational transmission of aggression. In this article, we posit that physiological regulation, particularly during stressful interpersonal interactions, may shed light on sensitivity to conflict, It can also inform our understanding of associations between childhood exposure to aggression in families of origin and aggression against partners in adolescence or adulthood. In support of this model, we highlight findings showing that childhood exposure to family aggression relates to physiological regulation across the life span, and that reactions to physiological stress concurrently relate to aggression against intimate partners.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFResearch suggests that military unit support and community postdeployment social support are associated with fewer PTSD symptoms following military deployment. This study extended prior research by examining the associations among predeployment unit support and PTSD symptoms before Iraq deployment as well as unit support, PTSD symptoms, and postdeployment social support after deployment among 835 U.S.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPrior research has indicated that childhood sexual abuse (CSA), alcohol use, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms are important risk factors for adult sexual assault (ASA). A notable limitation of this prior work, however, is that it has almost exclusively focused on heterosexual women. The present study sought to remedy this by examining the extent to which CSA, alcohol use, and PTSD symptoms related to ASA among lesbians (n = 122) and gay men (n = 117).
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