When accommodation matters: Situational dependency within daily interactions with romantic partners

This diary study examined the consequences of experiencing situational dependency within daily social interactions with romantic partners over a two-week period. As predicted, stronger felt dependency (lower influence and control) within interactions with romantic partners was associated with lower perceived acceptance and value and decreased intimacy. Also as predicted, participants who reported a greater tendency to respond to dependency dilemmas with accommodation (i.e., reduced self-protective responses and increased pro-relationship reactions) perceived relatively more acceptance, value and intimacy within - and only within - high dependency situations. These results suggest that pro-relationship regulatory reactions to situational dependency will alleviate the immediate negative outcomes associated with dependence, and it is through these situational effects that relationship maintenance behaviours (at least in part) sustain relationship quality.     

Sibling relationship quality in early adolescence: child and maternal perceptions and daily interactions

Correspondence between child and maternal perceptions of sibling relationship quality (standards, actual ratings, problems) and children's reports of daily interactions were assessed in 40 early adolescent children (M age=11.5 yrs) and their mothers (n=32). Children completed the Sibling Relationship Questionnaire (Furman & Buhrmester, 1985. Child Development, 56, 448–461) and Daily Checklist ratings of sibling interactions for 14 days. Mothers completed the Parental Expectations and Perceptions of Children's Sibling Relationship Questionnaire (Kramer & Baron, 1995. Family Relations, 44, 95–103). Overall, findings revealed correspondence between child perceptions of sibling warmth and maternal ratings of standards, actual ratings, and problems in sibling warmth but not conflict and rivalry. Maternal and child perceptions of sibling relationship qualities were positively associated with children's reports of ongoing interactions. Finally, regression analyses identified unique maternal and child correlates for both happy and prosocial daily interactions. Findings are discussed in light of recent research and theory on family dynamics. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Eavesdropping on social life: The accuracy of stranger ratings of daily behavior from thin slices of natural conversations

In two studies the authors examined the accuracy of stranger ratings of daily behavior based on thin slices of natural conversations. Methodologically, the studies extend past research by using a behavioral accuracy criterion, benchmarking zero-acquaintance accuracy against target and informant accuracy, and employing a representative design that sampled contexts from targets’ daily situations. Theoretically, the studies investigate how stereotypes influence the accuracy of first impressions depending on their sample-based validity. Across both studies, after listening to five conversational snippets (2.5 min total), the ratings of strangers were as accurate as the targets’ and informants’ ratings. Further, ratings for gender-stereotypic behaviors with a kernel of truth resulted in greater initial accuracy than ratings for gender-stereotypic behaviors with no kernel of truth.     

Compositional insights on the association between physical activity and sedentary behavior on momentary mood in daily life

ObjectiveGiven the increasing number of mental disorders, a growing body of studies now focuses on the relationship between physical activity (PA), sedentary behavior (SB), and mental health. However, momentary mechanisms and interrelatedness between PA, SB, and mood in daily life are highly understudied.MethodsTo investigate whether the composition of light physical activity (LPA), moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA), and SB influences mood, we conducted an Ambulatory Assessment study in the everyday life of 103 university students over five days. We measured PA and SB via accelerometers and assessed mood up to six times each day on smartphone diaries. We combined compositional data analyses (CoDA) with multilevel modeling to analyze within-person effects of the behavioral composition on mood.ResultsHigher ratio of the SB to LPA and MVPA composition within the 60 min prior to a diary rating negatively influenced valence (p = 0.006) and energetic arousal (p < 0.001). Furthermore, a higher ratio of LPA to SB and MVPA positively influenced energetic arousal (p < 0.001) and a higher ratio of MVPA to SB and LPA positively influenced valence (p = 0.004) and energetic arousal (p = 0.022). Simulation analyses revealed that replacing 20 min of SB with PA can influence mood rating up to 3.39 units [range from 0–100].ConclusionsFindings suggest that minutely replacements of SB with PA may lead to mood enhancements. Given the high prevalence of mental disorders, more studies are warranted to deepen the understanding of momentary compositional mechanisms between SB, PA, and mood. Applying CoDA to intensive longitudinal data can serve as a starting point to identify the optimal composition of SB, LPA, and MVPA for mood enhancements in everyday life.     

Your personality on a good day: How trait and state personality predict daily well-being

The dynamic mediation model (Wilt, Noftle, Fleeson, & Spain, 2012) explains the associations between personality traits and happiness through links between personality states and daily well-being. To test this model, and the mediators of these relations, we examined if between- and within-person variation in personality was associated with daily well-being for undergraduates (N = 133) and US adults (N = 117). The model explained the trait neuroticism and daily well-being association. Also, after controlling for traits, people were happier on days in which they were extraverted, agreeable, conscientious, emotionally stable, and open to experience. Finally, these associations were partially mediated by the satisfaction of daily psychological needs. We discuss how the operationalization of state extraversion might impact its relation with daily well-being.     

Everyday rhetoric: Argument and persuasion in everyday life

While the study of rhetoric in the humanities has an impressive pedigree, rhetorical analysis in organization studies is rather less developed. In this article, I want to provide an introduction to rhetorical analysis, drawing particularly on the work of Billig (1996) and Potter (1996), and illustrate its application to organizational issues through a case example concerning technological change in a public sector organization. In doing this, I demonstrate how alternative approaches to traditional positivism may augment the explanatory power of research in work and organizational psychology. In particular, I want to argue that an awareness of the everyday rhetoric of organizational talk can be illuminating in explaining how the work of an organization is accomplished.     

Social interactions and physical symptoms in daily life: quality matters for older adults,quantity matters for younger adults

Objective: The present study examined how the different attributes of daily social interactions (quality and quantity) were associated with physical health, and how these associations vary with age.

Method: Using an ecological momentary assessment approach, participants from an adulthood lifespan sample (n = 172; aged 20–79 years) reported their social interactions five times daily, and physical symptoms and symptom severity at the end of each day, for one week.

Main outcome measures: Number of physical symptoms and physical symptom severity.

Results: There was a within-person main effect of the quality (positivity), but not the quantity (frequency), of social interactions on the number of reported physical symptoms and their severity. Moderation analyses further revealed that the quality of daily social interactions predicted fewer physical symptoms for older adults, but not for younger adults; in contrast, the frequency of social interactions predicted less severe physical symptoms for younger adults, but not for older adults. Finally, the reported severity of physical symptoms predicted less frequent but more positive social interactions the next day.

Conclusions: Our findings point to the bidirectional associations between social interactions and health and highlight the importance of considering individuals' developmental context in future research and interventions.     

The boundaries between attachment and personality: Localized versus generalized effects in daily social interaction

A diary study examined the effects of romantic attachment (avoidance, anxiety) and autonomous and sociotropic personality on levels of sociability within social interactions across relational contexts (N = 89 undergraduates). As expected, the effects of domain-specific romantic attachment avoidance and anxiety on sociability were localized to social interactions with romantic partners, whereas the effects of autonomy and sociotropy were generalized across relational contexts (i.e., across social interactions with romantic partners, family members, friends, and acquaintances/others). Furthermore, the effects of both autonomy and sociotropy on sociability were partially mediated by domain-specific attachment in domain-congruent (romantic) but not domain-incongruent (non-romantic) relational contexts: romantic avoidance partially mediated the effects of autonomy on sociability toward romantic partners, whereas romantic anxiety partially mediated the effects of sociotropy. These results suggest that autonomy and sociotropy summarize global regularities in relational responding that correspond to those described by attachment avoidance and anxiety—although (unlike attachment) they do so across relational contexts. Domain-specific attachment representations, in contrast, govern responding within context-congruent domains and act as a mechanism through which personality guides social interaction within these domains.     

Genetic and environmental effects on daily life stressors: more evidence for greater variation in later life

People vary in the occurrence and perceived severity of stressors experienced in their daily lives. In the current study, the authors examined the extent to which individual differences in these relatively minor occurrences are determined by genetic endowment as well as environmental influences and how these effects vary by age. Identical (n-sub(pairs) = 111) and fraternal (n-sub(pairs) = 99) twin adults ranging from 25 to 73 years old reported the occurrence and severity of their daily stressors on 8 consecutive evenings. Both genetic and unique environmental effects accounted for the variance in stressor occurrence, whereas shared family and unique environmental effects accounted for the variance in the perceived severity of these stressors. In addition, the influence of unique environment on perceived stress exerted a stronger influence among the older adults than the younger adults.     

Dare to compare: Fact-based versus simulation-based comparison in daily life

We examined the relative frequency of social, counterfactual, past-temporal, and future-temporal comparison in daily life using an experience-sampling method, in which participants were randomly prompted to record thought samples using palmtop computers carried for two weeks. Comparative thought accounted for 12% of all thoughts, and all four comparison types occurred with equivalent frequency. Comparisons may be either fact-based (i.e., based on actuality, as in social and past-temporal comparison) or simulation-based (i.e., based on imagination, as in counterfactual and future-temporal comparison). Because the latter are more “unbounded,” and because greater perceived opportunity invites greater self-improvement, we predicted and found that counterfactual and future-temporal comparison were more likely to be upward (vs. downward) than social and past-temporal comparison. All comparison types focused on approach more than avoidance motives, except for counterfactuals, which showed equivalent focus on both. These findings reveal the prominence of comparative thought in daily life, and underscore the value of an integrative theory that describes social, counterfactual, or temporal comparison using a common theoretical platform.     

The K-factor: Individual differences in life history strategy

Until recently, variations in life history strategy were studied exclusively at the species level. Although this domain of study has been extended to examine systematic differences in life history strategy among various human ethnic groupings, more recent evolutionary theories of human development and related behavioral genetic work imply substantial within-group individual variation in life history strategy. We constructed a latent variable model identifying a single common factor, denoted as K, which underlies a variety of otherwise disparate life history parameters. This “K-Factor” loaded 0.36 on childhood attachment to the biological father, −0.36 on childhood attachment to any non-biological father figure, 0.38 on adult romantic partner attachment, −0.51 on mating effort, −0.58 on Machiavellianism, and −0.41 on risk propensity. The bivariate correlations of the K-factor with higher-order personality factors were statistically significant, −0.24 with “Big Neuroticism” and −0.67 with “Big Psychoticism”, and approached significance, correlating 0.12, with “Big Extraversion”. The K-factor appears to be an underappreciated individual difference variable of major importance to human development.     

Mechanisms of change in adolescent life satisfaction: A longitudinal analysis

This study explored the psychosocial mechanisms of change associated with differences in levels and linear change of adolescents' global life satisfaction across a 2-year time period. Based on a theoretical model proposed by Evans (1994), this study tested the relations between selected personality (i.e., extraversion and neuroticism) and environmental (stressful life events) variables and global life satisfaction when mediated by internalizing and externalizing problems. The results suggested support for internalizing problems as a mediator of the relationship of personality and environmental variables with life satisfaction. Pathways mediated by internalizing problems significantly predicted levels and linear change of life satisfaction across a 2-year time span. Furthermore, pathways mediated by externalizing problems significantly predicted the level but not the linear change of life satisfaction. Thus, behavior problems and their antecedents appear to relate significantly to adolescents' perceptions of their quality of life. Implications for adolescent mental health promotion were discussed.     

Cross-modal interactions in the experience of musical performances: physiological correlates

This experiment was conducted to investigate cross-modal interactions in the emotional experience of music listeners. Previous research showed that visual information present in a musical performance is rich in expressive content, and moderates the subjective emotional experience of a participant listening and/or observing musical stimuli [Vines, B. W., Krumhansl, C. L., Wanderley, M. M., & Levitin, D. J. (2006). Cross-modal interactions in the perception of musical performance. Cognition, 101, 80--113.]. The goal of this follow-up experiment was to replicate this cross-modal interaction by investigating the objective, physiological aspect of emotional response to music measuring electrodermal activity. The scaled average of electrodermal amplitude for visual-auditory presentation was found to be significantly higher than the sum of the reactions when the music was presented in visual only (VO) and auditory only (AO) conditions, suggesting the presence of an emergent property created by bimodal interaction. Functional data analysis revealed that electrodermal activity generally followed the same contour across modalities of presentation, except during rests (silent parts of the performance) when the visual information took on particular salience. Finally, electrodermal activity and subjective tension judgments were found to be most highly correlated in the audio-visual (AV) condition than in the unimodal conditions. The present study provides converging evidence for the importance of seeing musical performances, and preliminary evidence for the utility of electrodermal activity as an objective measure in studies of continuous music-elicited emotions.     

The personality-related implications of Stroop performance: Stress-contingent self-control in daily life

People with higher levels of executive control, relative to low levels, should be more capable of responding to the problems and stressors of their lives, yet we know very little concerning this lab-to-life interface. Two studies (total N = 254) sought to speak to questions of this type using the Stroop task, a classic measure of executive control. Individual differences in Stroop costs were assessed in the laboratory, following which the same people completed daily diary protocols for two weeks. Consistent with neurocognitive theories of executive control, both studies found that people capable of overriding the Stroop effect tended to recruit self-control in response to the stressful circumstances of their lives. By contrast, people with high Stroop costs did not exhibit this problem-focused form of recruitment. The findings extend our knowledge of individual differences in executive control and the manner in which they operate in daily life.     

Decision-making competence in everyday life: The roles of general cognitive styles,decision-making styles and personality

Research indicates that decision-making competence in everyday life is associated with certain decision-making styles. The aims of this article are to extend this research by examining (a) the extent to which general cognitive styles explain variance in decision-making competence over and above decision-making styles, and (b) the extent to which personality explains variance in decision-making competence over and above both types of style variable. Participants (N = 355) completed measures of everyday decision-making competence (Decision Outcomes Inventory), decision styles (Decision Style Questionnaire; Maximization Inventory), cognitive styles (the Cognitive Styles Inventory; Rational-Experience Inventory), and the Big Five personality variables (IPIP Big-Five factor scales). The results indicate that cognitive styles offer no incremental validity over decision-making styles in predicting decision-making competence, but that personality does offer substantial incremental validity over general cognitive styles and decision-making styles. Jointly decision-making styles and personality account for a substantial amount of variance in everyday decision-making competence.     

Learning blossoms: Caregiver-infant interactions in an outdoor garden setting

Plants provide unique opportunities for learning by engaging all human senses. Recent laboratory studies have shown that infants use a combination of behavioural avoidance and social learning strategies to safely learn about plant properties from adults. Here we investigate how infants and their caregivers interact with plants in an outdoor garden as a first step towards examining the operation of these social learning processes in naturalistic settings. We focus on two specific aspects of spontaneous infant-caregiver interactions with plants: olfactory and touch behaviours. Additionally, we look at whether infants' and caregivers’ prior knowledge of the plants in our study influences infants’ behaviour. Our results showed a multifaceted connection between infants’ and caregivers' previous experience with the plants and their olfactory and touch behaviours. First, infants tended to touch and smell the plants after their caregivers did, and this appeared to be independent of whether infants had seen the plant before. Second, infants systematically engaged in some of the same types of olfactory and touch behaviours their caregiver displayed towards plants. Finally, infants whose caregivers were given more information about the plants in the study showed fewer touch behaviours, but no difference in olfactory behaviours. These findings bolster the previous laboratory studies of plant learning early in life, highlighting the importance of olfactory behaviours, and underscoring the benefits of using ecological observations to explore unique aspects of human development.     

Constructing desirable identities--self-presentation in psychotherapy and daily life: comment on Kelly (2000)

A. E. Kelly's (2000) thesis that psychotherapy clients benefit from withholding negative information is considered in light of current social-psychological theory and research. Positive illusions about oneself are associated with indexes of mental health; this is consistent with treating therapy as positive identity development. Self-presentation can shape self-concept, even apart from the feedback that an audience might provide; the social construction of identity is a powerful process, suggesting that withholding negative and presenting only positive information is adaptive. However, evidence concerning the level of identification of one's actions suggests complexities in understanding ways clients might deal with disclosing negative information; the authors argue that the impact on self-concept is probably more complex than A. E. Kelly's characterization and that the implications are of a broader scope than indicated so far.