Adolescents' use of affiliative and aggressive strategies during conflict with romantic partners and best-friends

Objective: Developmental theory suggests romantic relationships present unique demands when adolescents transition from the interaction patterns of same-sex friendships to cross-gender interactions. A possible response is to incorporate behaviours of the other gender: girls adopting aggressive strategies and boys adopting affiliative ones. The goal of this study is to explore this hypothesis by comparing conflict resolution among romantic couples and same-sex best friends. Method: Observational methods were employed with 37 female best friends, 22 male best friends and 37 romantic couples. Of the romantic couples, 35 also were observed with a best friend. Affiliative and aggressive behaviours were tabulated during two conflict tasks. Results: Female best friends were more affiliative than male best friends and romantic partners; these latter dyads were more aggressive than the female best friends. Within group comparisons indicated that boys and girls decreased their affiliative behaviours, especially verbal humour, and increased their aggressive behaviours, especially teasing, when observed with the romantic partner compared to the best friend. Decomposing the romantic dyad, girlfriends displayed relatively more aggressive behaviours than their boyfriends, and boyfriends exhibited more affiliative behaviours. Conclusions: Findings shed light on gendered shifts in patterns of interaction as adolescents transition from same-sex friendships to romantic relationships.     

Direct and interactive effects of parent,friend and schoolmate drinking on alcohol use trajectories

Objective: This study considered the unique and interactive roles of social norms from parents, friends and schools in predicting developmental trajectories of adolescent drinking and intoxication.

Design and outcome measures: Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, which followed adolescents (N = 18,921) for 13 years, we used discrete mixture modelling to identify unique developmental trajectories of drinking and of intoxication. Next, multilevel multinomial regression models examined the role of alcohol-related social norms from parents, friends and schoolmates in the prediction of youths’ trajectory group membership.

Results: Results demonstrated that social norms from parents, friends and schoolmates that were favourable towards alcohol use uniquely predicted drinking and intoxication trajectory group membership. Interactions between social norms revealed that schoolmate drinking played an important moderating role, frequently augmenting social norms from parents and friends. The current findings suggest that social norms from multiple sources (parents, friends and schools) work both independently and interactively to predict longitudinal trajectories of adolescent alcohol use.

Conclusions: Results highlight the need to identify and understand social messages from multiple developmental contexts in efforts to reduce adolescent alcohol consumption and alcohol-related risk-taking.     

Understanding social networks and social support resources with sports coaches

ObjectivesResearch on social support with sports coaches is limited, yet the benefits of social support within other occupations have been widely reported. This study explored sports coaches’ social network structures, the social support resources available to coaches, and the situations in which coaches use social support.DesignCross-sectional.MethodData were collected with male (n = 6) and female (n = 7) British coaches (M_age = 34.20, SD = 13.37; M_experience = 13.20, SD = 10.41) using semi-structured interviews and interviewee-aided sociograms. Interview data and sociograms were analyzed using abductive thematic analysis and social network analysis to create ego-network diagrams. The ego-network diagrams were created to provide information on the locality and influence of coaches’ social network members.ResultsThe ego-network diagrams highlight that the structure of coaches’ social networks encompasses support from peers, friends, family, and miscellaneous (e.g., media). The diagrams also demonstrate that support from friends tended to be perceived as most influential. The coaches called on their network for appraisal (e.g., affirmation), emotional (e.g., venting), informational (e.g., training), and or instrumental support (e.g., cooking dinner) for a variety of situations, such as training (e.g., drill ideas) and issues with athletes (e.g., venting about a misbehaving player).ConclusionGiven the pertinence of coaches’ social networks and resources for performance and psychological well-being, coach education programs should include a focus on the importance of building relationships. Longitudinal research methods are warranted to, for example, explore the dynamic functions of coaches’ social support. This will develop a more comprehensive base from which interventions can be developed.     

A Likely Explanation: IBE as a Guide to Better (but not more probable) Hypotheses

Abstract

Several friends of inference to best explanation have claimed in recent work that explanatory virtues, such as consilience, simplicity and increased precision, play an important heuristic role in assigning probabilities to available hypotheses and that it is this role that justifies continued efforts to investigate the scope, nature and epistemic value of the inference rule. In this paper I argue that understanding explanatory virtues as a guide to probability assignments creates a critical dilemma for advocates of IBE that has not previously been made sufficiently explicit and which has significant implications for the prospects of the rule. I conclude that the viability of IBE requires that explanatory virtues be related to a non-probabilistic conception of success.     

Aspects of Social Support Associated with Adaptation in Middle-Class,Single-Mother Families

Abstract

This study’s research question is: What aspects of social support are associated with adaptation in single-mother families? In a mixed-methods design, 47 participants were recruited through snowball sampling in Cape Town, South Africa. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and questionnaires were completed. Qualitative analysis indicated two main sources, paid and unpaid support. The quantitative analysis confirmed the following adaptation resources: harnessing family and friend support; having friends as a support; socializing with friends; receiving emotional support, practical help, and advice from friends. Significant differences were found between the family and friends groups for socializing and obtaining financial aid as a support.     

Reflections on a psychiatric placement

Abstract

During a seminar last year, I was teaching a group of counselling students on the subject of depression. One of the students asked me what I thought of referring a depressed client to a psychiatrist. I replied that in my opinion it was better to keep a person out of the psychiatric services as much as possible. This was an opinion I began to reconsider over the course of a six-month psychiatric placement, undertaken as part of an analytic psychotherapy training.     

Length and Locus of Friendship Influence Church Members' Sense of Social Support and Comfort with Sharing Emotions

ABSTRACT

This study investigated whether older people involved with religious congregations differentiate their friends within the congregation from their friends outside the congregation in terms of perceptions of social support and their comfort with sharing various positive and negative emotions. The study also examined older adults' perceptions of differences in social support and comfort with sharing emotions with friends they have known a long time and friends they have known for three years or less. The results showed significant differences between long time friends and new friends in terms of a stronger sense of social support and greater comfort with sharing positive and negative emotions. No differences were noted for social support or comfort with sharing emotions in comparisons of friends within and outside of congregations. Study participants were significantly more comfortable sharing positive emotions than negative emotions with all categories of friends and there was a significant positive relation between social support and comfort with sharing emotions. Results are discussed in terms of the types of congregations to which the participants belonged and the role of congregational leaders in providing opportunities for older people to develop and sustain friendships within the faith community.     

Perceptions of the roles of behaviour and genetics in disease risk: Are they associated with behaviour change attempts

Objective: We examined selected survivor characteristics to determine what factors might moderate the response to two psychosocial interventions.

Design: Seventy-one prostate cancer survivors (PCSs) were randomly assigned to either a telephone-delivered health education (THE) intervention or a telephone-delivered interpersonal counselling (TIP-C) intervention.

Measures: Psychological quality of life (QOL) outcomes included depression, negative and positive affect, and perceived stress.

Results: For three of the psychological outcomes (depression, negative affect and stress), there were distinct advantages from participating in THE. For example, more favourable depression outcomes occurred when men were older, had lower prostate specific functioning, were in active chemotherapy, had lower social support from friends and lower cancer knowledge. Participating in the TIP-C provided a more favourable outcome for positive affect when men had higher education, prostate specific functioning, social support from friends and cancer knowledge.

Conclusion: Unique survivor characteristics must be considered when recommending interventions that might improve psychological QOL in PCSs. Future research must examine who benefits most and from what components of psychosocial interventions to enable clinicians to recommend appropriate psychosocial care.     

Friendship and epistemic norms

Simon Keller and Sarah Stroud have both argued that the demands of being a good friend can conflict with the demands of standard epistemic norms. Intuitively, good friends will tend to seek favorable interpretations of their friends’ behaviors, interpretations that they would not apply to strangers; as such they seem prone to form unjustified beliefs. I argue that there is no such clash of norms. In particular, I argue that friendship does not require us to form beliefs about our friends in the biased fashion suggested by Stroud and Keller. I further argue that while some slight bias in belief-formation might be permitted by friendship, any such bias would fall within the bounds of epistemic propriety.     

‘So many women suffer in silence’: a thematic analysis of women’s written accounts of coping with endometriosis

Abstract

Objective: To understand women’s experiences of coping with endometriosis, and impact on their lives.

Design: Women accessed an online questionnaire through a U.K.-based endometriosis charity website.

Methods: Thirty-four women, aged 22–56 years, with self-reported medically-diagnosed endometriosis, 30 of whom were White, responded to open-ended questions, analysed using inductive thematic analysis.

Results: Participants spoke about their lives being a constant struggle, where they tried to maintain their personal and working lives whilst dealing with long-term pain. Women had to ‘battle’ for an accurate diagnosis, and had limited faith in health professionals. Coping strategies included avoidance of social events to conserve energy (self-pacing), and avoiding taking painkillers to retain alertness. Women did not feel able to be honest with family and friends about their symptoms, and felt socially isolated and misunderstood.

Conclusions: Implications for health professionals are discussed, including the need for earlier diagnosis and taking women’s symptoms more seriously at referral; understanding the need to conserve energy in the context of long-term pain; that not taking pain medication may be an active choice to retain alertness; and that avoiding being honest with friends and family and subsequent feelings of isolation may be common experiences relevant to designing treatment programmes.     

Seeking an Analytic Identity

Abstract

Rothstein has stimulated all analysts to rethink how we can better commit ourselves to our analytic work. In this paper I focus on factors in analysts' personalities and experiences in their training and practice that contribute to or distract from establishing an analytic identity.

First, I explore analysts' background and motivation. In admissions to psychoanalytic institutes we look for candidates who can see psychoanalysis as an intellectual puzzle to be solved and an emotional involvement to be experienced. We look for earlv conflicts that the candidate can sublimate in the service of analytic functioning. We assume that the capacity to sublimate is only partial and that analysts in their development continue to recognize conflicts in transference—countertransference reactions.

Second, I give some examples of experiences from analysts' training that stimulate the formation of their analytic identities. These include transient identifications and counter-identifications with the training analyst, supervisor, seminar leader, and favorite analytic authors.

Third, I discuss more external factors that influence the development of analytic identity. These include the climate in training and continuing education at the institute. How much does the institute support its members in immersion in psychoanalysis? Economic factors continue to he an important factor in determining individual choice in this immersion.

Finally, I review studies on the effectiveness of psychoanalysis. Dedicated analysts with considerable experience believe that analysis works despite some limitations. Part of high motivation to continue analytic work includes understanding how analytic results differ from the simpler solutions achieved by nonanalytic therapies.     

Adolescent–parent attachment characteristics and quality of youth sport friendship

ObjectivesTo examine the link between security of adolescent–parent attachment relationships and experiences of friendship quality in male team sport participants.Design and methodNinety six male adolescents involved in team sports completed self-report assessments of relationship security with a key parental attachment figure and of the nature of their friendship with a nominated sporting best friend. Teammates and coaches also provided ratings related to how easy they found it to get along with participants.ResultsResults provided evidence that the nature of the adolescent–parent attachment relationship was significantly related to sporting friendship experiences. More secure adolescent–parent attachment characteristics corresponded to more positive sporting friendships. Furthermore, sporting friendship dyads where both friends reported more secure attachment relations with parents were experienced more positively than dyads where both friends were less securely attached to parents or even where one friend was less securely attached.ConclusionThere is a suggestion that adolescent attachment relations with parents are indicative of underpinning working models of attachment that may subsequently influence the manner in which youngsters negotiate friendships in sporting contexts.     

The Source and Robustness of Duties of Friendship

Abstract

Certain relationships generate associative duties that exhibit robustness across change. It seems insufficient for friendship, for example, if I am only disposed to fulfil duties of friendship towards you as things stand here and now. However, robustness is not required across all variations. Were you to become monstrously cruel towards me, we might expect that my duties of friendship towards you would not be robust across that kind of change. The question then is this: is there any principled way of distinguishing those variations across which robustness of the disposition to fulfil duties of friendship is required from those across which it isn’t? In this paper I propose a way of answering this question that invokes distinctions concerning how we value friends and friendships, and how persons and friendships possess value – distinctions that are central to the project of specifying not only the limits of robustness, but also the source of duties of friendship and associative duties more generally.     

Interpersonal constructs and friendship form and structure

Abstract

Two studies examined the relationships between indices of interpersonal construct development and friendship form and structure. In the first study respondents listed activities that they shared with two friends and wrote free-response accounts about why they shared these particular activities with their friends. The accounts were content analyzed. Subsequent analyses showed that both interpersonal construct differentiation and abstractness were positively related to the number of interpersonal attributions made about friendships.

The second study examined the relationship between construct differentiation and structural characteristics of a person's friendship network. Initial correlation analyses showed that construct differentiation was associated with somewhat more segmented friendship networks. Further analyses showed that this effect was limited to ties between friends beyond the inner core.

Together the studies suggest that interpersonal construct development is associated with qualitative differences in how persons define their personal relationships, and with quantitative characteristics of their friendship networks.     

Most People Think They Are More Pro-Environmental than Others: A Demonstration of the Better-than-Average Effect in Perceived Pro-Environmental Behavioral Engagement

Abstract

People tend to perceive themselves as better than average in various contexts. In this article I test if the better-than-average effect (BTAE) also holds for pro-environmental behavioral engagement. Experiment 1 supported that the majority of participants report to be more pro-environmental than others, using a large representative sample. Experiment 2 validated these findings in 3 additional cultures (United States, United Kingdom, and India) and showed that BTAE held for both abstract (other Americans) and concrete (my friends) comparisons. Experiment 3 found that participants overestimated both how “much” and how “often” they engage in pro-environmental actions. Finally, Experiment 4 found weak support for the hypothesis that inducing BTAE are inhibiting future pro-environmental behaviors.     

The role of peer influence on girls’ body dissatisfaction and dieting

IntroductionPeer influence is considered a global construct, although the effects of its various dimensions on body dissatisfaction and dieting via internalisation of the thin ideal and social comparison have yet to be analysed.ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to analyse how the different dimensions of peer influence (i.e., perception of teasing, appearance conversation with friends and peer attributions about the importance of appearance with regard to popularity) affect body dissatisfaction and dieting.MethodA total of 298 Italian adolescent girls and young women completed a questionnaire assessing different dimensions of peer influence, internalisation of the thin ideal, social comparison, body dissatisfaction and dieting.ResultsThe results indicated that peer attributions and appearance conversations with friends affect body dissatisfaction and dieting through internalisation and social comparison. Teasing had a direct effect on girls’ dissatisfaction levels.ConclusionsThe current findings have important preventive and treatment implications. Preventive interventions should not target sociocultural influences as a whole, rather they should analyse the specific dimensions of peer influence, with consideration for the degree to which girls internalise sociocultural messages and engage in social comparison.     

The experiences of transgender and non-binary children and young people and their parents in healthcare settings in England,UK: Interviews with members of a family support group

Abstract

Background: Transgender and non-binary children and young people and their parents in England, UK are poorly served across a range of healthcare settings. Whilst UK equalities legislation and international guidance on transgender healthcare pathways protects this group from discrimination and mandates an affirmative approach, services in England are not keeping pace.

Aims: This study aims to draw on the experiences of transgender and non-binary children, young people and their parents in a support group in England in order to investigate their experiences of healthcare provision, and to develop some ideas for improvement.

Method: Data was collected with participants in a family support group which offers a parent helpline service, social groups for children and parents, and training for schools and other organizations. 65 parents and children from 27 families from the family support group attended participatory workshops where they were given a range of briefs: “health,” “family,” “friends,” and “education.” Their participation involved being asked to define their own interview questions and collect data by interviewing each other. Their interview notes constituted the raw data. Data was coded inductively by the author with respondent checking as a second stage.

Results: Results constitute the views of a small group of people, so cannot be generalized. However, they do illustrate some of the issues which may arise. Participants’ experiences elicited five key themes: professionals’ perceived lack of clinical and therapeutic knowledge; mental distress caused by excessive waiting lists; professionals’ stereotyped gender assumptions; direct discrimination within healthcare settings; and a lack of attention to parent and child voice, especially in terms of school-based experiences and where a patient had a diagnosis of autism.     

Editorial: The Future and the Cutting Edge of Family Therapy

Abstract

In this exploratory study, we examined psychophysiological arousal when partners engaged in the common practice of discussing romantic trials with one another and with friends. To capture stress, we measured Galvanic Skin Response (GSR), Heart Rate Variability (HRV), and Respiration Rate (RSP). Paired t-tests from a dyadic sample of 71 heterosexual couples revealed talking about romantic problems, in general, was accompanied by elevated psychophysiological stress. GSR scores suggested partners were more stressed when speaking with friends than to one another about relationship challenges. Universally, males had higher GSR scores and females higher RSP. We discuss therapeutic implications and future directions.