Regulation processes in intimate relationships: the role of ideal standards

This research investigated the consistency between partner perceptions and ideal standards (ideal-perception consistency) and the partner regulation attempts of 200 individuals involved in relationships (Study 1) and 62 heterosexual couples (Study 2). As predicted, greater regulation attempts were associated with lower ideal-perception consistency, and these links operated within 3 pivotal mate-evaluation dimensions and were moderated by perceived regulation success. Ideal-perception consistency also mediated the relation between partner regulation and relationship quality, and cross-lagged analyses suggested that ideal consistency and regulation influenced each other over time. Finally, stronger partner regulation was generally associated with more negative self-evaluations and more self-regulation by the targeted partner. These novel results support and extend the Ideal Standards Model (J. A. Simpson, G. J. O. Fletcher, & L. Campbell, 2001).     

Interpersonal loss in the context of family caregiving: Implications of communal relationships theory

Abstract

Much is known about the emotional costs of providing care to an ill or disabled family member. However, surprisingly little attention has been devoted to investigating how caregiver distress is related to interpersonal loss (i.e., reactions to changes in the typical day-to-day support behaviors that formerly characterized the caregiver–care recipient relationship). Drawing on the theory of communal relationships (e.g., Clark & Mills, 1979, 1993), this study proposes that the magnitude of interpersonal loss that caregivers experience, as well as its contributions to depressed affect, both directly and indirectly (through impact of interpersonal loss on perceived caregiving burden) are likely to depend on the type of relationship that existed between caregiver and care recipient prior to the onset of illness or disability. In this context, several hypotheses and directions for further research are proposed. It is hoped that future researchers will incorporate loss measures into their research and consider how aspects of preexisting relationships influence associations among interpersonal loss and variables (e.g., burden, social support) known to predict caregiver well-being.     

Unraveling the role of forgiveness in family relationships

Testing the idea that the process of forgiveness is intrinsically different across diverse relationships, this study examined the role of forgiveness in different family relationships. In 2 laboratory sessions 1 year apart, 114 families (each including 2 parents and 1 child) completed a new measure of family forgiveness and many individual-level, relationship-level, and family-level variables that have been previously linked with forgiveness. After validating the measure of family forgiveness in cross-sectional analyses, investigators performed longitudinal analyses to examine the role of forgiveness in each family relationship over the 1-year interval. Results indicated many important positive consequences of forgiveness on individual traits, aspects of each family relationship, and general family environment. However, there were also important asymmetries in associates of forgiveness across parent-child and parent-parent relationships, demonstrating the relationship-bound nature of forgiveness.     

Reducing uncertainty in sustainable interpersonal service relationships: the role of aesthetics

Sustainable interpersonal service relationships (SISRs) are the outcome of a design process that supports situated meaningful interactions between those being served and those in service. Service design is not just directed to simply satisfy the ability to perceive the psychological state of others, but more importantly, it should aim at preserving these relationships in relation to the contextual requirements that they functionally need, in order to be or remain sustainable. However, SISRs are uncertain since they have many possibilities to be in error in the sense that the constructed, situated meanings may finally be proven unsuccessful for the anticipations and the goals of those people engaged in a SISR. The endeavor of this paper is to show that aesthetic behavior plays a crucial role in the reduction of the uncertainty that characterizes such relationships. Aesthetic behavior, as an organized network of affective and cognitive processes, has an anticipatory evaluative function with a strong influence on perception by providing significance and value for those aspects in SISRs that exhibit many possibilities to serve goals that correspond to sustainable challenges. Thus, aesthetic behavior plays an important role in the construction of meanings that are related to both empathic and contextual aspects that constitute the entire situation in which a SISR takes place. Aesthetic behavior has a strong influence in meaning-making, motivating the selection of actions that contribute to our initial goal of interacting with uncertainty, to make the world a bit less puzzling and, thus, to improve our lives, or in other words, to design.     

Staff-patient relationships and outcomes in schizophrenia: the role of staff attributions

We investigated associations between staff-patient relationships and outcomes in a randomised controlled trial of motivational interventions for drug and alcohol misuse in schizophrenia. Participants were 204 patients and their care co-ordinators. We assessed relationship status (positive versus neutral) and staff attributions of control using Five Minute Speech Samples collected at baseline. We examined associations between this baseline data and symptoms at 12-months follow-up. We found that dyads with positive relationships at baseline had significantly less symptoms at 12-months compared to those dyads with neutral relationships. As predicted, care co-ordinators with positive relationships were less likely to attribute patients' problems as being within their control. The findings highlight the potentially important role of positive staff-patient relationships in outcomes. Our findings are also in line with the hypothesis that staff attributions may contribute to the development of more positive relationships.     

Marital conflict and support seeking by parents in adolescence: empirical support for the parentification construct

Parentification, a parent-child dynamic wherein children come to provide ongoing emotional support for their parents, has been documented extensively in the clinical literature; however, it rarely has been studied systematically. Using a community sample of 83 couples and their adolescent children (mean age = 15.26 years; 52% male, 48% female), the authors linked adolescent self-report of parentification to specific youth and adult behaviors using multiple methods and examined its associations with youth adjustment problems. The parentification measure demonstrated strong internal consistency and 1-year stability. Parentification was associated with marital conflict, youth perceptions of threat, low warmth in the parent-child relationship, and the tendency for youths to intervene in marital conflict. Links were also found with youth reports of internalizing and externalizing behavior and poorer competency in close friendships. These findings thus support the parentification construct and provide evidence that parentification may contribute to poor youth outcomes by burdening children with developmentally inappropriate responsibilities.     

Metaphoric relationships: The role of feature saliency

The saliency of specific features has been given a prominent role in the comprehension and production of metaphors by some recent models of metaphoric processing. These models have been generally mute on how one could operationalize feature saliency. In the present study, four distinctive indices of feature saliency were examined: associative dominance, typicality, fluency, and imaginal distinctiveness. Participants rated 112 sentences in which the subjects and predicates were linked as in a nominal metaphor. The judged metaphor goodness of these sentences was predicted by only one measure of feature saliency, i.e., the typicality of the shared feature. Typicality of the feature associated both to the sentential predicate (vehicle) and to the subject (topic) was shown to be related to goodness ratings even when the effects of the other saliency measures were partialed out. Manipulation checks based on (1) having people produce a common feature for each sentence and (2) having people rate the reverse relationship for metaphoric goodness both indicated the importance of the shared feature. Cognitive processes suggested by these data were discussed.This research was supported by a grant (A7040) from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.     

Pastoral care following pregnancy loss: the role of ritual

The authors propose a model for different ways in which clergy of diverse denominations ritualize pregnancy loss through excerpts from 23 interviews with Chicago-area religious leaders. These clergy either do not ritualize pregnancy loss at all, adapt existing rituals, or create new ones.     

Cultural differences in asymmetric beliefs of interpersonal knowledge in vertical and horizontal relationships

Previous studies have reported that our interpersonal knowledge shows an asymmetry; that is, we tend to believe that we know and understand other people's thoughts and feelings better than other people know and understand our own thoughts and feelings. In the present study, the authors compared American (114 men, 192 women) and Korean (99 men and 98 women) students to examine whether the asymmetry is greater in collectivistic than in individualistic culture in two types of relationships: horizontal (with best friends) and vertical (with parents). On all three items--Know, Understand, and Visibility--asymmetry was found for both horizontal and vertical relationships. Further, the Understand and Visibility items showed greater asymmetry for the Korean group than for the American group. It was concluded that asymmetry is greater in collectivistic than in individualistic culture. The cultural differences can be explained by self-consistency, sensitivity to social consequences, parent-child interaction, and living arrangement.     

Defining Discrimination in the Personal/Group Discrimination Discrepancy

Members of low-status groups typically report that their group experiences more discrimination than they do personally, a phenomenon referred to as the personal/group discrimination discrepancy. It is hypothesized that manipulating the meaning of discrimination affects the personal/group discrimination discrepancy. In three studies, 301 female undergraduates (259 Whites; 42 non-Whites) from a large midwestern university read vignettes depicting discriminatory events that varied according to severity and frequency. Participants in high-frequency conditions perceived both more personal and group discrimination than low-frequency participants, and they showed smaller personal/group discrepancies. This effect was found for work-related discrimination and social sexism. Results indicate that severe and infrequent events are what people typically think of as discrimination and that using the term discrimination affects personal and group judgments. The importance of defining discrimination when investigating the personal/group discrimination discrepancy is discussed.     

Perceptions of conflict and support in romantic relationships: the role of attachment anxiety

Guided by attachment theory, a 2-part study was conducted to test how perceptions of relationship-based conflict and support are associated with relationship satisfaction/closeness and future quality. Dating partners completed diaries for 14 days (Part 1) and then were videotaped while discussing a major problem that occurred during the diary study (Part 2). Part 1 reveals that more anxiously attached individuals perceived more conflict with their dating partners and reported a tendency for conflicts to escalate in severity. Perceptions of daily relationship-based conflicts negatively impacted the perceived satisfaction/closeness and relationship futures of highly anxious individuals, whereas perceptions of greater daily support had positive effects. Part 2 reveals that highly anxious individuals appeared more distressed and escalated the severity of conflicts (rated by observers) and reported feeling more distressed. The authors discuss the unique features of attachment anxiety and how changing perceptions of relationship satisfaction/closeness and stability could erode commitment over time.     

Intimacy and liking: mutual influence and the role of unique relationships

Traditional assumptions (e.g., there are traitlike differences in disclosure) predict that people who are generally liked should generally disclose (e.g., individual-level effects). In contrast, dynamic interactional models predict that significant disclosure-liking effects are apt to be a function of mutual influences in particular dyads (e.g., dyadic-level effects). To directly explore these issues and separately examine individual and dyadic effects, 45 sorority women were asked to indicate how much they disclosed to, received disclosure from, and liked each other. Social relations analysis (Kenny & LaVoie, 1984) revealed significant disclosure-liking effects only at the dyadic level, casting doubts on traditional assumptions and supporting a dynamic interaction model of disclosure-liking effects. Implications for personality and interpersonal relationships are discussed.     

A Systems/Dialectical Model of Supervision: A Symbolic Process

Although there has been a proliferation of models of supervision in the marriage and family therapy literature recently, most tend to focus on methods rather than on the process of supervision. The model presented here is grounded in developmental concepts and focuses on student learning through a dialectical process of cognitive and emotional growth and incorporates three stages: 1) developing relationships; 2) breaking impasses, and 3) orchestrating changes. Students discover that supervision becomes isomorphic with relationship issues that arise in their therapy sessions. Dialectical in nature in that each stage is characterized by the resolution of contradictory emotions, the supervision process helps supervisees experience emotional shifts in their interactions with others, referred to as emotional restructuring.     

Gender role perceptions of women in abusive relationships

A community sample of psychologically abused women (N = 93; 83 Anglo, 4 Hispanic, 4 African-American, 1 Native American, 1 “Other”) in 3 groups (psychological abuse only, with moderate violence, with severe violence) received payment for completing lengthy questionnaires and interviews. This study concerns women’s perceptions of their own and their partners’ gender roles and gender role attitudes. Women in all 3 groups rated themselves feminine and egalitarian, as hypothesized. Ratings of their partners were near the midpoint of the scales on masculinity and traditionalism, contrary to hypotheses. Women experiencing psychological abuse with severe violence had more negative perceptions of their partners and believed their partners had more negative views of them than did women who shared the common experience of psychological abuse but sustained less or no violence. This research was funded by Grant Number 1R29MH44217 from the National Institute of Mental Health awarded to the second author. Portions of this study were reported at the Fourth International Family Violence Research Conference, Durham, NH, July 1995. Thanks to Dr. Sue Rosenberg Zalk and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments and suggestions.     

Adolescent sibling differences in suicidal symptoms: The role of parent-child relationships

This study examined concordance for symptoms of suicide among 178 pairs of adolescent siblings, and the association of youth and maternal reports of parenting with variation in suicide ideation both across families and between siblings. Crosstabulation analyses indicated a significant risk of suicide ideation among siblings of adolescents who had made suicide attempts, as well as a significant degree of concordance for suicide ideation among pairs of siblings. Regression analyses indicated that reported levels of maternal warmth and harsh discipline, especially youth reports, were associated with suicide ideation, and that sibling differences on these parenting indices were associated with differences in suicide ideation both across families as well as between siblings. However, sibling differences in reported parenting did not contribute to prediction of suicide ideation above the variance accounted for by the simple levels of parenting reported by adolescents.     

Appearance feedback in intimate relationships: The role of self-verification and self-enhancement

To better understand how body image operates within the context of intimate relationships, we investigated women's responses to appearance feedback from an intimate partner. Participants (N = 192) imagined receiving feedback from their partner that was either consistent with their own appearance self-view (i.e., self-verifying), more positive (i.e., self-enhancing), or less positive (i.e., devaluing), and then provided their affective and cognitive reactions. As expected, women's perceptions of their own appearance moderated their reactions. Women with more negative self-views felt happier with enhancing feedback, but thought that it meant their partner understood them less well. They also felt less happy when they received verifying feedback, but felt more understood by their partners. Thus, women with body image dissatisfaction may find themselves stuck in the “cognitive-affective crossfire” reacting ambivalently whether their partner enhances their appearance or confirms their negative self-views. Further examination of partners’ actual feedback is needed.     

Symbolic conceptions: the idea of the third

The idea of the third which appears in Jung's concepts of the transcendent function and the coniunctio also occurs in several psychoanalytic theories concerning the emergence of reflective and symbolic thought in childhood development (defined here as the development of 'imaginal capacity'). Noting the way this process is often conceived in terms of the metaphor of sexual intercourse leading to 'conception', this paper suggests that such images need to be understood as symbolic conceptions of the meaning-making functions of the human mind. This leads to a different view of psychoanalytic theories that attempt to account for the development of imaginal capacity in terms of the Oedipus complex. It is suggested that a) these functions must be operative in the mind before the Oedipal situation can become meaningful and b) that psychoanalytic theories are themselves symbolic conceptions which, like mythological narratives, seek to communicate and comprehend psychic reality through imaginal forms.