Putting Emotional Reactivity in its Place? Exploring Family-of-origin Influences on Emotional Reactivity,Conflict, and Satisfaction in Premarital Couples

The purpose of this research was to develop a structural equation model that tested the effects of emotional reactivity on the relational health of a representative sample of 736 premarital couples. We hypothesized that partners’ perceived family-of-origin experience would be predictive of partners’ reports of their own and their partners’ emotional reactivity. These reports were hypothesized to predict partners’ reports of their own and their partners’ ability to manage conflict, which were hypothesized to predict relationship satisfaction. Overall, the model fit the data quite well, with particularly interesting differences by gender. We discuss the model’s fit within the larger body of literature, the potential implications and limitations of our findings, and future research considerations. Electronic Supplementary Material The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

Psychological Defensiveness as a Mechanism Explaining the Relationship Between Low Socioeconomic Status and Religiosity

People who are low in socioeconomic status (SES) are more likely to be religious than their higher status counterparts; however, little research has tested the mechanisms for this relationship. Using data from 90 diverse societies and multilevel path analysis, we replicated findings that individuals low in SES are more religious and furthermore found that in wealthy countries this relationship was mediated by a measure of psychological defensiveness even while controlling for participants' sense of financial insecurities. These results suggest that religious belief may play a psychologically protective role for low SES individuals, independent of realistic economic concerns.     

Educational risk factors for psychological truancy in Lesotho: a qualitative exploration

A qualitative case study design was used to explore educational risk factors that may contribute to psychological truancy in a Lesotho secondary school. Purposively sampled teachers (n = 4, females = 50%) and pupils (n = 4, females = 75%), who have experience of psychological truancy, took part in a focus group and individual interviews. Inductive content analysis was used to analyse data emanating from the interviews. The findings indicate that pupil–teacher relationships, the use of English as medium of instruction and a lack of resources may be educational risk factors contributing to psychological truancy. Positive pupil–teacher relationships and active classroom engagement are prerequisites for successful and active learning.     

Schwangerschaft und Sucht

At 65.7 billion € per year, addiction is the fifth most cost-intensive psychiatric disorder in Europe. More than 60,000 pregnant women in the EU are chronic illicit substance abusers, of which about half consume opioids. One third of these women are of childbearing age, with increasing tendency. More than 60% also suffer from at least one comorbid psychiatric disorder. State-of-the-art treatment for opioid dependence in pregnancy is maintenance therapy with the synthetic opioids methadone or buprenorphine in a multiprofessional setting with comprehensive medical care for women and neonates. A standardized approach of assessment and treatment comparable to the approach in pregnant women is recommended for neonates and for the related neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS), which occurs in about 60% after intrauterine opioid exposure. An early investment in a multiprofessional treatment model increases not only quality of life of women and children but also lowers societal costs.     

Onset and Offset Deservingness: The Case of Home Foreclosures

An examination of the debate surrounding foreclosure assistance suggests that arguments vary in the extent that they suggest people facing foreclosure deserve assistance and whether the cause of the foreclosure is at the onset or offset of the foreclosure situation. Results from an experiment using a nationally representative sample suggest that people use the attributional evidence provided by onset‐ and offset‐deservingness scenarios to determine their support for governmental and personal foreclosure assistance. Consistent with attribution theory, path analysis suggested that attributions of controllability and the associated emotions of anger and sympathy mediated the relationship between deservingness arguments and support for foreclosure assistance. Additionally, people who endorse conservatism were more likely to oppose foreclosure assistance. Ideological differences in perceived controllability, anger, and sympathy mediated the relationship between ideology and personal assistance and partially mediated the relationship between ideology and government assistance.     

Setting things straight: A comparison of measures of saccade trajectory deviation

In eye movements, saccade trajectory deviation has often been used as a physiological operationalization of visual attention, distraction, or the visual system’s prioritization of different sources of information. However, there are many ways to measure saccade trajectories and to quantify their deviation. This may lead to noncomparable results and poses the problem of choosing a method that will maximize statistical power. Using data from existing studies and from our own experiments, we used principal components analysis to carry out a systematic quantification of the relationships among eight different measures of saccade trajectory deviation and their power to detect the effects of experimental manipulations, as measured by standardized effect size. We concluded that (1) the saccade deviation measure is a good default measure of saccade trajectory deviation, because it is somewhat correlated with all other measures and shows relatively high effect sizes for two well-known experimental effects; (2) more generally, measures made relative to the position of the saccade target are more powerful; and (3) measures of deviation based on the early part of the saccade are made more stable when they are based on data from an eyetracker with a high sampling rate. Our recommendations may be of use to future eye movement researchers seeking to optimize the designs of their studies.     

Observed Attachment and Self-Report Affect Within Romantic Relationships

Adult attachment provides unique insights that help researchers and clinicians understand the complexities of individuals and relationships. In romantic relationships, individual attachment can explain partners' abilities for closeness and autonomy as well as how they experience affect within the relationship. These affective experiences during couple interactions have been shown to influence both proximal and distal relationship outcomes. Thus, the authors explore the impact of partners' observed attachment behaviors—coded using the AABQ—on continuous reports of their affective experiences during both difficult and positive marital conversations. Variables examining couple affective negativity and flexibility were developed using state space grids, and data were analyzed using GridWare. Results showed that observed female attachment behaviors significantly impacted a couple's affective experiences of negativity and flexibility during conversations, while there were no significant associations between male observed attachment behaviors and the couple affective experience. Clinical implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.