Daily Responsiveness,Expectations, and Self-disclosure: How the Average Levels and Within-person Variability of Three Relationship Components Mediate Personality–Relationship Transactions in Romantic Couples

The associations between couple members' personality and their relationship satisfaction can be conceptualized as reciprocal transactions. To better understand these transactions, we focused on both partners' interpersonal vulnerabilities (i.e. neuroticism, low self-esteem, and insecure attachment); daily emotional, cognitive, and behavioural relationship components (i.e. perceived responsiveness, positive expectations, and self-disclosure); and relationship satisfaction. Specifically, we examined whether the average levels and within-person variability of the relationship components mediated the transactions between interpersonal vulnerabilities and relationship satisfaction. Data came from 689 female–male couples aged 18 to 81 years who participated in three measurement occasions across 12 months, including a 14-day diary phase. We used mediated dyadic bivariate latent change score models to test the level–change and change–change transactions and mediations. The findings partly supported our hypotheses: Couple members with interpersonal vulnerabilities had lower average levels (but not higher within-person variability) of the relationship components, and less satisfied couple members had lower average levels and higher within-person variability of these components. The lower average levels but not the variability mediated between a lower level of relationship satisfaction and an increase in avoidant attachment. No other mediations were observed. We discuss the importance of studying daily relationship components for better understanding reciprocal transactions in couples. © 2020 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Sensitivity to status-based rejection: implications for African American students' college experience

The authors proposed a process model whereby experiences of rejection based on membership in a devalued group can lead people to anxiously expect, readily perceive, and intensely react to status-based rejection. To test the model, the authors focused on race-based rejection sensitivity (RS-race) among African Americans. Following the development and validation of the RS-Race Questionnaire (Studies 1 and 2), the authors tested the utility of the model for understanding African American students' experiences at a predominantly White university (Study 3). Students high in RS-race experienced greater discomfort during the college transition, less trust in the university, and relative declines in grades over a 2- to 3-year period. Positive race-related experiences, however, increased feelings of belonging at the institution among students high in RS-race.     

Examining gender differences in received,provided, and invisible social control: an application of the dual-effects model

The dual-effects model of social control not only assumes that social control leads to better health practices but also arouses psychological distress. However, findings are inconsistent. The present study advances the current literature by examining social control from a dyadic perspective in the context of smoking. In addition, the study examines whether control, continuous smoking abstinence, and affect are differentially related for men and women. Before and three weeks after a self-set quit attempt, we examined 106 smokers (77 men, mean age: 40.67, average number of cigarettes smoked per day: 16.59 [SD = 8.52, range = 1–40] at baseline and 5.27 [SD = 6.97, range = 0–40] at follow-up) and their nonsmoking heterosexual partners, assessing received and provided control, continuous abstinence, and affect. With regard to smoker's affective reactions, partner's provided control was related to an increase in positive and to a decrease in negative affect, but only for female smokers. Moreover, the greater the discrepancy between smoker received and partner's provided control was the more positive affect increased and the more negative affect decreased, but again only for female smokers. These findings demonstrate that female smokers' well-being was raised over time if they were not aware of the control attempts of their nonsmoking partners, indicating positive effects of invisible social control. This study's results emphasize the importance of applying a dyadic perspective and taking gender differences in the dual-effects model of social control into account.     

Moderation of Stimulus Material on the Prediction of IQ with Infants' Performance in the Visual Expectation Paradigm: Do Greebles Make the Task More Challenging?

The objective of this study was to examine the role of the stimulus material for the prediction of later IQ by early learning measures in the Visual Expectation Paradigm (VExP). The VExP was assessed at 9 months using two types of stimuli, Greebles and human faces. Greebles were assumed to be associated with a higher load on working memory in comparison to human faces. IQ was assessed at 3 years and 4 months of age. Sixty‐four children participated at both assessments in this longitudinal study. The results show a moderation of the stimulus material on the prediction of IQ. With Greebles as stimulus material, a significant relationship between infants' learning and IQ was found. There was no relation when infants' learned in the VExP using human faces. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Back to School in a New Country? The Educational Participation of Adult Immigrants in a Life-Course Perspective

While the education of the children of immigrants is a much-researched theme, we know very little about the participation of adult immigrants in education. And yet, lifelong learning is a common demand in highly industrialized societies. This article provides a first empirical analysis of adult immigrants’ educational participation in Germany. It uses the novel German National Educational Panel Study with unique retrospective life-course data. By adopting a life-course perspective, both transnational continuities in the life-course as well as the ruptures caused by migration are captured. The analysis investigates in what ways participation in education is embedded in immigrants’ transnational life-course. It can be shown that immigrants’ participation in formal and nonformal full-time education is common. Hypotheses predict a central influence of (1) pre-immigration activities and (2) of legal immigration gateways. Sequence and cluster analysis detect two education-related incorporation patterns: one is marked by a dominance of educational activities and the other by phases in education alternate with employment and unemployment. The results of multivariate models underline the predictive power of pre-immigration activity, i.e., transnational continuity in immigrants’ life courses. But we can also observe substantial disruption like the transnational transition from employment to education which can be the enforced response to nonrecognition or devaluation of foreign educational credentials. Institutional opportunities and dispositions linked to legal immigration gateways are even more powerful predictors of educational participation. Altogether, the article illustrates how the interaction of structural opportunities and individual agency plays out in the formation of different incorporation trajectories of adult immigrants.     

Impression (Mis) Management When Communicating Success

People routinely engage in impression management, for example, by highlighting successes. It is not yet known how people attribute their success (to talent vs. effort) to give a positive impression. Three experiments explore this question and test whether people’s attributions of success receive favor from their audience. The findings show that, in impression management situations (e.g., job interview or date), people communicate their effort less than audiences would prefer. Thus, success alone may not be enough to make a positive impression on others; emphasizing effort as the cause for success also matters.     

Breaking the ice: How physical warmth shapes social comparison consequences

Social judgments take place in a concrete physical context. Recent research has explored how incidental physical experiences such as warmth influence social perception and behavior. However, we do not yet know if warmth affects self-evaluation. The present research seeks to examine this possibility by focusing on a central self-evaluative mechanism, namely social comparison. We hypothesized that physical warmth induces a general similarity focus that in turn fosters assimilative social comparison consequences and tested this in three studies. Study 1 established that warmth increases the perceived similarity of object pairs. In Study 2, participants compared themselves to a physically strong or weak standard. On warmer but not on colder days, they assimilated self-evaluations towards the target. Study 3 showed a similar pattern in a controlled laboratory setting. Together, these findings demonstrate that physical warmth shapes social comparison processes and as a consequence influences self-evaluation.     

Stepping back to see the big picture: when obstacles elicit global processing

Can obstacles prompt people to look at the "big picture" and open up their minds? Do the cognitive effects of obstacles extend beyond the tasks with which they interfere? These questions were addressed in 6 studies involving both physical and nonphysical obstacles and different measures of global versus local processing styles. Perceptual scope increased after participants solved anagrams in the presence, rather than the absence, of an auditory obstacle (random words played in the background; Study 1), particularly among individuals low in volatility (i.e., those who are inclined to stay engaged and finish what they do; Study 4). It also increased immediately after participants encountered a physical obstacle while navigating a maze (Study 3A) and when compared with doing nothing (Study 3B). Conceptual scope increased after participants solved anagrams while hearing random numbers framed as an "obstacle to overcome" rather than a "distraction to ignore" (Study 2) and after participants navigated a maze with a physical obstacle, compared with a maze without a physical obstacle, but only when trait (Study 5) or state (Study 6) volatility was low. Results suggest that obstacles trigger an "if obstacle, then start global processing" response, primarily when people are inclined to stay engaged and finish ongoing activities. Implications for dealing with life's obstacles and related research are discussed.     

Opposing amygdala and ventral striatum connectivity during emotion identification

Lesion and electrophysiological studies in animals provide evidence of opposing functions for subcortical nuclei such as the amygdala and ventral striatum, but the implications of these findings for emotion identification in humans remain poorly described. Here we report a high-resolution fMRI study in a sample of 39 healthy subjects who performed a well-characterized emotion identification task. As expected, the amygdala responded to THREAT (angry or fearful) faces more than NON-THREAT (sad or happy) faces. A functional connectivity analysis of the time series from an anatomically defined amygdala seed revealed a strong anticorrelation between the amygdala and the ventral striatum/ventral pallidum, consistent with an opposing role for these regions in during emotion identification. A second functional connectivity analysis (psychophysiological interaction) investigating relative connectivity on THREAT vs. NON-THREAT trials demonstrated that the amygdala had increased connectivity with the orbitofrontal cortex during THREAT trials, whereas the ventral striatum demonstrated increased connectivity with the posterior hippocampus on NON-THREAT trials. These results indicate that activity in the amygdala and ventral striatum may be inversely related, and that both regions may provide opposing affective bias signals during emotion identification.