ROMANTIC PARTNERS' COPING STRATEGIES AND PATTERNS OF CORTISOL REACTIVITY AND RECOVERY IN RESPONSE TO RELATIONSHIP CONFLICT

Stress in close relationships can have significant negative consequences for mental health, physical health, and long-term relationship functioning. Dysregulated physiological responses to stress are potential pathways through which relationship stress may lead to these kinds of outcomes, and the ways in which individuals attempt to cope with relationship stress are likely to impact their physiological responses. However, our understanding of the specific coping strategies that predict physiological reactivity and recovery in these contexts is rather limited. This study explored relations between young adult college students' self-reported methods of coping with stress in their romantic relationships and their physiological reactivity to and recovery from negotiating conflict with their romantic partners. Partners' coping styles were also examined as predictors of physiological stress responses. One hundred and ninety opposite-sex couples (N = 380; modal length of relationship = 1-2 years) participated in an experimental conflict discussion task. Physiological stress reactivity to the task was assessed using salivary cortisol, a primary hormonal product of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis. Growth modeling of the cortisol levels before, during, and after the conflict task indicated that men who typically coped with relationship stress by seeking social support showed greater physiological reactivity to the conflict task. Partners' need for social support predicted stronger stress responses for both men and women, as well. While seeking social support is generally thought to be an adaptive coping strategy for couples, the results suggest that within the context of conflict negotiation in which receiving and providing support may be more difficult, seeking support from a partner is associated with greater phyisological stress.     

Children's use of expectations as a source of information in language comprehension

Six studies of children's comprehension of the passive transformation and of the Minimum Distance Principle are reviewed and their results integrated. Children were in kindergarten through Grade 6, inclusive. Expectations about usual grammatical relations (e.g., agent/action combinations) significantly affected children's comprehension: sentences reflecting expectations were understood more often than sentences contradicting children's expressed expectations. Results are discussed within the framework of referential event strategies in understanding spoken language. Limits of the effect of children's expectation on comprehension are described, including general cognitive developmental status, relevant belief systems, and nature of the psycholinguistic task.     

The effects of focal and global attentional systems on spatial biases

The background page on which a stimulus is presented can influence the allocation of attention to that stimulus. The purpose of this study was to learn if there are hemispheric asymmetries in how background distraction affects attentional processing. Asymmetries were investigated by having right eye dominant subjects perform line bisections and manipulating the side of background distraction (right versus left), the eye of regard (right versus left), and the type of attention allocated (focal versus global). Overall subjects bisected lines to the left of center (pseudoneglect) and when viewing with the right eye (versus left) deviated more to the left. Subjects had more background distraction when viewing symbol than solid lines. Although overall, bias did not differ with the side of background distraction or the line being on one side or the other, when subjects viewed symbol, but not solid lines, this leftward bias was increased when the line was displaced to the right, thereby increasing the size of the left sided background. These findings suggest that when engaging the left hemisphere by using focused attention and placing the line on the right side, there is more distraction than when the right hemisphere is engaged.     

Parent-child sexual discussion: perceived communicator style and subsequent behavior

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between perceived parental sexual communicator style and adolescent sexual behavior and information accuracy. Two hundred thirty-four college students provided data on their perceptions of parental sexual communicator style as well as self-reports of sexual behavior and knowledge across three time frames (junior high school, high school, and college). Significant relationships were found between perceived parental sexual communicator styles and sexual activity, contraceptive use, and sexual knowledge accuracy. In addition, significant differences were found between males and females on their sexual knowledge accuracy (females reported a higher level of sexual knowledge than did males). The findings are discussed, and recommendations for future research in the area of parent-adolescent sexual communication are offered.     

Conditional forebrain deletion of the L-type calcium channel Ca V 1.2 disrupts remote spatial memories in mice

To determine whether L-type voltage-gated calcium channels (L-VGCCs) are required for remote memory consolidation, we generated conditional knockout mice in which the L-VGCC isoform Ca(V)1.2 was postnatally deleted in the hippocampus and cortex. In the Morris water maze, both Ca(V)1.2 conditional knockout mice (Ca(V)1.2(cKO)) and control littermates displayed a marked decrease in escape latencies and performed equally well on probe trials administered during training. In distinct contrast to their performance during training, Ca(V)1.2(cKO) mice exhibited significant impairments in spatial memory when examined 30 d after training, suggesting that Ca(V)1.2 plays a critical role in consolidation of remote spatial memories.     

The effects of self-criticism and self-oriented perfectionism on goal pursuit

Five separate studies examined the associations of self-criticism and self-oriented perfectionism with goal pursuit across a variety of domains. Although self-criticism has previously been shown to be related to diminished goal progress, a controversy remains regarding the potential association between aspects of "positive perfectionism," such as self-oriented perfectionism, and enhanced goal progress. The results of the five studies demonstrated a consistent pattern of negative association between self-criticism and goal progress. The results also showed a positive association between self-oriented perfectionism and goal progress when self-criticism was controlled. The important role of self-criticism for understanding the impact of perfectionistic concerns is highlighted by these results. Implications for the debate concerning the possible positive effects of perfectionistic strivings are also discussed.