SILENCE ISN'T NECESSARILY GOLDEN: COMMUNICATION APPREHENSION,DESIRED SOCIAL CHOICE,AND ACADEMIC SUCCESS AMONG MIDDLE-SCHOOL STUDENTS

Communication apprehension was found to be significantly negatively related to both middle-school students’ attitudes toward school and final grades. In addition, communication apprehension was found to influence the choice of desired others made by students and their teacher in a classroom communication network. In general, communication apprehensive students were found not to be considered desirable communication choices by their peers.     

Test reliability and correction for attenuation

Evidence is cited to show that specificity, or lack of equivalence, in the comparable forms of tests has a tendency to lower the value of reliability coefficients but has no tendency to lower the value of observed trait coefficients. This implies that the greater the lack of equivalence, the higher will be coefficients corrected for attenuation. Errors of measurement are supposed to reduce the magnitude of observed trait coefficients. Since specificity does not lower the correlation between two tests and since the split-half and equivalent-form reliability coefficients treat specificity as error, it follows that these two coefficients cannot legitimately be used in Spearman's correction-for-attenuation formula.     

Marital satisfaction and topographical assessment of marital interaction: A longitudinal analysis of newlywed couples

Despite numerous tests of social learning hypotheses relating to marriage, important questions remain concerning how best to quantify behavior displayed in marital interaction. In the present study, 60 newlywed couples reported their marital satisfaction, engaged in a 15-minute problem-solving discussion, and reported their marital satisfaction again 6 and 12 months later. The interactions were microanalytically coded, the codes were assigned a numeric value, and each spouse's cumulative point totals were plotted as a function of time in the interaction. This was done separately for all 60 couples. Graphs were divided into groups based on the topography of the graphically represented interactions. These groups differed cross-sectionally and longitudinally in their level of marital satisfaction. Couples tended to have lower satisfaction scores when their initial interactions were characterized with behavioral parity between the spouses at the beginning of a discussion, changing to asymmetrical patterns of behavior later in the conversation. This method was found to be more predictive of marital satisfaction than were standard methods of assessing dyadic interaction (i.e., base rates of behavior and sequential analysis). Implications of these data for understanding how interactions relate to the course of newlywed marriage are discussed.     

Self‐esteem trajectories across 25 years and midlife intimate relations

Guided by a life‐span developmental systems approach, this study examined links between self‐esteem assessed over 25 years and adaptive interaction and relationship risk at midlife using data from 341 Canadian adults surveyed (or followed) from ages 18 to 43. Results showed higher self‐esteem at age 18 was associated with more adaptive interactions and lower perceived relationship risk at age 43. A more rapid increase in self‐esteem through the transition to adulthood into midlife (ages 18–43) was also associated with more frequent adaptive interactions and less relationship risk at age 43. These results held after accounting for potential confounding variables. This study is the first to demonstrate self‐esteem trajectories over a quarter century predict midlife intimate relationship functioning.