AFFECT EXPRESSION, MARITAL SATISFACTION, AND STRESS REACTIVITY AMONG PREMENOPAUSAL WOMEN DURING A CONFLICTUAL MARITAL DISCUSSION

Relationships between women's affect expressions, marital satisfaction, and cardiovascular reactivity were investigated. Twenty-four healthy women and their spouses completed the Marital Satisfaction Inventory (MSI). Women's cardiovascular reactivity was monitored during a 10-minute videotaped husband-wife conflict discussion that later was rated for affect expressions. Regression analysis showed that active negative affect accounted for 20% of the variability in systolic blood pressure. Neither positive affects nor MSI Global Marital Distress was related to women's cardiovascular responses. For women, 53% of the variance in MSI Global Marital Distress was accounted for by total negative affect, but for men affects and marital distress were unrelated. Further research is warranted on the associations between marital distress, affect expression, and cardiovascular reactivity that may lead to physical and mental health problems.     

Nonlinear and Nonmonotonic Effects of Outcome on Procedural and Distributive Fairness Judgments1

It has generally been assumed that increases in the concrete outcomes of a procedure will result in judgments of greater procedural and distributive fairness, but research on this topic has been inconsistent. Using a classic procedural justice paradigm (Walker, LaTour, Lind, &. Thibaut, 1974), the experiment tested the effects of four levels of outcome. Forty-eight male and female undergraduates were led to believe that their team had been wrongfully charged with cheating in a business simulation game. An adversary adjudication was held, purportedly to resolve the charge. The outcome of the adjudication was confiscation of all, two thirds, one third, or none of the subject's monetary winnings from the game. Both procedural and distributive fairness measures showed dear nonlinear outcome effects. The relationship between outcomes and both fairness measures showed some evidence of being nonmonotonic as well: A two-thirds loss resulted in less favorable reactions than did a total loss. Ratings on other scales suggest that the nonlinear effects are due to beliefs that the judge did not fully consider the evidence in the two-thirds loss and one-third loss conditions. The discussion focuses on the theoretical implications of the findings for procedural justice and social exchange processes and the practical implications for conflict resolution procedure.     

Teaching mands for information using ‘when’ to children with autism

Previous research has evaluated contrived motivating operations to teach mands for information. However, literature evaluating acquisition of the mand when? is comparatively limited. As an extension of Shillingsburg, Bowen, Valentino, & Pierce (2014), we taught three children with autism to engage in mands for information using when under alternating conditions in which a contrived establishing operation was present (EOP ) or absent (EOA ). Following training with a constant prompt delay, all participants acquired the mand for information and demonstrated correct use of the provided information and a decrease in inappropriate attempts to access restricted items.