Brotherly love I: The experience of closeness in the fraternal dyad

The present research explicates the experience of closeness in dyadic relationships between brothers. A total of 160 respondents comprising 80 intact brother dyads described situations or events in which they felt particularly close to each other. Phenomenological analyses identified five themes characterizing the experience of closeness among brothers: shared conversation, solidarity, companionship, shared perceptions and memories, and surviving shared adversity. Some of these themes confirmed prior research on siblings or male-male relationships, whereas others have not emerged in previous studies. Results are discussed in relation to contemporary appeals for a more inclusive theoretical approach to the study of close relationships.     

Sequential analysis of autonomy-interdependence and affiliation-disaffiliation in couples' social support interactions

Sequential patterns of social support interactions between satisfied (n= 33) and dissatisfied (n= 23) husbands and wives were observed as the spouses took turns confiding about personal problems. The interactions were coded with an adaptation of Benjamin's Structural Analysis of Social Behavior, which evaluates interpersonal behaviors along two dimensions of independence-interdependence and affiliation-disaffiliation. Log-linear analysis verified expected complementary sequential exchanges of behaviors that fell in the mid-ranges of independence, interdependence, affiliation, and disaffiliation, although extreme forms of independent and interdependent behavior showed unexpected functional associations with non-complementary behaviors. Dissatisfied wives displayed imbalanced levels of independent and interdependent behaviors, and both spouses showed relatively less support for each other's independent initiative. Dissatisfied spouses also had difficulty providing and accepting assistance in affiliative ways. The findings are discussed in terms of the balance of autonomy and interconnectedness in marriage, and the implications for improving supportive interactions for dissatisfied couples.     

The impact of alexithymia on initial interactions

This study proposed several hypotheses predicting a deficit in the ability of alexithymic individuals to present themselves as attractive to a relational partner during an initial interaction. Both alexithymic and nonalexithymic individuals participated in a 10‐min interpersonal exercise with a stranger of the opposite gender. Relational partners were more attracted to nonalexithymics than alexithymics. Partners perceived higher levels of several relational messages from nonalexithymics than alexithymics and lower levels of formality and dominance. Finally, the relational message of intimacy fully mediated the relationship between group membership (alexithymic or nonalexithymic) and social attraction. The authors suggest several implications and directions for future research, such as the need to include psychological traits in theoretical examinations of communication competence.     

How to Assess a Model's Testability and Identifiability

Formal definitions are given of the following intuitive concepts: (a) A model is quantitatively testable if its predictions are highly precise and narrow. (b) A model is identifiable if the values of its parameters can be ascertained from empirical observations. (c) A model is redundant if the values of some parameters can be deduced from others or if the values of some observables can be deduced from others. Various rules of thumb for nonredundant models are examined. The Counting Rule states that a model is quantitatively testable if and only if it has fewer parameters than observables. This rule can be safely applied only to identifiable models. If a model is unidentifiable, one must apply a generalization of the Counting Rule known as the Jacobian Rule. This rule states that a model is quantitatively testable if and only if the maximum rank (i.e., the number of linearly independent columns) of its Jacobian matrix (i.e., the matrix of partial derivatives of the function that maps parameter values to the predicted values of observables) is smaller than the number of observables. The Identifiability Rule states that a model is identifiable if and only if the maximum rank of its Jacobian matrix equals the number of parameters. The conclusions provided by these rules are only presumptive. To reach definitive conclusions, additional analyses must be performed. To illustrate the foregoing, the quantitative testability and identifiability of linear models and of discrete-state models are analyzed. Copyright 2000 Academic Press.     

A Meta-Analysis of Research on Protection Motivation Theory

This article reports the first meta-analysis of the literature on protection motivation theory (Rogers, 1975, 1983; Rogers & Prentice-Dunn, 1997), a model of disease prevention and health promotion that has generated research for over two decades. The literature review included 65 relevant studies ( N = approximately 30,000) that represented over 20 health issues. The mean overall effect size ( d += 0.52) was of moderate magnitude. In general, increases in threat severity, threat vulnerability, response efficacy, and self-efficacy facilitated adaptive intentions or behaviors. Conversely, decreases in maladaptive response rewards and adaptive response costs increased adaptive intentions or behaviors. This held true whether the measures were based on intentions or behaviors, and suggests that PMT components may be useful for individual and community interventions.     

The sounds of dominance.

A study was conducted to determine the effects of vocal cues on judgements of dominance in an interpersonal influence context. Physical measures of human vocal cues and participant ratings of dominance were obtained from videotapes of actors delivering short influence messages. After controlling for linguistic and visual content of messages, results indicated that mean amplitude and amplitude standard deviation were positively associated with dominance judgments, whereas speech rate was negatively associated with dominance judgments. An unexpected interaction revealed that mean fundamental frequency (F₀) was positively associated with dominance judgments for male speakers but not significantly associated with dominance judgments for female speakers. F₀ standard deviation was not significantly associated with dominance judgments. Results support the conclusion that dominance judgments are inferred from multiple sources of information and that some vocal markers of dominance are more influential than others.     

Hypothalamo-Pituitary-Adrenocortical Regulation Following Lesions of the Central Nucleus of the Amygdala

Previous reports indicate that the central nucleus of the amygdala (CeA) stimulates adrenocorticotropin and corticosterone secretion, suggesting a role for this region in central hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) stress regulation. To evaluate this hypothesis, this study assessed the impact of CeA lesion on the response of hypophysiotrophic paraventricular nucleus (PVN) neurons to acute restraint and chronic unpredictable stress exposure. In contrast to previous reports, CeA lesions did not affect corticosterone or ACTH secretion induced by acute stress. Acute restraint increased PVN corticotropin releasing hormone (CRH) mRNA expression, increased the number of parvocellular PVN neurons expressing the co-secretagogue arginine vasopressin (AVP), and induced cFOS mRNA expression in the parvocellular PVN. However, there was no additional effect of CeA lesion on any measure of PVN activation. Chronic unpredictable stress exposure induced long-term activation of the HPA axis, noted by thymic involution, adrenal hypertrophy and increased PVN CRH mRNA expression. Stress-induced changes in thymus and adrenal weights were not affected by CeA lesion. Further, CeA lesion rats did not differ from controls in post-stress CRH mRNA expression. However, basal CRH mRNA expression was increased in the PVN of CeA rats, suggesting that the CeA plays a role in long-term inhibition of the PVN. The results of these studies are not consistent with the hypothesis that the CeA is necessary for stress-induced pituitary-adrenocortical activation. Rather, this region may play a stressor-specific modulatory role in regulation of HPA function.     

Persuasion and the structure of affect.

Participants viewed eight PSAs, providing data on their cognitive and emotional responses to each, as well as judgments of the perceived effectiveness of the messages. They also responded to Carver and White's (1994) BIS/BAS scales designed to measure individual differences in the behavioral inhibition and behavioral activation systems. Consistent with dual‐systems theories of affect, the BIS scales predicted arousal of negative emotions, while BAS was associated with the elicitation of positive emotions. However, when predicting perceived message effectiveness, the positive affects showed variation in the sign and magnitude of the coefficients, as did the negative affects. This latter finding supports a discrete‐emotions perspective. Knowledge that the two affect structures are appropriate to different conceptual domains (i.e., elicitation vs. effect) should enable researchers to formulate more precise questions regarding the role of affect in persuasion.