The Concept of Collusion: A Combined Systemic-Psychodynamic Approach to Marital Therapy

The author presents some new theoretical aspects and therapeutic implications of the concept of Couples in Collusion, (22), first published in 1975. According to this concept, the emotional attraction in the selection of a mate is based on a fascinating, mutual, and alarming theme, shared by both partners in order to be mastered together. The partners unavowedly start colluding to compensate for former frustrations and to repress fears of intimacy. After some time of living together and in defense of repressed feelings, they may enter into an escalation of the dysfunctional interactional pattern. Experience shows that severely neurotic personalities don't necessarily start colluding, provided that their partners don't gratify regressive needs or reinforce their defenses but help to cope with the frustrations of these unfulfilled regressive wishes. Therapies based on the concept of collusion aim at the improvement of intradyadic and extradyadic boundaries and the depolarization of extreme progressive-regressive behavior. These goals can be reached by both systemic and psychodynamic techniques. The concept of collusion may serve as a guide for this therapeutic process.     

The Significance of Romantic Love for Marriage

In this study, 605 subjects were asked about romantic love and marriage. Married people differentiated themselves from single people with stable partners and divorced people with new partners by more frequently living together with their great love, more reciprocity in that love, and less disappointments in love relationships prior to the current relationship; but they also described themselves as less happy and satisfied than the single and divorced respondents, particularly with regard to tenderness, sex, and conversation with their partners. Independent of marital status, those who were greatly in love with their partners describe themselves as happier. Love at first sight, relative to a gradually developing love, nevertheless, did not have a worse prognosis for happiness in marriage. Being in love seems to be of greater importance for the prognosis of the marriage than marital happiness and satisfaction.     

Maternal work early in the lives of children and its distal associations with achievement and behavior problems: a meta-analysis

This meta-analysis of 69 studies (1,483 effect sizes) used random effects models to examine maternal employment during infancy/early childhood in relation to 2 major domains of child functioning: achievement and behavior problems. Analyses of studies that spanned 5 decades indicated that, with a few exceptions, early employment was not significantly associated with later achievement or internalizing/externalizing behaviors. The exceptions were for teacher ratings of achievement and internalizing behaviors: Employment was associated with higher achievement and fewer internalizing behaviors. Substantial heterogeneity among the effect sizes prompted examination of moderators. Sample-level moderator analyses pointed to the importance of socioeconomic and contextual variables, with early employment most beneficial when families were challenged by single parenthood or welfare status. Maternal employment during Years 2 and 3 was associated with higher achievement. Some moderator analyses indicated negative effects of employment for middle-class and 2-parent families and for very early employment (child's first year). Associations also differed depending on whether effect sizes were adjusted for contextual variables. Only 1 study-level moderator (sex of first author) was significant after adjusting for other moderators. The small effect size and primarily nonsignificant results for main effects of early maternal employment should allay concerns about mothers working when children are young. However, negative findings associated with employment during the child's first year are compatible with calls for more generous maternal leave policies. Results highlight the importance of social context for identifying under which conditions and for which subgroups early maternal employment is associated with positive or negative child outcomes.     

Do Marital Conflict Behaviors in Response to a Novel Stressor Uniquely Predict Adolescent Outcomes?

The goal of this study was to examine whether mothers’ and fathers’ marital conflict behaviors in response to a novel stressor are uniquely predictive of adolescent outcomes. Previous research establishing the detrimental consequences of marital conflict for child outcomes has relied exclusively on assessments of conflict that measure reoccurring or past conflict. From 153 adolescents and/or both of their parents, reports were gathered on marital conflict, adolescent conflict appraisals, parent-adolescent relationship quality, and adolescent adjustment. Couples engaged in two marital problem-solving interaction tasks—one that elicited conflict behaviors by requiring discussion of salient, reoccurring topics of disagreement and one that prompted conflict behaviors by requiring that couples worked together to solve an unfamiliar problem. Results indicated that compared to behaviors during the marital conflict discussion as well as parent-reports of the frequency, intensity, and resolution of typical conflict, conflict behaviors in response to a novel stressor, particularly those displayed by mothers, were uniquely associated with adolescents’ conflict appraisals and dimensions of the parent-adolescent relationship but not adolescent adjustment. Specifically more-negative (relative to positive) conflict behaviors in response to the novel stressor was associated with more-negative adolescent conflict appraisals; mothers’ more-negative conflict behaviors in response to a novel stressor were also linked to adolescents reporting less parental monitoring. In contrast, parent reports of typical marital conflict uniquely predicted conflict property appraisals, the affective quality of mother-adolescent relationships, and adolescent adjustment. Implications for future research elucidating associations between conflict behaviors in response to a novel stressor on children and families are discussed.     

Appraisals of Interparental Conflict and Change in Attention to Emotion after Exposure to Marital Conflict

The goal of this study was to investigate whether exposure to marital conflict changes patterns of attention to anger and happiness, as well as whether those patterns vary based on appraisals of the history of interparental conflict in the home. Emerging adults viewed photo pairs with one emotionally-neutral photo and another photo depicting a happy/angry emotional interaction (while a high-speed camera tracked gaze), were randomly assigned to view a neutral or marital conflict recording, viewed neutral-emotional photo pairs again, and then reported their appraisals of their parents’ conflict. Results indicated that feeling threatened by and to blame for parental conflict predicted avoidance of happy emotions at baseline. Although there were no significant changes in attention to emotion overall based on condition, self-blame for interparental conflict predicted greater increases in time spent looking at anger after watching marital conflict (but not after watching the neutral recording). These results indicate that differences in attention to emotion may be one mechanism linking parental conflict to anxiety that could be the focus of prevention/intervention efforts to reduce anxiety symptoms in those from high-conflict homes.     

Developmental changes in the responses of preterm infants to a painful stressor

The purpose of this investigation was to examine longitudinally gestational age and developmental differences in preterm infants' self-regulatory abilities in response to a painful stressor, as well as associations between behavioral and cardiovascular responses. Participants included 49 healthy premature infants. Behavioral and cardiovascular responses to a heel stick blood draw were compared between infants of 28-31 and 32-34 weeks' gestation age at birth. Both gestational age groups displayed behavioral and cardiovascular indications of stress in response to the blood draw. However, both shortly after birth and several weeks later, infants born at younger gestational ages (28-31 weeks) were more physiologically reactive. Evidence that the behavioral stress responses of 28-31 weeks' gestation age group preterm infants do not reflect their physiological responses suggests that evaluation of preterm infants' experiences and risk require assessments of both physiology and behavior. The greater stress vulnerability of the 28-31 weeks' gestation group relative to the 32-34 weeks' gestation group and the implications of this for subsequent development are discussed.     

Social Discrimination in a Personnel Selection Context: The Effects of an Authority's Instruction to Discriminate and Followers' Authoritarianism1

Social discrimination in a personnel‐selection context was studied using an in‐basket exercise. West German participants had to select personnel from an applicant pool that included West German applicants (in‐group members) and East German applicants (out‐group members). As predicted, we found a main effect for an authority's instruction to discriminate against out‐group members. This main effect was, as predicted, qualified by an Instruction Right‐Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) interaction effect. Only high scorers on RWA discriminated against out‐group members when instructed to do so.     

Factor Structure of the Farsi Version of the Ways of Coping Questionnaire

Despite burgeoning research on coping with stress and its crucial role on people's psychological and physical well‐being, there is a dearth of psychometrically established instrument for use in Iran to measure coping. A Farsi translation of the Ways of Coping questionnaire (WOC) was administered to 739 participants from Tehran, Iran. The factor structure of the WOC was assessed with both explanatory and confirmatory factor analyses. A 7‐factor structure model with some important similarities and differences to the original version from the United States was confirmed. The Farsi version of WOC was found to have good construct reliability and model fit and has considerable potential to be used in future coping research among Iranian populations.     

Authenticity in College-Aged Males and Females, How Close Others are Perceived, and Mental Health Outcomes

Recently, constructs related to behaving authentically in relationships have been linked to self-esteem and depression. The current study aimed to fill an important gap in the literature by identifying several social-environmental factors that may be associated with dispositional authenticity—“the unobstructed operation of one’s core or true self in one’s daily enterprise” (Kernis and Goldman 2006, p. 294)—and determining whether these factors differ for males and females. Theoretical links between dispositional authenticity and perceptions of close relationship partners as more authentic and egalitarian were empirically examined. This study expanded on relational authenticity research, which has linked behaving authentically in relationships to higher self-esteem and less depressive symptomatology, to address whether females are more likely than males to display dispositional authenticity, as well as to report low self-esteem and depression when they engage in inauthenticity. Participants were 470 U.S. college students (318 female) who were recruited from colleges across the country (41?% from a liberal arts school, 31?% from a large public university) and completed questionnaires online. Path analysis indicated that both genders report more authenticity when they perceived their mothers to be more authentic; authenticity, in turn, was related to fewer depressive symptoms and greater self-esteem for both genders. For females only, authenticity was also positively related to the perceived authenticity of important nonparental adults, and a more traditional gender ideology was related to higher self-esteem; for males only, depressive symptoms were positively related to a more traditional gender ideology. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.