Therapeutic alliance and progress in couple therapy: multiple perspectives

Therapeutic alliance research in couple therapy using multiple perspectives and longitudinal data has been sparse. This study used structural equation modelling to explore relationships between changes in alliance and in progress from clients' and therapists' perspective in a fairly large sample of couples (N=195) during the initial stage of therapy at an on‐campus training clinic. Self‐rated alliance was measured after sessions 2 through 4 with the Working Alliance Inventory. There was very little change in alliance over the early sessions of therapy, and changes in alliance did not always account for changes in relationship satisfaction. Husbands' perceptions of satisfaction and alliance seem to play an important role in the dynamics of the therapeutic process. Findings suggest a reciprocal relationship between perceptions of alliance and progress in therapy when combining perceptions of therapists and couple clients. Clinical implications and future research are discussed.     

Cross-Cultural Evaluation of the International Affective Picture System on an Indian Sample

The International Affective Picture System (IAPS) is widely used in emotion and attention research. Currently, there is neither a standard database of affective images for use in research with Indian population nor data on the way people from India respond to emotional pictures in terms of different dimensions. In the present study, we investigated whether self-reported Indian ratings are comparable to the original normative ratings (based on a North American sample) to evaluate its usability in Indian research context. The ratings were obtained from a sample of eighty Indian participants (age range?=?18 to 29 years, M _age?=?23.7, SD?=?2.67, 45 % females) on a stratified representative sample of 100 IAPS pictures. Similar to the normative data collected from the North American sample in the original IAPS database, the ratings were collected across three dimensions – valence (how pleasant/attractive or unpleasant/aversive), arousal (how calm or excited was the intensity of activation), and dominance (how controlling). Our results indicate similarities in valence ratings, but differences in arousal and dominance ratings between the Indian and the North American samples. The relationship between arousal and valence showed a similar (but less curved) boomerang shaped distribution seen with the North American sample. Unlike the North American sample, slopes were higher and intercepts were different for the Indian sample. However, the Indian sample also showed positivity offset and negative bias like the North American sample. These affective ratings show a fair amount of similarity but care is needed especially with arousal values in using these pictures for research with Indian population. While there are subtle differences in the relationship between different affective dimensions, there are also major similarities across cultures in affective judgments.     

Emotions help memory for faces: Role of whole and parts

The role of holistic or parts-based processing in face identification has been explored mostly with neutral faces. In the current study, we investigated the nature of processing (holistic vs. parts) in recognition memory for faces with emotional expressions. There were two phases in this experiment: learning phase and test phase. In the learning phase participants learned face–name associations of happy, neutral, and sad faces. The test phase consisted of a two-choice recognition test (whole face, eyes, or mouth) given either immediately or after a 24-hour delay. Results indicate that emotional faces were remembered better than neutral faces and performance was better with whole faces as compared to isolated parts. The performance in immediate and delayed recognition interacted with emotional information. Sad eyes and happy mouth were remembered better in the delayed recognition condition. These results suggest that in addition to holistic processing, specific parts–emotion combinations play a critical role in delayed recognition memory.     

Rapid communication: Global-local processing affects recognition of distractor emotional faces

Recent studies have shown links between happy faces and global, distributed attention as well as sad faces to local, focused attention. Emotions have been shown to affect global-local processing. Given that studies on emotion-cognition interactions have not explored the effect of perceptual processing at different spatial scales on processing stimuli with emotional content, the present study investigated the link between perceptual focus and emotional processing. The study investigated the effects of global-local processing on the recognition of distractor faces with emotional expressions. Participants performed a digit discrimination task with digits at either the global level or the local level presented against a distractor face (happy or sad) as background. The results showed that global processing associated with broad scope of attention facilitates recognition of happy faces, and local processing associated with narrow scope of attention facilitates recognition of sad faces. The novel results of the study provide conclusive evidence for emotion-cognition interactions by demonstrating the effect of perceptual processing on emotional faces. The results along with earlier complementary results on the effect of emotion on global-local processing support a reciprocal relationship between emotional processing and global-local processing. Distractor processing with emotional information also has implications for theories of selective attention.     

Ethnic identity and interethnic dating in Portuguese young adults

Forty undergraduate Rutgers-Newark students (21 women and 19 men) of Portuguese descent, aged 18 to 28, participated in a study on identity com-mitment and attitudes toward interethnic dating. High commitment to a Portuguese identity was associated with a collectivist orientation and with having a social network densely populated with Portuguese people. High personal concern with the ethnicity of one's dating partner was positively correlated with commitment to a Portuguese identity, and with having a social network densely populated with Portuguese people. High importance placed on parents' opinions about the ethnicity of dating and marriage partners was associated with a collectivist orientation. For women but not men, commitment was associated with high concern with one's partner's ethnicity. Results are discussed in terms of gender and the development of commitment to an ethnic identity.     

The two‐sided nature of individual and intragroup experiences in the aftermath of collective victimization: Findings from four diaspora groups

Most social psychological research on collective victimhood has examined its consequences for intergroup relations. Less attention has been paid to individual and intragroup processes associated with collective victimization, which the present study aimed to examine. We conducted eight focus group interviews among four diaspora communities (Armenian Americans, Burundian refugees, Jewish Americans, Nepali‐speaking Bhutanese refugees) with historical or more recent experiences of collective victimization. Thematic analysis revealed three major foci shared across communities (but with different emphases within each focus), which included juxtaposed themes that highlight the two‐sided nature of experiencing and coping with collective victimization and its aftermath: Vulnerability and struggle versus resilience and strength, loss versus continuity and renewal, and silence about versus transmission of knowledge about ingroup victimization. These findings illustrate how groups integrate seemingly opposite poles of collective victimization that characterize this complex and multifaceted experience, which has important theoretical implications.     

Alienation Among the Visually Impaired: Some Important Predictors

We evaluated the effectiveness of a nondiet approach designed to reduce restrained eating behaviors and improve self-acceptance and self-esteem. This approach also encourages participants to address eating and exercise behavior separately. Subjects were Conoco employees who participated in the Wellness Department's Eat For L.I.F.E. (Long-term change; Image of self; Fun; Enjoyment of eating) program and completed pre-participation and 3-year follow-up questionnaires (N = 79). Pre- and postsurvey data were used to assess participants eating behavior, dieting behavior, self-acceptance, self-esteem, level of physical activity, and demographic information. Mastery of the internally directed eating style was assessed during the program at 3 months, at the conclusion of the 6-month program, and at the 3-year follow-up. Analysis of variance indicated that Eat For L.I.F.E. participants were able to significantly decrease their restrained eating behavior and increase self-acceptance, self-esteem, and level of physical activity. Participants also were able to adopt many aspects of the nonrestrained, internally directed eating style and decrease their frequency of weighing-in behavior. These results indicate that strategies fostering internally directed eating behaviors may be more centrally related to an individual's well-being than programs supporting externally directed eating behaviors.     

Emotional distraction unbalances visual processing

Brain mechanisms used to control nonemotional aspects of cognition may be distinct from those regulating responses to emotional stimuli, with activity of the latter being detrimental to the former. Previous studies have shown that suppression of irrelevant emotional stimuli produces a largely right-lateralized pattern of frontal brain activation, thus predicting that emotional stimuli may invoke temporary, lateralized costs to performance on nonemotional cognitive tasks. To test this, we briefly (85 ms) presented a central, irrelevant, expressive (angry, happy, sad, or fearful) or neutral face 100 ms prior to a letter search task. The presentation of emotional versus neutral faces slowed subsequent search for targets appearing in the left, but not the right, hemifield, supporting the notion of a right-lateralized, emotional response mechanism that competes for control with nonemotional cognitive processes. Presentation of neutral, scrambled, or inverted neutral faces produced no such laterality effects on visual search response times.