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It is widely acknowledged that social relationships unfold across multiple time-scales. For example, social interactions that take place over moments, hours, or days also shape relationship change and outcomes over months, years, and even decades. These processes likely unfold in the reverse direction as well: experiences over longer-term timeframes may shape how people interact on a moment-to-moment basis. The increasing availability of intensive longitudinal data and measurement burst designs, as well as creativity in the contexts and modes of data collection--including social media, text messages, and event-contingent sampling--have exploded the possibilities for advancing knowledge on social relationships across multiple time-scales. The aim of this issue is to forward methodological innovations, empirical findings, and future directions in relationship science through the study of social and personal relationships across multiple time-scales.

Given its centrality in scholarly and popular discourse, morality should be expected to figure prominently in everyday talk. We test this expectation by examining the frequency of moral content in three contexts, using three methods: (a) Participants’ subjective frequency estimates (N = 581); (b) Human content analysis of unobtrusively recorded in-person interactions (N = 542 participants; n = 50,961 observations); and (c) Computational content analysis of Facebook posts (N = 3822 participants; n = 111,886 observations). In their self-reports, participants estimated that 21.5% of their interactions touched on morality (Study 1), but objectively, only 4.7% of recorded conversational samples (Study 2) and 2.2% of Facebook posts (Study 3) contained moral content. Collectively, these findings suggest that morality may be far less prominent in everyday life than scholarly and popular discourse, and laypeople, presume.

Studies using probability samples have yielded cross-sectional and longitudinal associations between relationship dissolution and psychopathology, including depressive, anxiety, and substance use symptoms and disorders. The present review summarizes theory relevant to the association of relationship dissolution to psychopathology, discusses the time course over which postdissolution psychopathology may be most likely to manifest, and selectively reviews empirical findings regarding main and moderated associations between relationship dissolution and psychopathology. We conclude by acknowledging the need for continued study of the association between relationship dissolution and psychopathology, including research that rules out potential rival explanations (i.e., confounding variables) for this association and examines this association across cultures and types of intimate relationships (e.g., cohabiting relationships).

Social baseline theory (SBT) maintains that the primary human ecology is a social ecology. Because of this fact, the theory predicts that humans will find it easier and less energetically taxing to regulate emotion and act when in proximity to familiar and predictable others. This article reviews new empirical and theoretical work related to SBT and highlights areas of needed research. Among these exciting developments are investigations of the neural mechanisms of social emotion regulation, the creation of a model of social allostasis, and work investigating at the impact of social proximity in real-world contexts. SBT continues to accrue support and inspire new theoretical and empirical contributions.

Self-compassion is a positive psychological construct associated with heightened well-being, but the construct is largely measured via self-report. In a study of divorcing adults ( N = 120), we sought to replicate and extend prior research on the association between self-rated and observed self-compassion, the linguistic cues associated with self-rated and observed self-compassion, and the predictive utility of observed self-compassion. Untrained observers rated participants’ stream-of-consciousness recordings about their marriage and separation experience. We found adequate consensus among raters of observed self-compassion and a significant, positive association between self-rated and observed self-compassion. Greater self- and observer-rated self-compassion were associated with less distress at baseline; however, only observed self-compassion was associated with less distress at the final study assessment. Discussion centers on the cues observers use to perceive self-compassion in others and the extent to which behavioral manifestations of affect may shape such ratings.

OBJECTIVE Prior research has found a positive association between the quality or adjustment of an individual's intimate relationship, such as marriage, and their physical health. However, it is possible that this association may be due, at least in part, to confounding variables (i.e., variables that are causally associated both with relationship adjustment and health and could account for their covariation), including genetically influenced confounds. This study was conducted using a genetically informative sample of twins to examine the association between intimate relationship adjustment and self-rated health, accounting for unmeasured genetic and environmental confounds. METHOD A Swedish sample of 539 monozygotic and dizygotic twins (321 male twin pairs and 218 female twin pairs) and their spouse or long-term partner completed self-report measures of relationship adjustment and health. RESULTS Relationship adjustment was positively associated with self-rated health in male and female twins. For male twins, nonshared environmental influences largely accounted for the association between relationship adjustment and health; for female twins, this association was generally explained by shared and nonshared environmental influences. For male twins, results obtained from partners' reports of relationship adjustment were largely consistent with those obtained from twins' reports. CONCLUSIONS Results suggest that the association between relationship adjustment and self-rated health remains after accounting for shared genetic influences, and that nonshared environmental influences, such as partners' characteristics, account for the association between relationship adjustment and self-rated health in men. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Although marital infidelity is often cited as a primary reason for divorce, it does not always signify the end of a relationship. Many researchers and clinicians have questioned whether an extramarital affair is a symptom of a dysfunctional marriage that is headed for divorce or the proximal cause of the separation. More than half of individuals who have extramarital affairs divorce or separate from their spouse. In the current chapter, we answer the question: In what ways can infidelity shape postdivorce emotional reactions and recovery—that is, trajectories of adjustment over time? There are two identified factors that inhibit postdivorce adjustment: attachment-related emotion regulation and emotional suppression. Further, the mechanisms driving postdivorce adjustment, self-concept clarity and narrative coherence, are discussed in the context of how infidelity can be interpreted as a humiliating event and predict poorer postdivorce adjustment. When infidelity occurs and divorce follows, if infidelity is interpreted as a humiliating event, or if it is experienced as a targeted rejection to one’s sense of self, these predict poorer divorce adjustment and depression. Suggestions for future research in this area are discussed.

Despite criticisms dating back to the 1950s, and minimal progress reducing mental health burdens, the dominant training model in clinical psychology has not changed. We argue that for clinical psychologists to reduce mental health burdens, they (collectively) need to devote a much larger proportion of their professional efforts to a broader range of activities. We propose a highly flexible two-phase model for clinical psychology training. The initial Foundational Knowledge and Competency Phase focuses on foundational concepts in the science of clinical psychology and direct client care. During the Focused Competency Phase, students may continue training for traditional roles in providing direct client care or, alternatively, develop other roles for using psychological science to address mental health conditions.

This study investigated the ways in which adults reflect on their psychological experiences amid a recent marital separation and how these patterns of thought, manifest in language, are associated with self-reported negative affect and actigraphy-assessed sleep disturbance.In a sample of 138 recently separated adults assessed three times over five months, we examined within- and between-person associations among psychological overinvolvement (operationalized using verbal immediacy derived as a function of the language participants used to discuss their relationship history and divorce experience), continued attachment to an ex-partner, negative affect, and sleep efficiency.The association between psychological overinvolvement and negative affect operated at the within-person level, whereas the associations between psychological overinvolvement and sleep disturbance, as well as negative affect and sleep disturbance, operated at the between-person level.These findings shed light on the intraindividual processes that may explain why some people are more susceptible to poor outcomes after separation/divorce than others. Our findings suggest that individuals who express their divorce-related thoughts and feelings in a psychologically overinvolved manner may be at greatest risk for sleep disturbances after marital separation/divorce.

Both greater cardiovascular reactivity and lesser reactivity ("blunting") to laboratory stressors are linked to poor health outcomes, including among people who have a history of traumatic experiences. In a sample of recently separated and divorced adults (N = 96), this study examined whether differences in cardiovascular reactivity might be explained by differences in the personal emotional salience of the tasks and trauma history. Participants were assessed for trauma history, current distress related to their marital dissolution, and cardiovascular reactivity during two tasks, a serial subtraction math stressor task and a divorce-recall task. Participants with a greater trauma history evidenced less blood pressure reactivity to the serial subtraction task (a low personal emotional salience task) when compared to participants with less trauma history. In contrast, participants with a greater trauma history evidenced higher blood pressure reactivity to the divorce-recall task, but only if they also reported more divorce-related distress (high personal emotional salience). These associations were not significant for heart rate reactivity. Among people with a history of more traumatic experiences, a task with low personal salience was associated with a lower blood pressure response, whereas a task with higher personal emotional salience was associated with a higher blood pressure response. Future studies examining cardiovascular reactivity would benefit from determining the personal emotional salience of tasks, particularly for groups that have experienced stressful life events or trauma.

Past research using the Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR), an observational ambulatory assessment method for the real–world measurement of daily behaviour, has identified several behavioural manifestations of the Big Five domains in a small college sample ( N = 96). With the use of a larger and more diverse sample of pooled data from N = 462 participants from a total of four community samples who wore the EAR from 2 to 6 days, the primary purpose of the present study was to obtain more precise and generalizable effect estimates of the Big Five–behaviour relationships and to re–examine the degree to which these relationships are gender specific. In an extension of the original article, the secondary purpose of the present study was to examine if the Big Five–behaviour relationships differed across two facets of each Big Five domain. Overall, while several of the behavioural manifestations of the Big Five were generally consistent with the trait definitions (replicating some findings from the original article), we found little evidence of gender differences (not replicating a basic finding from the original article). Unique to the present study, the Big Five–behaviour relationships were not always comparable across the two facets of each Big Five domain. © 2020 European Association of Personality Psychology

Ambulatory assessment methods provide a rich approach for studying daily behaviour. Too often, however, these data are analysed in terms of averages, neglecting patterning of this behaviour over time. This paper describes recurrence quantification analysis (RQA), a non–linear time series technique for analysing dynamic systems, as a method for analysing patterns of categorical, intensive longitudinal ambulatory assessment data. We apply RQA to objectively assessed social behaviour (e.g. talking to another person) coded from the Electronically Activated Recorder. Conceptual interpretations of RQA parameters, and an analysis of Electronically Activated Recorder data in adults going through a marital separation, are provided. Using machine learning techniques to avoid model overfitting, we find that adding RQA parameters to models that include just average amount of time spent talking (a static measure) improves prediction of four Big Five personality traits: extraversion, neuroticism, conscientiousness, and openness. Our strongest results suggest that a combination of average amount of time spent talking and four RQA parameters yield an R2 = .09 for neuroticism. Neuroticism is shown to be associated with shorter periods of extended conversation (periods of at least 12 minutes), demonstrating the utility of RQA to identify new relationships between personality and patterns of daily behaviour. Materials: https://osf.io/5nkr9/ . © 2020 European Association of Personality Psychology

Prevailing views of adolescent self-regulation (ASR) as a relatively stable disposition or skill that an individual possesses in various degrees stand in contrast to a complementary, situational perspective from family systems theory casting ASR as intertwined with ongoing family processes and malleable depending on interpersonal interactions. Using observational data from a large, ethnically diverse sample of substance-using adolescents (N = 458), the current study examines the social context of ASR across 3 increasingly conflictual family interaction tasks. Coders rated ASR and 3 concurrent family interaction patterns: enmeshment, conflict avoidance, and negative affect. ASR declined across the 3 tasks, and independent of this systematic change, family-level negative affect in the first task exerted a strong lagged statistical effect on subsequent declines in ASR. The findings are consistent with family systems theory in both the context-dependent nature of ASR behavior and the modulating role of family interaction. In addition to its well-established dispositional properties, ASR may be of interest as a context-specific and potentially modifiable dependent variable. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Marital disruption is associated with increased risk for a range of poor health outcomes, including disturbed sleep. This report examines trajectories of actigraphy-assessed sleep efficiency following marital separation as well as the extent to which daily social behaviors and individual differences in attachment explain variability in these trajectories over time. One hundred twenty-two recently-separated adults ( N = 122) were followed longitudinally for three assessment periods over 5 months. To objectively assess daily social behaviors and sleep efficiency, participants wore the Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR) during the day (for one weekend at each assessment period) and an actiwatch at night (for 7 days at each assessment period). Greater time spent with an ex-partner, as assessed by the EAR, was associated with decreased sleep efficiency between participants ( p = .003). Higher attachment anxiety was also associated with decreased sleep efficiency ( p = .03), as was the EAR-observed measure of “television on.” The latter effect operated both between ( p = .004) and within participants ( p = .005). Finally, study timepoint moderated the association between EAR-observed television on and sleep efficiency ( p = .007). The current findings deepen our understanding of sleep disturbances following marital separation and point to contact with an ex-partner and time spent with the television on as behavioral markers of risk.

BACKGROUND: Marital separation and divorce are stressful life transitions associated with increased risk for a range of poor mental and physical health outcomes. A key task for research in this area is to identify individual differences that may index risk for these adverse outcomes. PURPOSE: To examine the association between DNA methylation across the serotonin transporter gene (SLC6A4) and self-reported emotional distress following marital separation. METHODS: Genomic DNA methylation (from buffy coat fractions of whole blood) was quantified in a sample of 47 adults following a recent marital separation; concurrent with the blood draw, participants completed questionnaires on their psychological adjustment to the separation experience. RESULTS: Relatively greater methylation of SLC6A4 was associated with less subjective separation-related psychological distress, and this association held after accounting for participants’ age, length of the relationship, time since the separation, and SLC6A4 genotype, b = −211.99, SE = 94.91, p = .03, 95% CI: −402.22, −25.21. Significantly stronger negative associations were observed between methylation and psychological adjustment among participants who had more recently separated from their former partner. CONCLUSIONS: Although results derived from small samples must be considered preliminary and hypothesis generating, the current study raises new questions about the role of DNA methylation and psychosocial adaptation to stressful life events such as divorce, and the findings can inform future studies in this research area.

Depressive symptomatology is manifested in greater first-person singular pronoun use (i.e., I-talk), but when and for whom this effect is most apparent, and the extent to which it is specific to depression or part of a broader association between negative emotionality and I-talk, remains unclear. Using pooled data from N = 4,754 participants from 6 labs across 2 countries, we examined, in a preregistered analysis, how the depression-I-talk effect varied by (a) first-person singular pronoun type (i.e., subjective, objective, and possessive), (b) the communication context in which language was generated (i.e., personal, momentary thought, identity-related, and impersonal), and (c) gender. Overall, there was a small but reliable positive correlation between depression and I-talk (r = .10, 95% CI [.07, .13]). The effect was present for all first-person singular pronouns except the possessive type, in all communication contexts except the impersonal one, and for both females and males with little evidence of gender differences. Importantly, a similar pattern of results emerged for negative emotionality. Further, the depression-I-talk effect was substantially reduced when controlled for negative emotionality but this was not the case when the negative emotionality-I-talk effect was controlled for depression. These results suggest that the robust empirical link between depression and I-talk largely reflects a broader association between negative emotionality and I-talk. Self-referential language using first-person singular pronouns may therefore be better construed as a linguistic marker of general distress proneness or negative emotionality rather than as a specific marker of depression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

This study builds on prior research by examining the degree to which individual differences in judges’ attachment orientations predict their accuracy and confidence in rating targets’ ongoing attachment to former partners. Targets were recently separated/divorced adults (N = 132) who described their separation experiences. Naive judges (NStudy 1 = 93, NStudy 2 = 296) read transcripts of targets’ separation narratives and rated targets’ strength of ongoing attachment to their former partners. Judges’ high accuracy did not vary by judges’ attachment orientations. However, greater judge avoidance was associated with lower confidence in ratings. Greater attachment anxiety was linked with weaker associations between accuracy and confidence. We discuss findings in terms of their potential implications for partner selection and future studies that can assess this link.

This paper uses attachment theory as a lens for reviewing contemporary research on how adults cope with marital separation and loss. The first section of the paper discusses the process of normative attachment reorganization, or the psychology of adaptive grief responses following relationship transitions. We argue that changes two processes, in particular, can be uses to track changes in this normative reorganization process: narrative coherence and self-concept clarity. The second section of the paper suggest that individual differences in attachment anxiety and avoidance shape the variability in this normative reorganization process, largely as a result of the characteristic ways in which these styles organize emotion-regulatory tendencies. The paper closes with a series of integrative questions for future research, including a call for new studies aimed at understanding under what contexts anxiety and avoidance may be adaptive in promoting emotion recovery to separation and divorce experiences.

ObjectiveResearch in psychosomatic medicine includes a long history of studying how responses to anger-provoking situations are associated with health. In the context of a marriage, spouses may differ in their anger-coping response style. Where one person may express anger in response to unf

This brief review article discusses marital dissolution and health with a focus on two specific themes. First, we introduce and discuss the search for plausible causal pathways that link the end of marriage to distal health outcomes. Second, we suggest that the socioeconomic status disruptions that follow divorce represent a plausible causal pathway and emphasize the need for more psychological science in this area of study. Although there is substantial literature that demonstrates that divorced adults, especially divorced women, experience significant financial disruptions, the research in this area remains broad and largely the province of family sociology and demography. Research is needed to better understand adults' psychological and behavioral responses to changes in their financial situation after the end of marriage.

This article provides a critical review of existing research on intimate (marriage or marriage-like) relationship distress and risk for depression. Using the meta-framework of research triangulation, we seek to synthesize research evidence across several different methodologies and study designs and to draw the most reliable conclusion regarding a potential causal association between relationship distress and depression. Focusing on existing correlational (i.e., observational), genetically informed, and intervention (i.e., experimental) research on the association between relationship distress and depression, we conclude that the existing body of research evidence supports the claim that relationship distress is a causal risk factor for depression. A secondary aim of the article is to highlight a variety of effective methods that, when viewed from the perspective of triangulation, enhance the pursuit of causal inference, including propensity score matching, target trial emulation, directed acyclic graph approach, and Mendelian randomization.

Sighing is a common nonverbal everyday behavior thought to signal the experiencing of negative emotions. Prior research from a small-scale study suggests that observed daily expressions of sighing is associated with subclinical depression (Robbins, Mehl, Holleran, & Kasle, 2011). This paper replicates and extends these findings, hypothesizing that individual differences in negative emotionality are associated with frequency of spontaneous sighing. Study 1 (N = 320) documents a strong lay assumption that frequent sighing signals dispositional negative emotionality. Study 2 estimates the actual association between daily sighing, assessed naturalistically using the Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR), and negative emotionality in a large, diverse, pooled sample (N = 469). Bayesian tests across six measures (neuroticism, depression, anxiety, stress, fatigue, loneliness) strongly support the null model. Together, results suggest the common intuition that people who sigh frequently experience more negative emotionality is inaccurate. Assessing whether an individual sighs more (or less) than others cannot be used to infer that they experience more negative emotions.

In this study, we examined the association between naturalistically observed in-person contact with an ex-partner and separation-related psychological distress (SRPD). One hundred twenty-two recently separated adults were assessed using the Electronically Activated Recorder on three occasions across 5 months. The association between in-person contact with an ex-partner, as a between-person variable, and concurrent SRPD was not reliably different from zero, nor was the time-varying effect of in-person contact. However, more frequent in-person contact with an ex-partner predicted higher SRPD 2 months later, above and beyond the variance accounted for by concurrent in-person contact, demographic, relationship, and attachment factors. Follow-up analyses showed that this effect was present only for people without children; a 1 SD increase in in-person contact offset and slowed the predicted decline in SRPD over 2 months by 112%. In our discussion, we emphasize new ways to think about the role of in-person contact in shaping adults’ psychological adjustment to separation over time.

OBJECTIVE Becoming widowed is associated with an increased risk of early mortality. Drawing on theoretical literature related to social support and health, the present study evaluated whether the quantity of close relationships might differentially moderate the relationship between marital status (widowed versus married) and mortality risk 10 years later. METHOD Data were obtained from the National Social Life Health and Aging Project. A diverse group of older adults (n = 2347) were interviewed three times for 10 years. Information on close friends/family, marital status, and mortality was gathered. Logistic regression and moderation analyses were used to test whether the quantity of close relationships conditioned the risk of death for married and widowed adults 10 years later. RESULTS The quantity of close relationships moderated the association between marital status and mortality risk (B = -0.35, SE = 0.11, p = .002). Compared with their married counterparts, widowed older adults who had fewer than four to six close relationships had an increased risk of death 10 years later (B = -0.35, SE = 0.09, p < .001); similarly, among people who reported few close relationships, widowed adults had an increased risk of death compared with their married counterparts (B = 0.54, SE = 0.15, p < .001). These findings remained significant after accounting for demographics, health behaviors/chronic health conditions, and psychological distress. This effect is comparable to the increased mortality risk associated with smoking cigarettes. CONCLUSIONS Having fewer than four to six close relationships is associated with an increased mortality risk for widowed older adults.

It is not wise to generalize psychophysiological findings from WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) samples to all people and yet this occurs frequently in research. Case-in-point is our understanding of psychophysiological responses to stress which suggest universality despite our knowledge that these pathways are moderated by factors such as ethnicity and culture. Here we discuss the epidemiological phenomenon commonly referred to as the Hispanic health paradox to illustrate the importance of culture in understanding stress. We posit that despite high stress exposure, Hispanics may experience relatively low levels of stress contributing to their paradoxical health advantages. Building on our prior work, we present a new, culturally-tailored stress theory model to illustrate how sociocultural factors may moderate the experience of stress (through appraisals) with downstream effects on psychophysiological mechanisms. We support the model with available data and end this paper with a call for research that more carefully considers cultural and ethnic factors in psychophysiological research.

Author(s): Mason, Ashley E; Hecht, Frederick M; Daubenmier, Jennifer J; Sbarra, David A; Lin, Jue; Moran, Patricia J; Schleicher, Samantha G; Acree, Michael; Prather, Aric A; Epel, Elissa S | Abstract: OBJECTIVE:The aim of the study was to determine, within a weight loss clinical trial for obesity, the impact of intervention arm, weight change, and weight loss maintenance on telomere length (TL). METHODS:Adults (N = 194) with a body mass index between 30 and 45 were randomized to a 5.5-month weight loss program with (n = 100) or without (n = 94) mindfulness training and identical diet-exercise guidelines. We assessed TL at baseline and 3-, 6-, and 12-month postbaseline in immune cell populations (primarily in peripheral blood mononuclear cells [PBMCs], but also in granulocytes and T and B lymphocytes). We defined weight loss maintenance as having lost at least 5% or 10% of body weight (tested in separate models) from preintervention to postintervention, and having maintained this loss at 12 months. We predicted that greater weight loss and weight loss maintenance would be associated with TL lengthening. RESULTS:Neither weight loss intervention significantly predicted TL change nor did amount of weight change, at any time point. Across all participants, weight loss maintenance of at least 10% was associated with longer PBMC TL (b = 239.08, 95% CI = 0.92 to 477.25, p = .049), CD8+ TL (b = 417.26, 95% CI = 58.95 to 775.57, p = .023), and longer granulocyte TL (b = 191.56, 95% CI = -4.23 to 387.35, p = .055) at 12 months after accounting for baseline TL. Weight loss maintenance of 5% or more was associated with longer PBMC TL (b = 163.32, 95% CI = 4.00 to 320.62, p = .045) at 12 months after accounting for baseline TL. These tests should be interpreted in light of corrections for multiple tests. CONCLUSIONS:Among individuals with obesity, losing and maintaining a weight loss of 10% or more may lead to TL lengthening, which may portend improved immune and metabolic function. TL lengthening in this study is of unknown duration beyond 12 months and requires further study. TRIAL REGISTRATION:Clinicaltrials.govidentifierNCT00960414; Open Science Framework (OSF) preregistration: https://osf.io/t3r2g/.

Divorce is a stressful life event that is associated with increased risk for poor mental and physical health. A key goal for research in this area is to understand individual differences in who fares well or poorly over time, and whether behavioral markers of risk immediately after a separation predict longer term adjustment. This article investigates psychological distress in a sample of separated adults ( N = 134, 84 of whom completed all follow-up assessments) who participated in an initial study and a follow-up assessment approximately 4.5 years later. Using multiple regression we examined whether two linguistic behaviors—the use of words from categories such as first-person pronouns and present tense words (verbal immediacy) and first-person plural pronouns (we-talk; e.g., “we” or “our”)—predicted self-reported psychological distress at follow-up. Increased use of first-person plural pronouns predicted greater psychological distress 4.5 years after marital separation. Additional analyses revealed that this effect was driven largely by differences in self-concept disturbance over time. The extent to which people use first-person plural pronouns following marital separation predicts increased risk for psychological distress years later, and this behavioral indicator may identify people who are at greater risk for poor adjustment over time.

Using a Brunswik lens framework, this study examined whether lay observers could accurately detect participants’ attachment to a former partner following romantic breakup or divorce. We predicted that the ratings of post-breakup attachment (completed after reading participants’ transcribed stream-of-consciousness discussions of the recent separation) would be associated with participants’ self-reported ratings of attachment to a former partner and that participants’ natural language use in their narratives would act as the behavioral residue explaining these associations. To enhance the generalizability of our findings, we explored our hypotheses in two samples of adults who had recently undergone romantic relationship dissolutions—people experiencing non-marital breakups ( N = 161) and divorce ( N = 132). Consistent with hypotheses, in both samples, naïve judges generated assessments of participant attachment that were (a) reliable, (b) strongly associated with participants’ own attachment ratings, and (c) associated with participant breakup-related distress. Of the linguistic cues we examined as behavioral residue, only we-talk (first person plural pronoun use) operated indirectly to link rater and participant attachment scores. We discuss the implications of this work for a deeper understanding of attachment to former romantic partners and for using person-perception paradigms to study attachment relationships.

Background The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has led to concerns about mental health resulting from regional and national lockdowns, social isolation, job loss, and concern about disease exposure. Objective We describe results of the pilot feasibility study of the See Me Serene mHealth app. The app provides users with immersive, vivid, nature experiences to reduce stress and anxiety related to COVID-19 and other isolation. The goals of the study were to develop the See Me Serene app and test the feasibility and acceptability of study procedures, and explore the potential impact of the app on stress and anxiety. Methods We developed and tested the See Me Serene app and our study procedures for feasibility, and gathered preliminary data with a goal of 100 participants. The research was conducted in 2 phases: (1) development and internal testing of the app; and (2) feasibility and pilot testing with participants recruited online through earned media (eg, news stories), presentations at a university campus, and social media (eg, online sharing of earned media and presentations). The feasibility study employed a mixed methods, within-subjects, pre-/posttest design. At baseline and 30-day follow-up, we assessed stress-related variables via validated self-report measures and saliva samples for determination of cortisol concentrations. Results We met or surpassed all our feasibility benchmarks for recruitment (101 participants recruited), retention (91% [90/99] of 30-day assessment completed), and data collection (99 participants completed all baseline data; 85% [84/99] of salivary cortisol samples returned). Participants adhered to the intervention. On average, participants listened to 48.2 audio files over 30 days or approximately 1.6 audio files per day. Participants were satisfied with the app, with 87% (78/90) rating the app as helpful in dealing with stress and anxiety. The app showed the potential to reduce stress, anxiety, loneliness, and worry. We did not find significant differences (P=.41) in cortisol levels over time. Our findings suggest that future research is warranted to test the efficacy of the See Me Serene app with a representative, diverse sample. Conclusions There is a need for evidence-based and easily disseminable stress-reduction interventions. See Me Serene is a feasible intervention and has the potential to reduce stress related to COVID-19 and other forms of social isolation. More research on See Me Serene is warranted.

A robust body of scientific evidence has indicated that being embedded in high-quality close relationships and feeling socially connected to the people in one's life is associated with decreased risk for all-cause mortality as well as a range of disease morbidities. Despite mounting evidence that the magnitude of these associations is comparable to that of many leading health determinants (that receive significant public health resources), government agencies, health care providers and associations, and public or private health care funders have been slow to recognize human social relationships as either a health determinant or health risk marker in a manner that is comparable to that of other public health priorities. This article evaluates current evidence (on social relationships and health) according to criteria commonly used in determining public health priorities. The article discusses challenges for reducing risk in this area and outlines an agenda for integrating social relationships into current public health priorities. (PsycINFO Database Record

Divorce is a common stressor that is associated with increased risk for poor mental health. This study examined the creation of narrative as a psychological mechanism explaining the link between psychological overinvolvement and psychological distress in a sample of recently separated adults (N = 109). Prior analyses of this sample found iatrogenic effects of expressive writing (EW) on psychological distress among people reporting high levels of rumination. In this reanalysis, however, we tested whether narrative creation explained the association between individual differences in psychological overinvolvement and psychological distress, measured by a composite of depressive symptoms and divorce-related distress, 7.5 months later. Participants were assigned to one of three conditions: traditional EW, narrative EW, or a control condition. Participants’ psychological overinvolvement was assessed using a composite of three different methodologies: self-report, language use, and independently coded scores. Lo...

Attachment anxiety in parents is associated with lower quality parent-child relationships. An inhibited capacity to reflect on children's mental states, referred to as prementalizing, may reduce the pleasure parents derive from their relationships. In the current study, we explored the associations among attachment anxiety, prementalizing, and parenting satisfaction in two groups of participants randomly assigned either to reflect on a positive memory with their child (n = 150) or to reflect on a positive memory not involving their child (n = 150). Narratives were evaluated for positive content using two metrics: coder-rated positivity and frequency of positive emotion words. Results revealed that self-reported prementalizing operated indirectly to link attachment anxiety and self-reported parenting satisfaction for both groups. However, prementalizing only served as an indirect link between attachment anxiety and coded measures of positivity among participants who reflected on parenting experiences, suggesting the specificity of prementalizing in linking attachment anxiety and reduced positivity in the parenting role. The results have implications for understanding influences of attachment and mentalization on parents' perception of parent-child relationship quality. (PsycINFO Database Record

The secure base script (SBS) framework is one method of assessing implicit internal working models of attachment; recently, researchers have applied this method to analyze narratives regarding relationship experiences. This study examines the associations between attachment avoidance and SBS content when parents recall a positive moment of connection between themselves and their children (relational savoring) as well as their association with parental emotion and reflective functioning (RF). Using a sample of parents (N = 155, 92% female) of young children (53% boys, Mage = 12.76 months), we found that parental attachment avoidance is inversely associated with SBS content during relational savoring, and that SBS content is an indirect effect explaining the association between attachment avoidance and postsavoring (positive and negative) emotion as well as avoidance and poststressor RF. Findings have implications for understanding attachment and parenting.

A very large literature links the experiences of marital separation and divorce to risk for a range of poor distal health outcomes, including early death. What is far less clear, however, is the mechanistic pathways that convey this risk. Several plausible mechanisms are identified in the literature, and the central thesis of this paper is that the empirical study of divorce and health will benefit enormously from a renewed reliance on theory to dictate how these mechanisms of action may unfold over time. This review emphasizes the roles of attachment and social baseline theories in making specific mechanistic predictions and highlights the ways in which these perspectives can contribute new empirical knowledge on risk and resilience following marital dissolution.

The commentaries by Rimé (2018) and Scherer (2018) underscore and extend many of the central themes discussed in our target article (Sbarra & Coan, 2018). This response filters the commentaries through the lens of our review article and highlights the core idea that relationships provide a vital context for the types of emotional responding outlined in the commentaries, including the social sharing of emotion (an inherently interpersonal process) as well as the link between emotional competence and physical health (which can unfold both within and between people).

This study examined the association between naturalistically-observed in-person contact with one’s ex-partner and separation-related psychological distress (SRPD). 122 recently separated adults were assessed using the Electronically Activated Recorder (Mehl, 2017) on three occasions across five months. The association between in-person contact with one’s expartner, as a between-person variable, and concurrent SRPD was not reliably different from zero, nor was the time-varying effect of in-person contact. However, more frequent in-person contact with one’s ex-partner predicted higher SRPD two months later, above and beyond the variance accounted for by oncurrent in-person contact, demographic, relationship, and attachment factors. Follow-up analyses yielded that this effect was only present for people without children; a one standard deviation increase in in-person contact offset and slowed the predicted decline in SRPD over two months by 112%. Our discussion emphasizes new ways to think about the role of interpersonal contact in shaping adults’ psychological adjustment to separation over time.

Martial dissolution is associated with risk for poor mental health outcomes, but less is known about the variables and processes that may explain this risk. In a sample of recently-separated adults (N = 138), this study examined the association of psychological overinvolvement—assessed using a composite of self-reported rumination, language use, and judge-rated recounting and reconstruing—with daily affect and psychological distress. We included objective measures of sleep, behavioral displays of distress, and social engagement as potential mediators of these associations. Consistent with the preregistered hypotheses, greater psychological overinvolvement predicted higher levels of psychological distress, lower happiness, and greater sadness five months later. Psychological overinvolvement also predicted change in sadness, but not happiness or psychological distress, over five months. Contrary to our predictions, none of the candidate mediators explained these associations. Exploratory analyses suggested that the self-reported rumination component of the psychological overinvolvement composite largely accounted for the association between psychological overinvolvement and the three outcomes. People’s tendency to become overinvolved in their psychological experience after divorce predicts increased risk for distress in the months following marital separation.

The psychological impact of military deployment on nondeploying partners of service members is only recently gaining attention in the literature, with preliminary findings suggesting that partners of military service members experience significant mental health consequences of deployment, but with little work examining factors that could heighten or attenuate risk for maladjustment in response to deployment. The current study uses attachment theory as a guide to explore the unique and interactive effects of two factors likely to increase risk for maladjustment among nondeploying partners: attachment anxiety and trauma history. Participants (N = 86) completed assessments 2 weeks prior to and 2 weeks following their partners' deployment departure, as well as 2 weeks following their partners' return. Attachment anxiety and trauma history independently contributed to adjustment during and following the deployment, with partners high in either factor at greatest risk for maladjustment and partners high in both exhibiting the most linguistic signs of threat orientation. Further, low attachment anxiety was associated with better adjustment when trauma history was low or moderate, but not high; similarly, low trauma history was associated with better adjustment when attachment anxiety was at low or moderate, but not high. In terms of postdeployment adjustment, partners with less trauma history reported less distress. Somewhat surprisingly, among those with more trauma history, higher attachment anxiety was associated with less risk for maladjustment. We discuss these findings in terms of their implication for theory and prevention. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

In Press, Perspectives on Psychological Science. Accepted, 11.2.2018This final accepted version may differ from published version as a function of changes that emerge during the copyediting process.This paper introduces and outlines the case for an evolutionary mismatch between smartphones and the social behaviors that help form and maintain close social relationships. As psychological adaptations that enhance human survival and inclusive fitness, self-disclosure and responsiveness evolved in the context of small kin networks to facilitate social bonds, to promote trust, and to enhance cooperation. These adaptations are central to the development of attachment bonds, and attachment theory is middle-level evolutionary theory that provides a robust account of the ways human bonding provides for reproductive and inclusive fitness. Evolutionary mismatches operate when modern contexts cue ancestral adaptations in a manner that does not provide for their adaptive benefits. This paper argues that smartphones and their affordances, while highly beneficial in many circumstances, cue our evolved needs for self-disclosure and responsiveness across broad virtual networks and, in turn, have the potential to undermine immediate interpersonal interactions. We review emerging evidence on the topic of technoference, defined as the ways in which smartphone use may interfere with or intrude into everyday social interactions (either between couples or within families). The paper concludes with an empirical agenda for advancing the integrative study of smartphones, intimacy processes, and close relationships.

Purpose Breast cancer diagnosis and treatment are associated with increased inflammatory activity, which can induce sickness symptoms. We examined whether emotional acceptance moderates the association between proinflammatory cytokines and self-reported sickness symptoms in women recently diagnosed with breast cancer. Methods Women ( N = 136) diagnosed with stage 0-III breast cancer within the previous 6 months provided plasma samples and completed the FACT: Physical Well-Being Scale, as well as the Acceptance of Emotion Scale every 3 months for 2 years. At each time point, we quantified interleukin (IL)-6, IL-8, IL-10, and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α using a high sensitivity multiplex assay. Results Higher within-subject mean TNF-α across all time-points predicted higher mean sickness symptoms. At individual time-points, higher IL-6 and IL-8 levels were associated with higher sickness symptoms. Mean emotional acceptance across all time-points moderated the relationship between mean IL-8 and sickness symptoms, with sickness symptoms remaining persistently high in women with low emotional acceptance even when IL-8 levels were low. At individual time-points, emotional acceptance positively moderated the correlations of IL-8 and TNF-α with sickness symptoms, such that the associations between higher levels of these proinflammatory cytokines and higher sickness symptoms were attenuated when emotional acceptance was high. Conclusion Emotional acceptance was shown for the first time to moderate the associations of cytokines with sickness symptoms in breast cancer patients over time following diagnosis and treatment. The association between emotional acceptance and sickness symptoms was significantly different from zero but relatively small in comparison to the range of sickness symptoms. Results suggest that targeting emotion regulation may help to break the cycle between inflammation and sickness symptoms in women with breast cancer.

Savoring, or prolonging emotions associated with positive events, improves emotion and life satisfaction; little work, however, focuses on the savoring of interpersonal experiences, termed relational savoring. In a sample of 435 parents, the authors evaluated the impact of relational savoring on emotion and parent–child relationship satisfaction compared to a personal savoring and neutral control condition. Two years later, the authors reassessed parents' feelings of closeness with their children in a subsample of the original participants (n = 64). Both savoring conditions resulted in higher positive emotion for all parents, whereas the effects on negative emotion, relationship satisfaction, and closeness were only present for those higher in attachment avoidance. This study opens new avenues of investigation in both relational savoring and parent–child relationships.

Close relationships, especially high-quality romantic relationships, are consistently associated with positive physical health outcomes. Attenuated cardiovascular reactivity is one physiological mechanism implicated in explaining these effects. Drawing on attachment and social baseline theories, this experimental study evaluated two potential affiliative cues as mechanisms through which romantic relationships may attenuate cardiovascular reactivity to a laboratory-based stressor. Prior to a cold pressor task, 102 participants were randomly assigned to either have their partner physically present, call upon a mental representation of their partner, or think about their day during the stressor. Consistent with our preregistered hypotheses, participants in both the partner present and mental activation conditions had significantly lower blood pressure (BP) reactivity during the cold pressor task compared to control participants for both systolic (d = -0.54) and diastolic BP (d = -0.53), but no significant differences emerged for heart rate or heart rate variability. Although participants in the partner present and mental activation conditions had similar BP reactivity to the cold pressor task, those in the partner present condition reported significantly less pain as a result of the task. The difference in BP reactivity by condition was moderated-BP reactivity was greater for people with lower self-reported relationship satisfaction. The results suggest that accessing the mental representation of a romantic partner and a partner's presence each buffer against exaggerated acute stress responses to a similar degree.