Relationship factors and couples' engagement in sun protection.

Individuals may be more motivated to adopt health practices if they consider the benefits of these behaviors for their close relationships. The goal of this study was to examine couple concordance with sun protection and use the interdependence and communal coping theory to evaluate the role of relationship factors in sun protection. One hundred and eighty-four married couples aged 50 years and older completed measures of objective skin cancer risk, perceived risk, sun protection benefits, relationship-centered motivations for sun protection, discussions about sun protection, and sun protection. A mediational model was evaluated. Results indicated a high level of couple concordance. Partners who adopted a relationship-centered motivation for sun protection were more likely to discuss sun protection with one another, and partners who discussed sun protection together were more likely to engage in sun protection. One partner's attitude about personal risk and sun protection benefits was associated with the other partner's sun protection. Wives had higher relationship-centered motivation and discussed sun protection more with their husbands. Behavioral interventions may benefit from encouraging couples to discuss sun protection and encouraging married individuals to consider the benefits of sun protection for their relationship and for their spouse's health.

Neighborhood as a predictor of non-aggressive, but not aggressive, antisocial behaviors in adulthood.

BACKGROUND: Prior meta-analytic work has highlighted important etiological distinctions between aggressive (AGG) and non-aggressive rule-breaking (RB) dimensions of antisocial behavior. Among these is the finding that RB is influenced by the environment more than is AGG. Relatively little research, however, has sought to identify the specific environmental experiences that contribute to this effect. The current study sought to do just this. METHOD: We examined whether unrelated adults residing in the same neighborhood (n = 1915 participants in 501 neighborhoods) were more similar in their AGG and RB than would be expected by chance. Analyses focused on simple multi-level models, with the participant as the lower-level unit and the neighborhood as the upper-level unit. RESULTS: Results revealed little to no evidence of neighborhood-level variance in AGG. By contrast, 11+% of the variance in RB could be predicted from participant neighborhood, results that persisted even when considering the possibility of genetic relatedness across participants and neighborhood selection effects. Moreover, 17% of this neighborhood-level variance in RB was accounted for by neighborhood structural characteristics and social processes. CONCLUSIONS: Findings bolster prior suggestions that broader contextual experiences, like the structural and social characteristics of one's neighborhood, contribute in a meaningful way to RB in particular. Our results also tentatively imply that this association may be environmental in origin. Future work should seek to develop additional, stronger designs capable of more clearly leveraging genetic un-relatedness to improve causal inferences regarding the environment.

Correspondence of physical activity and fruit/vegetable consumption among prostate cancer survivors and their spouses.

A healthy diet and physical activity are recommended for prostate cancer survivors. Interdependence theory suggests that the spousal relationship influences those health behaviours and the degree of correspondence may be an indicator of this influence. This study evaluated the correspondence between prostate cancer survivors and spouses regarding physical activity and fruit/vegetable consumption. Baseline data from an ongoing randomised control trial were utilised. Men who had been treated for prostate cancer within the past year and their partners (N = 132 couples) completed self-report measures of physical activity, fruit/vegetable consumption, relationship satisfaction and support for partner's healthy diet and physical activity. Couples reported similar fruit/vegetable consumption and physical activity as indicated by high levels of correspondence. Greater fruit/vegetable correspondence was related to higher relationship satisfaction (F = 4.14, P = 0.018) and greater patient (F = 13.29, P < 0.001) and spouse-rated support (F = 7.2, P < 0.001). Greater physical activity correspondence was related to greater patient (F = 3.57, P = 0.028) and spouse-rated support (F = 4.59, P = 0.031). Prostate cancer survivors and spouses may influence each other's diet and exercise behaviours. Couple-based interventions may promote healthy behaviours among this population.

Attitudinal barriers to participation in oncology clinical trials: factor analysis and correlates of barriers.

Patient participation in cancer clinical trials is low. Little is known about attitudinal barriers to participation, particularly among patients who may be offered a trial during an imminent initial oncology consult. The aims of the present study were to confirm the presence of proposed subscales of a recently developed cancer clinical trial attitudinal barriers measure, describe the most common cancer clinical trials attitudinal barriers, and evaluate socio-demographic, medical and financial factors associated with attitudinal barriers. A total of 1256 patients completed a survey assessing demographic factors, perceived financial burden, prior trial participation and attitudinal barriers to clinical trials participation. Results of a factor analysis did not confirm the presence of the proposed four attitudinal barriers subscale/factors. Rather, a single factor represented the best fit to the data. The most highly-rated barriers were fear of side-effects, worry about health insurance and efficacy concerns. Results suggested that less educated patients, patients with non-metastatic disease, patients with no previous oncology clinical trial participation, and patients reporting greater perceived financial burden from cancer care were associated with higher barriers. These patients may need extra attention in terms of decisional support. Overall, patients with fewer personal resources (education, financial issues) report more attitudinal barriers and should be targeted for additional decisional support.

New Measurement of the π0 radiative decay width.

High precision measurements of the differential cross sections for π0 photoproduction at forward angles for two nuclei, 12C and 208Pb, have been performed for incident photon energies of 4.9-5.5 GeV to extract the π0→γγ decay width. The experiment was done at Jefferson Lab using the Hall B photon tagger and a high-resolution multichannel calorimeter. The π0→γγ decay width was extracted by fitting the measured cross sections using recently updated theoretical models for the process. The resulting value for the decay width is Γ(π0→γγ)=7.82±0.14(stat)±0.17(syst) eV. With the 2.8% total uncertainty, this result is a factor of 2.5 more precise than the current Particle Data Group average of this fundamental quantity, and it is consistent with current theoretical predictions.

Everyday lies in close and casual relationships.

In 2 diary studies, 77 undergraduates and 70 community members recorded their social interactions and lies for a week. Because lying violates the openness and authenticity that people value in their close relationships, we predicted (and found) that participants would tell fewer lies per social interaction to the people to whom they felt closer and would feel more uncomfortable when they did lie to those people. Because altruistic lies can communicate caring, we also predicted (and found) that relatively more of the lies told to best friends and friends would be altruistic than self-serving, whereas the reverse would be true of lies told to acquaintances and strangers. Also consistent with predictions, lies told to closer partners were more often discovered.

Who lies?

Seventy-seven undergraduates and 70 demographically diverse members of the community completed 12 individual differences measures hypothesized to predict lie-telling in everyday life and then kept a diary every day for a week of all of their social interactions and all of the lies that they told during those interactions. Consistent with predictions, the people who told more lies were more manipulative, more concerned with self-presentation, and more sociable. People who told fewer lies were more highly socialized and reported higher quality same-sex relationships. Manipulative people, less highly socialized people, and people with less gratifying same-sex relationships also told especially more self-serving lies, whereas people with higher quality same-sex relationships told relatively more other oriented lies.

Lying in everyday life.

In 2 diary studies of lying, 77 college students reported telling 2 lies a day, and 70 community members told 1. Participants told more self-centered lies than other-oriented lies, except in dyads involving only women, in which other-oriented lies were as common as self-centered ones. Participants told relatively more self-centered lies to men and relatively more other-oriented lies to women. Consistent with the view of lying as an everyday social interaction process, participants said that they did not regard their lies as serious and did not plan them much or worry about being caught. Still, social interactions in which lies were told were less pleasant and less intimate than those in which no lies were told.

Enhanced co-orientation in the perception of friends: a social relations analysis.

Newcomb's (1953) idea of co-orientation (interdependence between two persons' attitudes or perceptions) is used as a framework within which interpersonal perception between friends and acquaintances is examined. The principal question is whether co-orientation effects are stronger for friendship dyads than for acquaintance dyads. More specifically, the study examines the degree to which consensus, assimilation, self-other agreement, and assumed similarity differ. The social relations model is used to analyze a data set that included 16 living groups with 119 friend dyads and 1.668 acquaintance dyads. Results indicate that co-orientation effects are more pronounced in friendship dyads. The increment in co-orientation effects is largely due to similarities in the unique or idiosyncratic perceptions that people have of friendship pairs as well as the unique agreement about others that friends have with one another.

Consensus in interpersonal perception: acquaintance and the big five.

Consensus refers to the extent to which judges agree in their ratings of a common target. Consensus has been an important area of research in social and personality psychology. In this article, generalizability theory is used to develop a percentage of total variance measure of consensus. This measure is used to review the level of consensus across 32 studies by considering the role of acquaintance level and trait dimension. The review indicates that consensus correlations ranged from zero to about .3, with higher levels of consensus for ratings of Extraversion. The studies do not provide evidence that consensus increases with increasing acquaintance, a counterintuitive result that can be accounted for by a theoretical model (D.A. Kenny, 1991, in press). Problems in the interpretation of longitudinal research are reviewed.

Consensus at zero acquaintance: replication, behavioral cues, and stability.

That observers tend to agree in their ratings of a target even if they have never interacted with that target has been called consensus at zero acquaintance. The basic finding that consensus is highest for judgments concerning a target's degree of extraversion (EV) and somewhat weaker for judgments of conscientiousness is replicated. Several potential observable cues that might be used by judges when rating targets are examined. The finding that ratings of physical attractiveness correlate with judgments of EV is replicated. In Study 1, rapid body movements and smiling were also found to correlate with EV judgments. The level of consensus declined when initially unacquainted Ss interacted one-on-one (Study 2), but did not decline--and even increased--when Ss interacted in a group (Study 3). Ss judged as extraverted at zero acquaintance were also seen as extraverted after interacting with others.