Emotional awareness is correlated with ambulatory heart rate variability: A replication and extension.

OBJECTIVE: A positive association has previously been observed in healthy volunteers between emotional awareness (EA), the ability to identify and describe emotional experiences in oneself and others, and resting heart rate variability (HRV), which is dominated by vagus nerve activity. The current study aimed to investigate the EA-HRV association across multiple assessments in a "real-world" ambulatory context in patients with long QT syndrome (LQTS) who are at genetic risk for sudden cardiac death. METHOD: Participants (157 LQTS patients; MeanAge = 35.1, SDAge = 10.4; 115 women) completed the levels of emotional awareness scale (LEAS) on one occasion, which served as our measure of EA. In an ecological momentary assessment study involving 10 assessments per day over three days, multiple 5-minute ECG assessments (Mean = 24.6, SD = 5.1) were obtained in each patient using a Holter monitor, from which high-frequency HRV (HF-HRV) was computed on each occasion. RESULTS: There was a significant positive association between LEAS scores and HF-HRV controlling for biobehavioral covariates. We also detected a similar inverse relation between EA and mean heart rate. CONCLUSION: These findings suggest that, in patients with a well-defined genetic risk for ventricular arrhythmia and sudden death, the ability to experience emotions in a complex and differentiated way covaries with greater parasympathetic influences on the heart. These findings are consistent with the overlapping neural substrates of EA and HRV and their common contribution to adaptive emotional responding, consistent with the Neurovisceral Integration Model.

Support and Conflict Among Youth With Type 1 Diabetes: A Focus on Friends.

OBJECTIVE: The goal of the study was to examine the relations of general and diabetes-specific friend support and conflict to psychological and diabetes health among youth with type 1 diabetes. We examined gender as a moderator of these relations, and friend responsiveness and information-sharing as potential mediators. METHODS: Youth with type 1 diabetes (n = 167; M age 15.83 [SD = 0.78]; 50% female) were interviewed once in the Fall and once in the following Spring of the school year. Using multiple regression analysis, general friend support, general friend conflict, diabetes-specific support, and diabetes-specific conflict were investigated as simultaneous predictors of psychological and diabetes outcomes cross-sectionally and longitudinally over four months. RESULTS: Cross-sectionally friend conflict, including both general and diabetes-specific, was more predictive of outcomes than friend support. In cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses, gender was a significant moderator, such that several relations of general friend conflict to outcomes were significant for females but not nonfemales. Friend support revealed mixed relations to outcomes across cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses. Although we found links of friend relationship variables to mediators (perceived responsiveness; information sharing), we found little evidence of mediation. CONCLUSIONS: These findings show stronger evidence that conflictual friend relationships than supportive friend relationships are linked to health. Findings suggest that problematic friend relationships may have a stronger impact on the health of females than nonfemales. These results underscore the need to better understand the conditions under which friend support is helpful versus harmful and the reasons underlying these links.

How to get through hard times: Principals' listening buffers teachers' stress on turnover intention and promotes organizational citizenship behavior.

When principals listen to their teachers, they may foster an open and receptive work environment that helps teachers adapt during stressful times. Two studies examined the role of perceived principals' listening to teachers on workplace outcomes. Study 1 (N = 218) was conducted during the first nationwide lockdown in Israel. Study 2 (N = 247) was conducted during a later lockdown and controlled for social support to test the independent effects of the two distinct interpersonal experiences. Findings supported our hypothesis that principals' listening would relate to lower teacher turnover intention. In addition, in line with our hypothesis, teachers high on perceived stress generally reported higher turnover intentions. However, the detrimental effect of perceived stress was not observed when teachers evaluated their principals as good listeners. Finally, we anticipated and found that principal listening is associated with organizational citizenship behavior. Specifically, teachers were more likely to help one another when feeling listened to by their principals.

Getting Fewer "Likes" Than Others on Social Media Elicits Emotional Distress Among Victimized Adolescents.

Three studies examined the effects of receiving fewer signs of positive feedback than others on social media. In Study 1, adolescents (N = 613, Mage  = 14.3 years) who were randomly assigned to receive few (vs. many) likes during a standardized social media interaction felt more strongly rejected, and reported more negative affect and more negative thoughts about themselves. In Study 2 (N = 145), negative responses to receiving fewer likes were associated with greater depressive symptoms reported day-to-day and at the end of the school year. Study 3 (N = 579) replicated Study 1's main effect of receiving fewer likes and showed that adolescents who already experienced peer victimization at school were the most vulnerable. The findings raise the possibility that technology which makes it easier for adolescents to compare their social status online-even when there is no chance to share explicitly negative comments-could be a risk factor that accelerates the onset of internalizing symptoms among vulnerable youth.

Our Fragile Relationships: Relationship Threat and Its Effect on the Allure of Alternative Mates.

Long-term romantic commitments may offer many benefits. It is thus unsurprising that people employ strategies that help protect their relationships against the allure of alternative partners. The present research focused on the circumstances under which these strategies are less effective. Specifically, four studies examined the effect of internal relationship threat on expressions of desire for alternative mates. In Study 1, participants reported perceptions of relationship threat, their desire for their partner, and expressions of attraction to alternative mates. In Studies 2-4, participants underwent a threat manipulation and then encountered attractive strangers. Their reactions during these encounters (expressed interest, provision of help, and overt flirtation in Studies 2, 3, and 4, respectively) were recorded. Results showed that experiencing threat led to increased expressions of desire for alternatives. As indicated in Studies 1 and 2, decreased desire for current partners partially explained this effect, suggesting that desire functions as a gauge of romantic compatibility, ensuring that only valued relationships are maintained.

How can I help?: Specific strategies used in interpersonal emotion regulation in a relationship context.

Most emotion regulation research investigates how individuals manage their own emotions but in everyday life, emotion regulation often takes place in an interpersonal context-that is, through the intervention of others, especially close relationship partners. In this manuscript, we describe a 2-week daily diary study of 197 couples, in which we examined the nature and effectiveness of partners' attempts at interpersonal emotion regulation. Organized around the extended process model of emotion regulation (Gross, 2015), we examined the frequency and perceived effectiveness of six strategies for regulating negative emotions and two strategies for regulating positive emotions, as well as the impact of emotional regulation effectiveness on relationship satisfaction. Results indicated that situation modification was the most common approach to regulating negative emotions, whereas savoring was most common for positive emotions. Most strategies were perceived to be effective by both regulators and their targets, with the exception of suppression for negative emotion, for which evidence was mixed, and dampening for positive emotion, which was not viewed as effective. The influence of emotion regulation on relationship satisfaction depended on one's perspective: Regulators felt that their effective efforts benefitted their relationships, but even when targets experienced emotion regulation as effective, they indicated no improvements in relationship satisfaction, perhaps because the emotion-eliciting events were still salient to them. Broadly speaking, this research highlights the value of examining emotion regulation in an interpersonal context, and in the context of partners' ordinary, everyday social interaction. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Supporting the willingness to express emotions in relationships: The role of perceived empathic effort and interpersonal accuracy.

Expressing emotions with others can be difficult as it puts individuals in a position of potential vulnerability. Research suggests that people are willing to express their emotions with communal partners; however, few studies have examined processes that might explain how this occurs. Using a cross-sectional design, we examined interpersonal accuracy and empathic effort as factors that support the likelihood of expression in communal relationships. Participants (N = 219) reported the communal motivation, accuracy, and effort they perceived from five targets varying in closeness (e.g., best friend, acquaintance, etc.); they rated their likelihood of expressing happiness, pride, gratitude, sadness, anxiety, guilt, and anger with each target. Perceived accuracy and effort were both significant mediators of the association between perceived communal motivation and reported likelihood of expressing all emotions. Perceived accuracy was a stronger predictor of the likelihood of expression than effort. These findings indicate that perceiving greater accuracy and effort each independently supports a greater likelihood of expression. A willingness to express emotions is critical to developing close relationships and the current work identifies processes that may encourage this willingness. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

When Your Partner is Being Flirted With: The Impact of Unsolicited Attention on Perceived Partner Desirability and Mate Retention Efforts.

When searching for a partner, people often rely on social cues to determine partners' suitability, finding those who attract attention from others particularly appealing. While people continue to evaluate their partners beyond relationship initiation, existing research has predominantly concentrated on the effects of observing others' choices during the stage of partner selection, neglecting to consider whether viewing others' attention toward current partners yields similar effects or instead elicits defensive devaluation. In three experiments, we exposed Israeli participants to situations where their partners received unsolicited flirtatious advances, utilizing visualization, virtual reality, and recall techniques. Participants then rated their desire for their partner and mate retention efforts. Results indicated that attention to partners led to decreased desire for them, subsequently predicting reduced relationship investment. These findings suggest that witnessing current partners receiving attention holds a different meaning than observing potential partners in a similar situation, making salient the risk of losing the partner.

Peer interactions and health among youth with diabetes: An ecological momentary assessment.

OBJECTIVE: We examined the links of supportive and conflictual peer interactions to mood and self-care via ecological momentary assessment. METHOD: Adolescents with Type 1 diabetes (n = 167, 49% female) recruited between 2018 and 2021 were prompted 8 times a day for 8 days to complete brief surveys that measured perceived social interactions, affect, and self-care. RESULTS: Cross-sectional analyses revealed between- and within-person (WP) links of peer support to positive mood and conflict to negative mood. Between-person peer support was linked to healthy self-care, but WP support was not. Lagged analyses showed conflictual interactions were associated with self-care decline. There was some evidence that females did not benefit as much from support and were more bothered by conflict than others. CONCLUSIONS: Results underscore differences in between- and WP links of social interactions to health. Individual differences in support were more influential than conflict, but conflictual interactions had more momentary effects than supportive interactions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Examining Dyadic Stress Appraisal Processes Within Romantic Relationships from a Challenge and Threat Perspective.

The biopsychosocial model of challenge and threat emphasizes how individuals appraise stress. Close relationship theories emphasize the interpersonal context, communication, and outcomes that arise from stress. We integrate these approaches by examining the individual variability surrounding appraisals of sufficient (more challenge, less threat) or insufficient (more threat, less challenge) resources to cope with demands and examining how these appraisals are associated with couples' behavior and feelings toward each other. Across three studies, 459 romantic couples (N = 918), and various potentially stressful in-lab conversations (extra-dyadic problem, dislikes about each other, dependability, and relationship conflict), we found evidence that stress appraisals indicative of more challenge and less threat were associated with more approach- and less avoidance-oriented behaviors within interactions. These approach- and avoidance-oriented behaviors were associated with greater feelings of relationship security and well-being after the conversation. However, whose (actors or partners) appraisals and behaviors were associated with security and well-being varied across the three studies. This work provides theoretical and empirical evidence for an interpersonal emphasis on intraindividual stress appraisal processes through a dyadic and close relationships lens. Our integrative theoretical framework breaks away from the idea that stress is inherently "bad" or "maladaptive" to show that appraising stress as more manageable (more challenge, less threat) is associated with more relationship behaviors that approach incentives and less that avoid threats and enhance feelings of relationship security and well-being. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s42761-024-00235-3.

Perceived responsiveness in suicidal ideation: An experience sampling study in psychiatric patients.

INTRODUCTION: Perceived responsiveness, or the extent to which one feels understood, validated and cared for by close others, plays a crucial role in people's well-being. Can this interpersonal process also protect people at risk? We assessed whether fluctuations in suicidal ideation were associated with fluctuations in the degree of perceived responsiveness that psychiatric patients (admitted in the context of suicide or indicating suicidal ideation) experienced in daily interactions immediately after discharge. METHODS: Fifty-seven patients reported on suicidal ideation (5 times a day) and perceived responsiveness (daily) for four consecutive weeks. The effects of established risk factors-thwarted belongingness, perceived burdensomeness, and hopelessness-were assessed as well. RESULTS: The more patients felt that close others had been responsive to them, the less suicidal ideation they reported. At low levels of thwarted belongingness, perceived burdensomeness, or hopelessness, perceived responsiveness seemed to play a protective role, negatively co-occurring with suicidal ideation. When thwarted belongingness, perceived burdensomeness, and hopelessness were high, perceived responsiveness did not have an effect. CONCLUSION: Perceived responsiveness could be a protective factor for suicidal ideation for people at risk only when they are experiencing low levels of negative perceptions. When experiencing highly negative perceptions, however, perceived responsiveness seems to matter less.

Listening and perceived responsiveness: Unveiling the significance and exploring crucial research endeavors.

Listening and perceived responsiveness evoke a sense of interpersonal connection that benefits individuals and groups and is relevant to almost every field in Psychology, Management, Education, Communication, and Health, to name a few. In this paper, we, researchers who have devoted their careers to studying listening (first author) and perceived responsiveness (second author), address the necessity of integrating the two constructs. Moreover, we offer several questions for future research that we believe are crucial to produce a more profound and comprehensive understanding of this important process. These research questions include empirical issues, cross-cultural and inter-racial interactions, age differences, the emergence of new technologies, and opportunities to bridge political, ethnic, and social divides. By highlighting the undeniable impact of listening and perceived responsiveness on interpersonal connection across diverse domains, we emphasize the need to integrate these constructs in future research. Our proposed set of eight pivotal research questions is intended as a starting point for gaining a deeper and more holistic understanding of this critical study area while building a strong empirical foundation for interventions. By addressing these questions, we can foster meaningful advances that have the potential to bridge gaps, improve relationships, and enhance the well-being of individuals and communities alike.

Half Empty and Half Full? Biased Perceptions of Compassionate Love and Effects of Dyadic Complementarity.

The prevailing theory on relationship judgments for interaction attributes suggests individuals tend to underestimate a romantic partner's expressions of compassionate love and that such underestimation is beneficial for the relationship. Yet, limited research has incorporated dyadic perspectives to assess how biased perceptions are associated with both partners' outcomes. In two daily studies of couples, we used distinct analytical approaches (Truth and Bias Model; Dyadic Response Surface Analysis) to inform perspectives on how biased perceptions are interrelated and predict relationship satisfaction. Consistent with prior research, people demonstrated an underestimation bias. However, there were differential effects of biased perceptions for actors versus partners: Underestimation predicted lower actor satisfaction but generally higher satisfaction for partners. Furthermore, we find evidence for complementarity effects: partners' directional biases were inversely related, and couples were more satisfied when partners had opposing patterns of directional bias. Findings help integrate theoretical perspectives on the adaptive role of biased relationship perceptions.

How aging couples' emotional and physiological associations change across positive, supportive, and conflictual discussions: Roles of capitalization and responsive behaviors.

BACKGROUND: Couples' emotions and physiology change across interactions and based on behaviors. Aging couples' emotions and physiology may be closely related as they spend more time together and rely on each other for support. We examined aging couples' emotional and physiological associations across multiple indices and marital interactions; we also assessed how couples' capitalization and responsive behaviors during the first discussion were protective in subsequent emotional conversations. METHODS: Married couples (n = 107 couples, 214 individuals) engaged in positive event, social support, and conflict discussions. Emotional and physiological assessments across discussions included: positive and negative emotion, electrodermal activity, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, heart rate, and heart rate variability. We coded partners' capitalization and responsive behaviors during the first discussion. RESULTS: There were ties in spouses' positive emotion, negative emotion, electrodermal activity, systolic blood pressure, heart rate, and heart rate variability during positive, supportive, and conflictual discussions. Emotional and physiological associations reflecting shared stress (negative emotion, electrodermal activity, systolic blood pressure) were stronger in couples who were less capitalizing or responsive earlier that day; associations reflecting physiological adaptation (heart rate variability) were stronger for more capitalizing and responsive couples. CONCLUSION: Aging couples' emotions and physiology tracked together during discussions central to maintaining relationships, and their past behaviors carried over into future interactions and across contexts. Enthusiastic, caring, and understanding behaviors may protect partners from shared emotional and physiological stress; lacking such behaviors may increase emotional and physiological vulnerability. This research identifies behavioral, emotional, and physiological pathways connecting relationships to health in adulthood.

Feeling loved as a strong link in relationship interactions: Partners who feel loved may buffer destructive behavior by actors who feel unloved.

Feeling loved (loved, cared for, accepted, valued, understood) is inherently dyadic, yet most prior theoretical perspectives and investigations have focused on how actors feeling (un)loved shapes actors' outcomes. Adopting a dyadic perspective, the present research tested whether the established links between actors feeling unloved and destructive (critical, hostile) behavior depended on partners' feelings of being loved. Does feeling loved need to be mutual to reduce destructive behavior, or can partners feeling loved compensate for actors feeling unloved? In five dyadic observational studies, couples were recorded discussing conflicts, diverging preferences or relationship strengths, or interacting with their child (total N = 842 couples; 1,965 interactions). Participants reported how much they felt loved during each interaction and independent coders rated how much each person exhibited destructive behavior. Significant Actors' × Partners' Felt-Loved interactions revealed a strong-link/mutual felt-unloved pattern: partners' high felt-loved buffered the damaging effect of actors' low felt-loved on destructive behavior, resulting in actors' destructive behavior mostly occurring when both actors' and partners' felt-loved was low. This dyadic pattern also emerged in three supplemental daily sampling studies. Providing directional support for the strong-link/mutual felt-unloved pattern, in Studies 4 and 5 involving two or more sequential interactions, Actors' × Partners' Felt-Loved in one interaction predicted actors' destructive behavior within couples' subsequent conflict interactions. The results illustrate the dyadic nature of feeling loved: Partners feeling loved can protect against actors feeling unloved in challenging interactions. Assessing Actor × Partner effects should be equally valuable for advancing understanding of other fundamentally dyadic relationship processes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Preventing Mental Health Problems in Children After High Conflict Parental Separation/Divorce Study: An Optimization Randomized Controlled Trial Protocol.

Parental divorce is a childhood stressor that affects approximately 1.1 million children in the U.S. annually. The children at greatest risk for deleterious mental health consequences are those exposed to high interparental conflict (IPC) following the separation/divorce. Research shows that children's emotional security and coping efficacy mediate the impact of IPC on their mental health. Interventions targeting their adaptive coping in response to IPC events may bolster their emotional security and coping efficacy. However, existing coping interventions have not been tested with children exposed to high post-separation/divorce IPC, nor has any study assessed the effects of individual intervention components on children's coping with IPC and their mental health. This intensive longitudinal intervention study examines the mechanisms through which coping intervention components impact children's responses to interactions in interparental relationships. A 23 factorial experiment will assess whether, and to what extent, three candidate intervention components demonstrate main and interactive effects on children's coping and mental health. Children aged 9-12 (target N = 144) will be randomly assigned to one of eight combinations of three components with two levels each: (1) reappraisal (present vs. absent), (2) distraction (present vs. absent), (3) relaxation (present vs. absent). The primary outcomes are child-report emotional security and coping efficacy at one-month post-intervention. Secondary outcomes include internalizing and externalizing problems at the three-month follow-up. Based on data from this optimization phase RCT, intervention components will be selected to comprise a multi-component intervention and assessed for effectiveness in a subsequent evaluation phase RCT.

Interpersonal Chemistry: What Is It, How Does It Emerge, and How Does It Operate?

Although chemistry is a well-known, sought-after interpersonal phenomenon, it has remained relatively unexplored in the psychological literature. The purpose of this article is to begin articulating a theoretically grounded and precise definition of interpersonal chemistry. To that end, we propose a conceptual model of interpersonal chemistry centered around the notion that when two or more individuals experience chemistry with one another, they experience their interaction as something more than the sum of their separate contributions. Our model stipulates that chemistry encompasses both behavior (i.e., what chemistry "looks like") and its perception (i.e., what it "feels like"). The behavior involves interaction sequences in which synchronicity is high and in which people's goals are expressed and responded to in supportive and encouraging ways. The perception of chemistry includes cognitive (i.e., perception of shared identity), affective (i.e., positive affect and attraction), and behavioral (i.e., perceived goal-relevant coordination) components. We review existing research on chemistry as well as supporting evidence from relevant topics (e.g., attraction, similarity, perceived partner responsiveness, synchrony) that inform and support this model. We hope that this conceptual model stimulates research to identify the circumstances in which chemistry arises and the processes by which it affects individuals, their interactions, and their relationships.

Put Me in Your Shoes: Does Perspective-Taking Inoculate Against the Appeal of Alternative Partners?

People commit to monogamous relationships with the intent of maintaining sexual exclusivity but often fail to do so. Existing research has focused on individual and relationship characteristics that render relationships more vulnerable to infidelity, paying less attention to strategies that decrease the likelihood of straying. Three experiments investigated the impact of one strategy that might encourage people to enact relationship-protective responses toward alternative partners, perspective-taking. In all studies, participants either adopted the perspective of their partner or not and then evaluated, encountered, or thought about attractive strangers, in Studies 1-3, respectively. Participants' pro-relationship orientation and reactions during these experiences (interest in alternative and current partners, commitment to current relationships, and fantasmatic themes) were recorded. Results showed that perspective-taking decreased sexual and romantic interest in alternatives, while increasing commitment and desire for current partners. These findings suggest that partner perspective-taking discourages engagement in behaviors that may hurt partners and damage the relationship with them.

Reappraising stress arousal improves affective, neuroendocrine, and academic performance outcomes in community college classrooms.

The field experiment presented here applied a stress regulation technique to optimize affective and neuroendocrine responses and improve academic and psychological outcomes in an evaluative academic context. Community college students (N = 339) were randomly assigned to stress reappraisal or active control conditions immediately before taking their second in-class exam. Whereas stress is typically perceived as having negative effects, stress reappraisal informs individuals about the functional benefits of stress and is hypothesized to reduce threat appraisals, and subsequently, improve downstream outcomes. Multilevel models indicated that compared with controls, reappraising stress led to less math evaluation anxiety, lower threat appraisals, more adaptive neuroendocrine responses (lower cortisol and higher testosterone levels on testing days relative to baseline), and higher scores on Exam 2 and on a subsequent Exam 3. Reappraisal students also persisted in their courses at a higher rate than controls. Targeted mediation models suggested stress appraisals partially mediated effects of reappraisal. Notably, procrastination and performance approach goals (measured between exams) partially mediated lagged effects of reappraisal on subsequent performance. Implications for the stress, emotion regulation, and mindsets literatures are discussed. Moreover, alleviating negative effects of acute stress in community college students, a substantial but understudied population, has potentially important applied implications. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Differentiation in the momentary rating of somatic symptoms covaries with trait emotional awareness in patients at risk for sudden cardiac death.

OBJECTIVES: Somatic symptom ratings covary with neuroticism. Yet, people vary from one another in their ability to report their own emotions and differentiate them from bodily sensations. We hypothesized that stressed individuals with greater emotional awareness would experience somatic symptoms in a more differentiated way independent of neuroticism. METHODS: Over 3 days, ecological momentary assessments were completed in 161 patients (72.6% female; mean age, 35 years) with Long QT Syndrome, a genetic disorder associated with increased risk for sudden cardiac death. Patients were paged randomly ten times per day to report their momentary experience of nine somatic symptoms (e.g., headache, sore throat, tiredness) as well as other variables. We examined the intercorrelation between somatic symptom ratings, reasoning that greater intercorrelation among ratings indicated less differentiation. Subjects completed measures of neuroticism, depression, and the Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale, a trait measure of the tendency to experience emotions in a complex and differentiated way. RESULTS: Higher Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale-Self scores were associated with greater differentiation in the momentary rating of somatic symptoms (p < .001) in men and women independently. This association did not change after removing variance due to neuroticism, depression, or symptom intensity. CONCLUSIONS: Among individuals stressed by having a life-threatening condition, those who are more emotionally aware report somatic symptoms in a more differentiated way. These findings regarding symptoms largely unrelated to the disorder are consistent with other evidence that medically unexplained physical symptoms, which tend to be nonspecific, may be accompanied by relatively undifferentiated negative affect.