The present study examined Coyne's interpersonal theory of depression by measuring the interpersonal behaviors of depressed, nondepressed psychologically disturbed and normal college roommates (targets) from the beginning of the relationship until the end of one academic year (approximately nine months). Roommates of targets were normals. Diagnosis was confirmed by Research Diagnostic Criteria following interviews with the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia. Roommates completed three laboratory sessions and weekly event inventories which were mailed to the laboratory. Measures included self-report descriptions (Interpersonal Checklist) and perceptions of interpersonal behaviors (Impact Message Inventory and Interpersonal Checklist describing roommate's behavior), weekly logs of events with the roommate and affective responses to these events (Interpersonal Events Schedule and Unpleasant Events Schedule), and content analyses of verbal behavior based on a 30 minute interaction during the laboratory sessions. Results indicated depressives (and nondepressed psychologically disturbed controls) behaved in a relatively distrusting and self-effacing manner throughout the academic year. At the beginning of the relationship depressives (and nondepressed psychologically disturbed controls) behaved in a relatively distrustful manner. Results also indicated roommates described depressives (and nondepressed psychologically disturbed controls) as behaving in a distrustful manner throughout the study. A pattern of decreases in satisfaction with the relationship followed by increases in satisfaction was revealed for the depressed and normal targets and a pattern of decreases in satisfaction followed by increases was revealed for the nondepressed psychologically disturbed target subjects. In addition, the nondepressed psychologically disturbed targets made / significantly fewer positive self-statements than did the depressed and normal targets. The nondepressed psychologically disturbed targets also perceived their roommates as behaving in a more responsible manner relative to the normal and depressed targets. The results are discussed in relation to Coyne's conceptualization. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 52-08, Section: B, page: 4468. / Major Professor: Jack E. Hokanson. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1991.

Empirical evidence for the widely accepted assumption that social support is an antecedent to well-being has been correlational and quasi-experimental. Recent evidence has challenged this assumption by demonstrating that stressful life events affect one's perceptions of social support. / The current study was designed to address two questions. The first question involved the directionality of the relationship between social support and induced depressed mood, one indicator of psychological health, utilizing an experimental design. The second question was designed to explore how induced state depression interacts with trait depression to affect perceptions of social support. / A random block assignment, using subjects' trait depression scores, was used to assign undergraduate psychology students to groups. Subjects completed pre-treatment questionnaires assessing their state depression, trait depression, and perceptions of social support availability. Two weeks later, subjects were exposed to either Velten's depressed mood induction procedure or Velten's neutral mood induction procedure. / Subjects who experienced the depressed mood induction manifested a significant decrease in perceptions of social support availability. This finding supports the hypothesis that mood affects perceptions of social support, but does not preclude a bi-directional relationship between social support and well-being. Contrary to prediction, control subjects demonstrated a significant increase in perceptions of social support and a significant decrease in state depression. The unexpected changes in mood and support perceptions suggest that the neutral mood induction could have had a positive effect, and/or that subjects may have become comfortable with the experimental situation over time. Although depressed mood did not interact with levels of trait depression, the change in support perceptions was related to levels of trait depression. Experimental group subjects who scored high on trait depression manifested a greater decrease in perceptions of social support than subjects who scored low on trait depression. / The finding that increments in depressed mood were not directly related to levels of trait depression and to the corresponding changes in support perceptions, reflects the complexity of the relationship between social support, stress and well-being. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-05, Section: B, page: 2857. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1995.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 30-03, Section: B, page: 1226. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1968.

Evidence suggests mindfulness enhances empathy. This study aimed to identify relationships between mindfulness facets and empathic processes and to explore possible mediators of these relationships. Participants completed mindfulness and empathy questionnaires and a performance measure of empathic accuracy. Mindful observing and describing were positively related to empathic concern. Most facets of mindfulness were positively related to perspective taking and inversely related to personal distress, with the latter relationship partially mediated by brooding and fear of emotion. Nonreactivity related to empathic accuracy in the opposite direction as hypothesized. This study suggests most mindfulness facets are related positively with perspective-taking while nonreactivity relates inversely to empathic accuracy. Though findings are limited by the cross-sectional design, mindful observing may be important for the enhancement of empathic concern while all mindfulness facets aside from observing may serve to reduce distress perhaps in part by reducing brooding and fear of emotion.

Afhandling--Københavns universitet. / "Bekendtgørelse": leaf inserted. Bibliography: p. 197-200.

The present study assessed the relationship between one's attachment style and one's chronic (trait-based) and acute (state-based) emotional responses to others, focusing on one's level of empathic concern. The individual attachment styles of subjects were assessed using the Brennan, Clark and Shaver (1998) Experiences in Close Relationships Scale. In the first part of the project, participants' emotional responses were assessed when confronted with another individual in need in an experiment based on the Batson et al. (1988) "Katie Banks" paradigm. "Katie Banks" is a fictitious student who needs help raising money to assist in taking care of her orphaned siblings. This experimental paradigm was used to measure participants' affective responses to learning of her plight. The second part of the project involved an assessment of the trait of empathy as related to individuals' attachment styles. The participants completed the Davis (1996) Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) to assess four sub-measures of empathy. Potential links between these measures and attachment style were explored. The primary hypotheses were that individuals with attachment styles characterized by a tendency to focus on others would be more able to express other-focused emotional responses to another in need (and in general) than those individuals who tend to focus on themselves and generally avoid relationships. In addition, those individuals who typify attachment styles that tend to become anxious within relationships were predicted to express more distressing emotional responses than those who represent attachment styles with less anxiety within relationships. Whereas some of the results from the trait assessment of empathy supported these hypotheses, results of the state-based affective responses did not. With regard to trait-based measures, securely attached individuals tended to take the perspective of others more than less securely attached individuals, and secure individuals expressed significantly less distress. In addition, preoccupied individuals (and high anxiety individuals in general) exhibited significantly more distress. Finally, those with low avoidance attachment styles responded significantly higher on the fantasy scale. With regard to the state-based measures, contrary to predictions, there were no differences among the attachment styles in the type of affective responses to the laboratory need situation.

Sexual identity is examined in terms of three distinct parts: sexual style, self-concept in relational and sexual domains, and concepts of relationships and partners. Sexual style, the first component of sexual identity in this study, is defined operationally to include numerous features of sexual behavior and attitudes about behavior. Self-concept in relational and sexual domains is the second component of sexual identity and includes beliefs about the self in relationships, desire for relationships, personal marriage expectations and gender role beliefs. Concepts of relationships and partners, the third component of sexual identity, includes features of dating relationships in general, beliefs about dating, experience of communication and violence in relationships, and for people in relationships, specific characteristics of the relationship. The data for this project were taken from Wave 7 (age 20-21) of the Michigan Study of Adolescent Life Transitions (MSALT). Part one of the study utilized hierarchical cluster analysis with split halves of females and males to group individuals into different sexual style clusters. Clusters were based on the measured variables: Usual frequency of intercourse, importance of regularly having sex, satisfaction with sex life, experience of coercion for sex, and sexual risk reduction. For females, the following five-cluster solution best represented the sample: Satisfied, Moderate, Active Unprotected, Pressured and Comfortably Inactive. For males, the following six-cluster solution best represented the sample: Satisfied, Dissatisfied, Moderate, Active Unprotected, Pressured and Comfortably Inactive. The model to predict sexual style was based on a model of sexual identity, and used multivariate logistic regression to estimate the probability of cluster membership given a certain level of each predictor variable, holding constant the other predictor variables. Using the model of sexual identity, it was possible to correctly classify between 35--47% of the females and males into the correct sexual style.

Conflict discussions are important events in serious dating relationships. How disagreements are managed can impact the level of satisfaction with the interaction and may eventually or concomitantly affect the overall relationship as satisfying or dissatisfying interactions accumulate. This study investigated the role of conflict in relationships by examining relational responsiveness (i.e., the signed difference between partner's expectations and perceptions of actual behaviors during conflict) and the role of empathy (i.e., perspective taking, empathic concern, and emotional contagion) as a moderator of the association between expectations and perceptions of actual behavior. Couples discussed a recurring conflict with each other and completed questionnaires two weeks prior and immediately following their conflict interaction. Results from this investigation revealed that dating partners consistently expected their partners to demonstrate high levels of intimacy and equality/composure. Moderately low levels of formality and dominance were also expected, but these expectancies showed more variability. The findings also indicated that overall relational responsiveness was positively related to communication satisfaction. Limited support, however, was found for the role of empathy in determining the degree of relational responsiveness that may be perceived by dating partners during conflict. The overall level of responsiveness exhibited by people who were instructed to consider their partner's perspective was not significantly different from people who were told to consider their own viewpoint. Only one subcomponent of responsiveness (i.e., equality/composure) differentiated the levels of perspective taking. Additionally, empathic concern was not a significant predictor of overall relational responsiveness or any of its subcomponents. Emotional contagion, however, did significantly predict overall relational responsiveness and the subcomponent of dominance. As emotional contagion increased, overall relational responsiveness and responsiveness with respect to dominance decreased. A higher order negative relationship between emotional contagion and responsiveness with regard to intimacy was also found. These results suggest that the management of conflict in dating relationships appears to entail being responsive to partners' relational expectations and being relatively unresponsive to partners' emotions.

This study examined relationships among couple demand-withdraw interaction (DWI), alcoholics' and partners' beliefs in the disease model of alcoholism, and alcoholics' readiness to change problem drinking. A secondary purpose was to further investigate the construct validity of the University of Rhode Island Change Assessment Scale (URICA; McConnaughy, Prochaska, & Velicer, 1983), a frequently used measure of readiness to change. A sample of 63 male alcoholics and their female partners received up to 20 sessions of cognitive-behavioral or family-systems therapy for alcoholism as part of a larger treatment project. The three main construct variables were assessed at baseline (T1) and after the first 12 sessions of therapy (T2) by observational ratings (DWI) and self-report questionnaires (disease-model beliefs and readiness to change). Due to a high rate of attrition from measurement at T2, analyses involving data, collected at this point must be interpreted with caution. As predicted, T1 ratings of DWI were negatively associated with alcoholics' readiness to change measured concurrently at T1 and also longitudinally at T2. Also as predicted, this relationship was found primarily with the wife-demand/husband-withdraw DWI role pattern; the opposite husband-demand/wife-withdraw role pattern was largely unrelated to readiness to change. Multiple regression analyses in a panel design indicated no clear causal direction in the lagged correlations between DWI and readiness to change. Although female partners believed more strongly in the disease model of alcoholism than did alcoholics both at T1 and at T2, neither partners' nor alcoholics' disease-model beliefs were related to readiness to change or to DWI. Finally, regarding the construct validity of the URICA, while mean levels of readiness to change increased significantly over the course of treatment, T1 and T2 measures of readiness to change were only mildly---and somewhat inconsistently---associated with treatment outcome. In all, the findings of the current study offer moderate support for the idea that an individual's readiness to change is related to interpersonal factors in his environment but only limited support for the construct validity of the URICA as a measure of readiness to change problem drinking.

The effects of vividness have been argued to be weak, elusive, and illusory. This study reconceptualized vividness as a language characteristic along four dimensions: emotional interest, concreteness, proximity, and image valence, and attempted to extend Language Expectancy Theory as the explanatory mechanism for vividness. Based on LET, it was proposed that an interaction effect between source characteristics (sex and credibility) and message characteristics (vividness) would occur. No support for the hypothesized interaction effects were found although the extension of Language Expectancy Theory to vividness is, ultimately, supported. Based on this study's finding that vivid messages were only slightly persuasive (creating more positive message evaluation and message agreement than did pallid messages), it is concluded that vivid language is not a promising message strategy for the health context. Refinements of Language Expectancy Theory in terms of expectancy strength and source credibility are suggested, and directions for future research advanced.