Detecting cyclicity in social interaction.

Reviews spectral and cross-spectral analytic methods for detecting cyclicity, cross-cyclicity, and lead–lag relationships in continuous data derived from the observation of dyadic interaction. It is found that lead–lag relationships can be assessed using the phase spectrum. Spectral analytic methods are then generalized to categorical observational data (taken from a study by the author and his associates; see record 1978-20895-001). It is shown that by these methods one can derive the classical information theory definition of social communication and its distribution statistics. (27 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Hypothesis-testing processes in social interaction.

In 4 separate investigations, female undergraduates were provided with hypotheses about the personal attributes of other individuals (targets). Ss then prepared to test these hypotheses (i.e., that their targets were extraverts or that their targets were introverts) by choosing a series of questions to ask their targets in a forthcoming interview. In each investigation, Ss planned to test these hypotheses by preferentially searching for behavioral evidence that would confirm the hypotheses. Moveover, these search procedures channeled social interaction between Ss and targets in ways that caused the targets to provide actual behavioral confirmation for Ss' hypotheses. A theoretical analysis of the psychological processes believed to underlie and generate both the preferential search for hypothesis-confirming behavioral evidence and the interpersonal consequences of hypothesis-testing activities is presented. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Physical attractiveness in social interaction.

A journal-style record was used to construct several indices characterizing the socializing among 35 male (M) and 36 female (F) undergraduates. These variables were then related to Ss' independently rated physical attractiveness. The following major results were obtained: (a) Physical attractiveness was strongly related to the quantity of social interaction for Ms, positively with the opposite sex and negatively with the same sex; no significant pattern emerged for Fs. (b) For both sexes, particularly with opposite-sex interactions, satisfaction showed an increasing tendency over time to be positively correlated with attractiveness. (c) Fs with more variable attractiveness ratings were more likely to be satisfied with their socializing. (d) Physically attractive Ms tended to have more mutually initiated and fewer self- or other-initiated interactions with the opposite sex. (e) Attractive Ms spent more of their interactions conversing and less in activities; attractive Fs also reported a lesser proportion of task interactions and more prevalent dates/parties. Mediating mechanisms for these effects, notably including people's stereotypic beliefs about physical attractiveness, are also discussed. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Referencing and bias in social interaction.

Examined the consequences of schematic referencing for social behavior. In Exp I, 23 female and 21 male undergraduates worked in pairs on a word association task. In the self-referencing condition, Ss were told that their partner would judge their personality; in the other-referencing condition, Ss were asked to judge their partner's personality. Results show biased recall of Ss' own behavior over another person's behavior in a dyadic interaction. Exp II employed an alternative, more realistic manipulation of self-referencing using situational cues. 16 pairs of undergraduate Ss performed the same word association task either in front of judges or by themselves. The biased recall effect was replicated. Moreover, corresponding biases in Ss' attributions about the quality of their performance were found. Results confirm that self-referencing cues can cause the sort of egocentric reactions that have been observed in previous studies in which members of an interaction remember more of their own contributions and attribute more responsibility for joint tasks to themselves. (9 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Children's peer relations: Issues in assessment and intervention.

Reviews the book, Children's peer relations: Issues in assessment and intervention edited by B. H. Schneider, K. H. Rubin, and J. E. Ledingham (1985). In 1984, a conference was held in Ottawa on the topic "Research Strategies in Children's Social Skills Training." It was international in scope and brought together many of the field's leading researchers. The papers presented at that conference form the nucleus for this volume of chapters, which has been carefully edited by three of the conference organizers. Substantial additions to the conference material are apparent, and the purpose of the book has been redirected somewhat to examine currently emerging research on children's social relations with regard to its implications for assessment and treatment of childhood social dysfunction. The resulting volume is one that is highly rewarding to the reader. The editors and authors have achieved the difficult task of integrating many discrete programmes of research around a few common themes. All of the chapters are well written, and together they present a representative selection of current research that is methodologically sound and of scholarly significance. As such, this volume is a timely and thought-provoking collection of chapters that will be of considerable interest to students and researchers in the fields of children's social relations and social skills training. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Are behavioural and psychological control both differentially associated with childhood aggression and social withdrawal?

Mothers of aggressive-externalizing (AGG), withdrawn-internalizing (WTH), and socially average children in kindergarten (n?=?155), Grade 2 (n?=?137), and Grade 4 (n?=?167) were compared to determine whether they differed in their use of behavioral control and forms of psychological control involving threats to self-esteem. Using teacher and peer ratings of socioemotional adjustment, target groups were formed; there were 22 average, 13 WTH, and 10 AGG children. Mothers and children were observed interacting in a variety of situations. Compared to mothers of average children, mothers of WTH children were behaviorally and psychologically overcontrolling (made more imperative compliance commands and were less responsive to their children), while mothers of AGG children were behaviorally undercontrolling (made fewer requests and play directives). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Drama and the self in social interaction.

Current social psychological conceptions of the dramaturgical metaphor are limited to an impression management model of social behavior. The need is stressed for a complementary individualistic model of social behavior, in which there is spontaneous behavior and the expression of emotions and personality traits. The authors' own approach uses both models in delineating these aspects of the dramaturgical metaphor: feigning, implicit rules of stagecraft, stage fright, casting, and the onstage–offstage dichotomy. Applied to behavior involving the self in social interaction, these dramaturgical concepts yield dimensions of pretense, formality, and shyness as well as the category of role identity and the idea of a match between person and role. The conditions likely to elicit each kind of behavior are described, as are relevant social and nonsocial incentives. Trait dimensions are assigned to each kind of behavior, and the personality traits relevant to the behavior are described. (36 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Controlling for autocorrelation in social interaction analysis.

Presents a simple method to control for autocorrelation (serial dependence) in sequential, categorical data of 2 interactants. Relying on either frequency of probability measures, a chi-square test or z test for lagged dependence is first computed and a correction factor is then applied to the result. The limitations that apply to this method are briefly discussed. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Depression and everyday social interaction.

Examined the relationships between depressive symptoms and everyday social interaction in a nonclinical population. Depressive symptoms were measured using the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale, and social interaction was measured using a variant of the Rochester Interaction Record. People who were classified as at risk for depression had less rewarding interactions than people who were not at risk. Depressive symptoms and interaction quantity and quality were negatively correlated for participants above the cutpoint, whereas they were uncorrelated for those below the at-risk cutpoint. Results also suggest that, compared with nondepressed people, depressed people derive more rewards from interactions with their closest opposite-sex friends, relative to the rewards they derive from interactions with other opposite-sex friends. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The stability of social interaction.

In a study of the stability of social interaction, 78 Ss (aged 17–29 yrs) maintained a social interaction diary, the Rochester Interaction Record (RIR), for 4 1-wk periods during their freshman year at college. Stability was operationalized in 3 ways: (1) absolutely, in terms of the similarity across the 4 periods of amount of interaction and of reactions to interactions; (2) relatively, in terms of correlations between interaction measures taken at different times; and (3) in terms of the stability of social networks, defined as the consistency across time of participants' close friends. Social interaction was found to be more stable over shorter periods of time than over longer periods, and stability increased over time. In addition, opposite-sex social interaction was less stable than same-sex interaction, and this was particularly true for interactions with close friends. The present results are interpreted by considering social environments as social systems with an emphasis on the importance of social norms as mediators of social interaction (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Issues in the assessment of outcome in family therapy

This paper examines several issues in family therapy outcome research. These include the need to consider numerous population and treatment goals and values upon the research, the difficulties in defining and operationalizing family treatment, the choice between emphasizing integrity of treatment or randomness of sampling, the selection of measurement methods, the controls needed in research design, the importance of efficiency of treatment, and the special role of deterioration effects. Throughout, the need for a multivariate schema for conceptualizing this research and special attention to the role of values and assumptions in it are highlighted.     

Relations between social contingency in mother-child interaction and 2-year-olds' social competence.

This study examined relations between social contingency in mother–child interaction and low income 9-yr-olds' social competence using a cross-sectional design (n?=?42). Measures of social contingency included time spent in joint attention and dyadic turn-taking behaviors following maternal bids. Measures of child social competence included emotional self-regulation during a delay-of-gratification task and empathic responsiveness toward an experimenter feigning injury. Social contingency was related to children's use of self-regulatory strategies, but not to empathic responsiveness. Child negative emotionality and gender contributed to explanations of children's self-regulatory strategy use. More emotionally negative children spent less time using self-distraction; girls used less self-distraction and more comfort-seeking during delay than did boys. However, time spent in joint attention made an additional independent contribution over and above child factors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Early experience and social processes in rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta): II. Complex social interaction.

Examined differences in simple and complex social behavior between 6 rhesus macaques each reared with a female dog as a surrogate mother and 6 macaques each reared with a plastic hobbyhorse as a surrogate mother. At a mean age of 4.8 yrs, the 1st of 2 experiments was conducted. In Exp I, Ss were formed into 6-member social groups for 10 5.5-hr trials. In Exp II, Ss in each rearing condition were formed into social groups twice daily, 1 formation comprising all 6 group members and 1 comprising 5 group members, with a different individual excluded each day. Although Ss of both groups displayed deficient forms of social behavior, Ss reared with dogs were able to use their limited social repertoires in more sophisticated ways, depending upon the social context. Results are discussed in terms of 2 tasks of social ontogeny, the acquisition of behavioral and social competences. It is concluded that early experience with an animate nonspecific companion appears to facilitate the development of complex, species-typical social phenomena but not the development of simple social skills. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Early experience and social processes in rhesus macaques ( Macaca mulatta): I. Dyadic social interaction.

Investigated how later social behavior in 6 male and 6 female rhesus monkeys was influenced by early rearing with either an animate nonconspecific (a female dog) or an inanimate (a plastic hobbyhorse) mother-substitute. Members of each rearing group were given within-rearing-group dyadic experience in a round-robin fashion, and 6 sets of such pairings were observed. Results suggest that Ss reared with animate experience were more attuned to, and better able to anticipate, their partners' behavior, although members of both groups were clearly abnormal in the extent of their social interactions. It is suggested that the results reflect a more sophisticated development of attentional and anticipatory capabilities among Ss reared with animate companions. Implications of such stimulation within a normal mother–infant context are discussed. (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of group problem solving experience upon social withdrawal in chronic schizophrenics.

It was hypothesized that chronic schizophrenics exposed to sustained group problem solving experience would tend to improve their levels of social participation on criterion tasks socially more challenging and complex. It was further hypothesized that such improvement would generalize to task performance with total strangers and to social behavior on the ward. All predictions except the one about ward behavior were confirmed by experimental findings with 32 chronic schizophrenic patients. It is suggested that sustained social experience in situations which elicit social participation permit factors to, become operative which reduce anxiety associated with socially more challenging, complex situations and thus facilitate participation in such situations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Virtual social environments as a tool for psychological assessment: Dynamics of interaction with a virtual spouse.

Computer games are advocated as a promising tool bridging the gap between the controllability of a lab experiment and the mundane realism of a field experiment. At the same time, many authors stress the importance of observing real behavior instead of asking participants about possible or intended behaviors. In this article, the authors introduce an online virtual social environment, which is inhabited by autonomous agents including the virtual spouse of the participant. Participants can freely explore the virtual world and interact with any other inhabitant, allowing the expression of spontaneous and unprompted behavior. The authors investigated the usefulness of this game for the assessment of interactions with a virtual spouse and their relations to intimacy and autonomy motivation as well as relationship satisfaction with the real-life partner. Both the intimacy motive and the satisfaction with the real-world relationship showed significant correlations with aggregated in-game behavior, which shows that some sort of transference between the real world and the virtual world took place. In addition, a process analysis of interaction quality revealed that relationship satisfaction and intimacy motive had different effects on the initial status and the time course of the interaction quality. Implications for psychological assessment using virtual social environments are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Issues in the assessment and treatment of obesity.

This article summarizes recent developments in the assessment and treatment of obesity. Limitations of the current height and weight tables frequently used to assess obesity are discussed. New research studies on genetics and weight cycling are reviewed. These studies give us a broader perspective about the heterogeneous etiology of obesity and may help to explain why some individuals have great difficulty losing weight or maintaining significant amounts of weight loss. Changes in the behavioral treatments of obesity since the 1970s are described. These newer programs are longer and more comprehensive, placing greater emphasis on the development of exercise behaviors, nutrition education, social support, and cognitive-behavioral interventions. Results suggest that behavioral interventions are most useful with mildly obese individuals. For individuals who are moderately and severely obese, the aggressive use of very low calorie diets appears promising, although research support for the maintenance of losses is lacking and caution is suggested. Continued collaboration among disciplines is expected to increase our understanding of this complex, refractory disorder. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)