| Abstract: | 120 heterosexual college student couples (mean age 21.5 yrs) completed measures of self-criticism and relational schemas and then attempted to resolve 2 conflicts while being videotaped. Overt hostility was rated from the videotapes. In both girlfriends and boyfriends, self-criticism was associated with negative relational schemas and more negative cognitive-affective reactions during the conflict resolution task. Self-critical women displayed greater overt hostility towards their partners. Structural equation modeling (SEM) demonstrated that negative relational schemas functioned as mediating variables that explained negative cognitive affective reactions during the task. The SEM also showed that, in women, negative cognitive-affective reactions predicted overt hostility, which in turn predicted partners' distress and overt hostility. The results bolster cognitive interpersonal analyses of depression by illustrating how cognitive structures associated with a hypothesized vulnerability (self-criticism) can have important interpersonal correlates. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
