RESUMEN
Stressful, busy days have been linked with increases in angry and withdrawn marital behavior. The process by which stressors in 1 domain, such as work, affect an individual's behavior in another domain, such as the marital relationship, is known as spillover. Using 56 days of daily diary reports in a diverse sample of 47 wives and 39 husbands, this study examined associations between daily experiences of overload and 3 marital behaviors: overt expressions of anger, disregard of the spouse's needs ("disregard"), and reductions in affection and disclosure ("distancing"). Two potential mechanisms by which daily overload spills over into marital behavior were examined: negative mood and the desire to avoid social interaction. Among husbands, negative mood mediated the association between overload and angry behavior. Associations between overload and wives' angry behavior, as well as overload and husbands' and wives' disregard of their partners' needs, were mediated by both negative mood and the desire to withdraw socially. Desire to withdraw, but not negative mood, mediated the association between overload and distancing behavior among husbands and wives. In addition, associations between marital satisfaction and spouses' typical marital behavior, as well as behavioral responses to overload, were examined. Husbands' and wives' average levels of expressed anger and disregard, and husbands' distancing, were associated with lower marital satisfaction in 1 or both partners. Both spouses reported lower marital satisfaction if husbands tended to express marital anger, disregard, or distancing on busy, overloaded days.
Asunto(s)
Afecto , Ira , Relaciones Familiares/psicología , Matrimonio/psicología , Satisfacción Personal , Esposos/psicología , Adulto , Femenino , Humanos , Masculino , Persona de Mediana EdadRESUMEN
Traditional approaches to the study of children's expressions of anger rely on tightly controlled study environments to test hypotheses about outcomes and correlates of expression characteristics. An unexplored area in the study of emotion expression is a naturalistic examination of school-age children's spontaneously occurring expressions of emotion in their real, uncontrolled family contexts. This observational study describes the naturally occurring characteristics and contexts of 8- to 12-year-old children's anger expressions with family members. Thirty-one families were videotaped for 2 days at home and in community settings. Children's expressions of anger were identified and coded for angry facial, vocal and physical behaviors, and for the expressions' instigating situational contexts. The majority of anger expressions were of mild intensity and brief duration, and most often contained vocal behavioral characteristics (e.g., loud voice, whining). The most common cause of an anger expression was a verbal disagreement; other frequently occurring situational causes included homework, requests for compliance, and reprimands. Patterns in the angry behaviors children exhibited in response to specific situational causes support a functionalist perspective on emotion expression in that children engaged in behaviors that appeared to be attempts to get their needs met. Few differences were observed between mothers' and fathers' rates of instigating children's anger expressions, and between boys' and girls' expression characteristics and contexts. This study offers an ecologically valid, uniquely naturalistic methodology to describe children's observable expressions of anger as they occur in family contexts.
Asunto(s)
Ira , Conducta Infantil/psicología , Emoción Expresada , Relaciones Padres-Hijo , Niño , Femenino , Humanos , Masculino , Conducta Verbal , Grabación de Cinta de VideoRESUMEN
OBJECTIVES: To describe the longitudinal course of three core eating disorder symptoms-low body weight, binge eating, and purging-in women with anorexia nervosa (AN) and bulimia nervosa (BN) using a novel statistical approach. METHOD: Treatment-seeking women with AN (n = 136) or BN (n = 110) completed the Eating Disorders Longitudinal Interval Follow-Up Evaluation interview every 6 months, yielding weekly eating disorder symptom data for a 5-year period. Semiparametric mixture modeling was used to identify longitudinal trajectories for the three core symptoms. RESULTS: Four individual trajectories were identified for each eating disorder symptom. The number and general shape of the individual trajectories was similar across symptoms, with each model including trajectories depicting stable absence and stable presence of symptoms as well as one or more trajectories depicting the declining presence of symptoms. Unique trajectories were found for low body weight (fluctuating presence) and purging (increasing presence). Conjunction analyses yielded the following joint trajectories: low body weight and binge eating, low body weight and purging, and binge eating and purging. DISCUSSION: The course of individual eating disorder symptoms among patients with AN and BN is highly variable. Future research identifying clinical predictors of trajectory membership may inform treatment and nosological research.