Using Communal Activation to Increase Relationship Enhancing Behaviors and Attitudes and Decrease Vulnerable and Grandiose Narcissistic Tendencies

My dissertation study uses a web-based procedure to test whether completing specific, communally activating tasks (e.g., viewing a situation from one’s partner’s perspective) increase a person’s empathy or desire for closeness with their partner. Of particular interest are persons with elevated narcissistic tendencies. A total of 219 partnered participants were recruited online.  After random assignment to either the control or experimental group participants in both groups read psychoeducational information on healthy relationships, with participants in the experimental group completing several activities designed to elicit a more communal orientation towards their partner. Results of multilevel analyses indicated that the completion of communally activating exercises increased empathy and demand/withdraw communication. Moreover, vulnerable, but not grandiose, narcissism moderated the link between condition and commitment, demand/withdraw communication, and criticize/defend communication, such that people with elevated levels of vulnerable narcissism in the experimental group reported the most improvement.

As of September 2021, preliminary results have been presented at national and international conferences, with an anticipated manuscript submission date of November 2021.

 Mental Health, Social Support and Discord

This study had two main foci: The first goal was to understand the differential associations of marital satisfaction with anxiety and depression. In addition to using established measures of marital satisfaction, more specific positive and negative dimensions of marital satisfaction were explored. The second goal was to examine different indicators of social support quality (i.e., acceptability of the support frequency, satisfaction of the support, helpfulness of the support) above and beyond support adequacy (discrepancy between actual and desired frequency of support). A total of 69 married couples participated in two lab sessions three weeks apart during which they completed questionnaires as well as conversations about two relationship issues. In between the two lab visits, both partners completed daily online questionnaires assessing the anxiety, depression, marital satisfaction, and support. Results of lagged, multi-level moderation analyses showed that satisfaction with prior-day informational, physical, and tangible support was associated with a greater decrease in relationship satisfaction if partners had reported an increase in prior-day depressive symptoms. In addition, overprovision of prior-day tangible support mitigated the negative impact of prior-day depressed mood on relationship satisfaction, and vice versa. These results confirm the bidirectional nature of the association between depressed mood and relationship satisfaction, and clarify the role of objective and subjective assessments of support behaviors in relationships. 

As of September 2021, preliminary results have been presented at national and international conferences and one manuscript is currently under review.

Word Use and Communication Patterns in Romantic Couples

For my master’s thesis, I investigated the extent to which word use, particularly pronoun use, was predictive of relationship satisfaction, self-reported and observed communication quality, and whether those associations depended on either partner’s levels of anxiety or depression. At the lab, 118 dating, engaged, and married couples completed questionnaires and were asked to discuss two relationship concerns while being videotaped. All conversations were transcribed and analyzed using a word analysis software, and were observationally coded. Results suggested that Me-focus by actors and You-focus by actors and partners reliably correlated with perceived interaction quality. As well, a person’s own, but not their partner’s, worry moderated the association between pronoun use and perceived interaction quality. Pronoun use (actor You– and partner Me-focus) and perceived interaction quality were especially strongly associated for people with relatively lower levels of worry. A principal component analyses uncovered two underlying factors for pronouns: self-focus and other-focus. Actor-partner analyses using underlying factors corroborated the results for individual pronouns.

Publications from this dataset can be found here.