Military Couples’ Communication during Deployment: A Proposed Expansion of Affection Exchange Theory

abstract: Affectionate communication is one way individuals express love and appreciation (Floyd, 2006). Recently, communication scholars have recommended individuals increase their expressions of affection for health benefits (Brezsnyak & Whisman, 2004; Floyd et al., 2009; Floyd & Riforgiate, 2008). However, because communication is limited during military deployment, increasing affectionate communication is difficult for military families to implement. One form of affectionate communication that shows the promise of health benefits for military couples during deployment is affectionate writing. Working from Pennebaker’s written disclosure paradigm and Floyd’s affectionate exchange theory, the purpose of the current study is to identify whether at-home romantic partners of deployed U.S. Navy personnel can reap the benefits of affectionate communication during military deployment. To test a causal relationship between affectionate writing and communication outcomes, specifically relational satisfaction and stress, a four-week experiment was conducted. Eighty female at-home romantic partners of currently deployed U.S. Navy personnel were recruited for the study and randomly assigned to one of three conditions: (a) an experimental condition in which individuals were instructed to write affectionate letters to their deployed partners for 20 minutes once a week for three weeks, (b) a control condition in which individuals were instructed to write about innocuous or non-emotional topics for 20 minutes once a week for three weeks, or (c) a control condition in which individuals were not given instructions to write for the duration of the study. Individuals who engaged in affectionate writing reported higher levels of relational satisfaction than both the control groups, however, there were no differences in reported stress for the three groups. In fact, stress decreased throughout the duration of the study regardless of the condition in which participants had been placed. Additionally, individuals with secure attachment styles were more satisfied and less stressed than individuals with preoccupied and fearful attachment styles. Finally, individuals who perceived their relationship to be equitable, and to a slightly lesser extent, overbenefitted, during deployment reported higher levels of relational satisfaction. Overall, the findings support and extend affectionate exchange theory. Specifically, the results suggest that individuals can experience distance from their partners and still benefit from affectionate communication via writing; additionally, expressions of affectionate communication need not be reciprocal. Theoretical, methodological, clinical, and pedagogical implications are discussed.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Communication 201

Implications of Tailoring Emotional Expression within an Expressive Writing Paradigm

This dissertation uses the theoretical perspective that both emotion and emotional processing theories could greatly enhance feedback messages given in a linguistic writing paradigm. The measurement of emotional expression is briefly reviewed along with the basic expressive writing paradigm, outcome of this expressive writing paradigm, and the tailoring literature. Reference is made to the single study (Owen, et al., 2011), which has utilized tailoring in an expressive writing paradigm; the present study is a modification of this original study. This dissertation used clinically minded feedback which utilized both emotion and emotional processing theory. For the experimental design, three tailoring conditions (linguistic tailoring based on word count [LIWC], tailoring based on selfreport measures [BEQ, CECS], and tailoring from a trained therapist) along with two control groups (standard expressive writing experimental and standard expressive writing control) were used. Specific health and mental health outcomes were examined after one month including healthcare utilization (# of visits to a healthcare provider), physical symptoms (PILL), emotional distress (OQ-45), and PTSD symptoms (PCL). A total of 26 participants completed the study, Repeated measures ANOVAs found no significant differences between conditions on emotional expression or decreases in physical and mental health. The nonsignificant findings are likely due to low sample sizes and insufficient power for that statistical analyses. The findings highlight the inconsistent findings in the literature surrounding expressive writing studies and outline the importance of adequate sample sizes, experimental design to reduce fraudulent users, and future directions including other measures of expression to include depth of processing

Effects of imagery training on language in expressive writing

Research examining language in written and oral trauma narratives indicates that exposure and cognitive processing are important processes responsible for therapeutic change. Bio-informational theory, which defines emotions as the activation of response, stimulus, and meaning units in memory, provides a meaningful structure for evaluating language in traumatic and neutral essays. This study examined the effects of imagery training procedures designed to prime activation of response or stimulus units on word usage. The effect of writing instructions on activation of meaning units was also investigated. Unscreened undergraduates (n=246) were randomly assigned in a 2 writing condition (traumatic or neutral) x 3 training condition (response-training, stimulus-training, or no-training) design. Word count dictionaries were used to capture the effects of training and instructions on language. Overall, results supported predicted effects of stimulus training and trauma writing, but anticipated effects of response-training were inconsistent. Implications for theory and the use of language to measure emotion are discussed