1,417 research outputs found
Interrupted time-series analysis and its application to behavioral data
Journal ArticleThis paper uses a question-and-answer format to present the technical aspects of interrupted time-series analysis (ITSA). Topics include the potential relevance of ITSA to behavioral researchers, serial dependency, time-series models, tests of significance, and sources of ITSA information
How pairs of partners emerge in an initially fully connected society
A social group is represented by a graph, where each pair of nodes is
connected by two oppositely directed links. At the beginning, a given amount
of resources is assigned randomly to each node . Also, each link
is initially represented by a random positive value, which means the
percentage of resources of node which is offered to node . Initially
then, the graph is fully connected, i.e. all non-diagonal matrix elements
are different from zero. During the simulation, the amounts of
resources change according to the balance equation. Also, nodes
reorganise their activity with time, going to give more resources to those
which give them more. This is the rule of varying the coefficients .
The result is that after some transient time, only some pairs of nodes
survive with non-zero and , each pair with symmetric and positive
. Other coefficients vanish. Unpaired nodes remain
with no resources, i.e. their , and they cease to be active, as they
have nothing to offer. The percentage of survivors (i.e. those with with
positive) increases with the velocity of varying the numbers , and it
slightly decreases with the size of the group. The picture and the results can
be interpreted as a description of a social algorithm leading to marriages.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figure
Understanding the Role of Relationship Maintenance in Enduring Couple Partnerships in Later Adulthood
Intimate relationships in later adulthood are understudied despite their positive association with health and well-being. This cross-sectional mixed methods study sought to redress this gap by investigating relationship maintenance in later adulthood. Our international sub-sample comprised 1,565 participants aged 55 + and in an ongoing relationship. Results from hierarchical multiple regression indicated that overall happiness with the relationship had the largest effect size on relationship maintenance, with 53% of the variance explained. Content analyses of open-ended questions identified companionship and laughter as some of the “best liked” aspects of the relationship. Housework/cooking and saying “I love you” were among the behaviors that made participants feel appreciated. Results illustrated the types of maintenance behaviors adults in later adulthood who are in enduring partnerships employ
Urban Gravity: a Model for Intercity Telecommunication Flows
We analyze the anonymous communication patterns of 2.5 million customers of a
Belgian mobile phone operator. Grouping customers by billing address, we build
a social network of cities, that consists of communications between 571 cities
in Belgium. We show that inter-city communication intensity is characterized by
a gravity model: the communication intensity between two cities is proportional
to the product of their sizes divided by the square of their distance
Nonlinear Dynamics and Interpersonal Correlates of Verbal Turn-Taking Patterns in a Group Therapy Session
Interpersonal processes and dynamics are ubiquitous topics in psychotherapy, yet they are difficult to study and are theoretically fragmented across therapeutic subdisciplines. The current study tests an integrative model of interpersonal dynamics in small groups using nonlinear dynamical systems theory. The conversation of one group therapy session (with six adolescent sex offenders) is analyzed using orbital decomposition, which allows for the identification of patterns in categorical time series data. The results show evidence of selforganizing social patterns, based on formal measures of turbulence (Lyapunov dimension), information novelty (Shannon\u27s entropy), and complexity (fractal dimension). The degree of patterning in turn taking is significantly correlated with measurements of control, closeness, and conflict among group members. Clinical implications and directions for future research are discussed
Driving under the influence of alcohol: a sequence analysis approach
Driving under the influence of alcohol: A sequence analysis approac
Implications of Debunking the "Critical Positivity Ratio" for Humanistic Psychology:Introduction to Special Issue
An extraordinary claim was made by one of the leading researchers within positive psychology, namely, there is a universal-invariant ratio between positive to negative emotions that serves as a unique tipping point between flourishing and languishing in individuals, marriages, organizations, and other human systems across all cultures and times. Known as the "critical positivity ratio," this finding was supposedly derived from the famous Lorenz equation in physics by using the mathematics of nonlinear dynamic systems, and was defined precisely as "2.9013." This exact number was widely touted as a great discovery by many leaders of positive psychology, had tremendous impact in various applied areas of psychology, and, more broadly, and was extensively cited in both the scientific literature and in the global popular media. However, this finding has been demonstrated to be bogus. Since its advent as a relatively new subdiscipline, positive psychology has claimed superiority to its precursor, the subdiscipline of humanistic psychology, in terms of supposedly both using more rigorous science and avoiding popularizing nonsense. The debunking of the critical positivity ratio demonstrates that positive psychology did not live up to these claims, and this has important implications, which are discussed in terms of "romantic scientism" and "voodoo science." In addition, articles in the special issue on the "Implications of Debunking the 'Critical Positivity Ratio' for Humanistic Psychology" are introduced, as they also delve into these concerns
Comparative Network Analysis of Preterm vs. Full-Term Infant-Mother Interactions
Several studies have reported that interactions of mothers with preterm infants show differential characteristics compared to that of mothers with full-term infants. Interaction of preterm dyads is often reported as less harmonious. However, observations and explanations concerning the underlying mechanisms are inconsistent. In this work 30 preterm and 42 full-term mother-infant dyads were observed at one year of age. Free play interactions were videotaped and coded using a micro-analytic coding system. The video records were coded at one second resolution and studied by a novel approach using network analysis tools. The advantage of our approach is that it reveals the patterns of behavioral transitions in the interactions. We found that the most frequent behavioral transitions are the same in the two groups. However, we have identified several high and lower frequency transitions which occur significantly more often in the preterm or full-term group. Our analysis also suggests that the variability of behavioral transitions is significantly higher in the preterm group. This higher variability is mostly resulted from the diversity of transitions involving non-harmonious behaviors. We have identified a maladaptive pattern in the maternal behavior in the preterm group, involving intrusiveness and disengagement. Application of the approach reported in this paper to longitudinal data could elucidate whether these maladaptive maternal behavioral changes place the infant at risk for later emotional, cognitive and behavioral disturbance
Love stories can be unpredictable: Jules et Jim in the vortex of life
Love stories are dynamic processes that begin, develop, and often stay for a relatively long time in stationary or fluctuating regime, before possibly fading. Although they are, undoubtedly, the most important dynamic process in our life, they have only recently been cast in the formal frame of dynamical systems theory. In particular, why it is so difficult to predict the evolution of sentimental relationships continues to be largely unexplained. A common reason for this is that love stories reflect the turbulence of the surrounding social environment. But we can also imagine that the interplay of the characters involved contributes to make the story unpredictable, that is, chaotic. In other words, we conjecture that sentimental chaos can have a relevant endogenous origin. To support this intriguing conjecture, we mimic a real and well-documented love story with a mathematical model in which the environment is kept constant, and show that the model is chaotic. The case we analyze is the triangle described in Jules et Jim, an autobiographic novel by Henri-Pierr Roche that became famous worldwide after the success of the homonymous film directed by Fran8cois Truffaut
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