Affiliation and Dominance in Female and Male Dyads : When Discoordination Makes Happy

Drawing on sixteen 45-min-long dyadic same-sex conversations between unacquainted females or males, we used the joystick method by Sadler et al. (J Pers Soc Psychol 97:1005–1020.  https://doi.org/10.1037/a0016232, 2009) to rate the moment-to-moment levels of affiliation and dominance during the first and last 10 min of these conversations. Besides comparing the behavioral patterns in female and male dyads, we drew on the pre- and post-conversation questionnaires filled by the participants of the rated conversations to study the experiential consequences (valence, arousal, happiness, anxiety) of these patterns. Both genders exhibited the same complementary patterns where affiliation pulls for affiliation and dominance for submissiveness. However, these patterns were experienced differently by females and males. Greater affiliation synchrony increased the levels of happiness and arousal for males, but not for females. In addition, greater dominance coordination predicted a more negative valence change for females than for males. The paper thus points to gender differences in what constitutes a positive interactional experience and suggests a need to revisit social scientific theorizing in this regard.Peer reviewe

Onko sisu terveellistä? : Katsaus sisunkaltaisiin piirteisiin ja niiden vaikutuksiin

Vertaisarvioitu.Sisunkaltaisten piirteiden tutkimusta on tehty englannin kielen käsitteistöön pohjautuvilla itserapor¬tointi¬kyselyillä jo melko pitkään. Yhteyksiä on löytynyt esimerkiksi koulumenestykseen, asepalveluksessa suoriutumiseen, hyvinvointiin, mielenterveyteen, fyysiseen terveyteen ja terveyskäyttäytymiseen. Käymme läpi aiemman kirjallisuuden perusteella näitä yhteyksiä. Esittelemme myös lyhyesti suomen kieleen ensimmäistä kertaa pohjautuvan kehittämämme sisukyselymittarin. Siinä on sekä samankaltaisuuksia että eroavaisuuksia englannin kieleen pohjautuviin kyselymittareihin verrattuna, mutta alustavien tulosten perusteella yhteyksiä tärkeisiin hyvinvointimuuttujiin on runsaasti. Sisulla ja yleisemmin sisupiirteillä on yhteyksiä persoonallisuuspiirteisiin, mutta yhteydet eivät ole kovinkaan voimakkaita. Sisupiirteitä ei voi siis tutkia suoraan persoonallisuuskyselyillä, vaan niitä on tutkittava erillisillä, tarkoitusta varten kehitetyillä kyselyillä.Peer reviewe

Grandiosity, vulnerability, and narcissistic fluctuation : Examining reliability, measurement invariance, and construct validity of four brief narcissism measures

Continued interest in the distinction between grandiose narcissism, vulnerable narcissism and the fluctuation between grandiose and vulnerable states has expanded the repertoire of self-report instruments. The present study examined the psychometric properties of four brief narcissism measures [the Narcissistic Personality Inventory-13 (NPI-13), Hypersensitive Narcissism Scale (HSNS), Super-Brief Pathological Narcissism Inventory (SB-PNI), and the g-FLUX] in a Finnish sample of university students. Confirmatory factor analyses supported the reliability of the NPI-13, g-FLUX, SB-PNI Vulnerability, and two HSNS subfactors (Oversensitivity and Egocentrism). Tests of measurement invariance indicated the NPI-13, SB-PNI Vulnerability, HSNS Oversensitivity, and the g-FLUX perform similarly between males and females and are generally similar between individuals in younger and older age groups. Construct and predictive validity were evaluated by examining relations between narcissism measures and relevant criteria including psychopathology symptoms, self-esteem, well-being, five factor traits, and empathy. Results supported the construct validity of all four measures, while correlational profiles highlighted the convergence between the g-FLUX and measures of both grandiosity and vulnerability. The NPI-13 was most predictive of NPD symptoms, whereas vulnerable narcissism measures were most predictive of psychopathology. Results further establish the psychometric properties of the NPI-13, SB-PNI Vulnerability, HSNS Oversensitivity, Egocentrism, and provide new validation of the g-FLUX.Peer reviewe

Intragroup Emotions : Physiological Linkage and Social Presence

We investigated how technologically mediating two different components of emotion communicative expression and physiological state to group members affects physiological linkage and self-reported feelings in a small group during video viewing. In different conditions the availability of second screen text chat (communicative expression) and visualization of group level physiological heart rates and their dyadic linkage (physiology) was varied. Within this four person group two participants formed a physically co-located dyad and the other two were individually situated in two separate rooms. We found that text chat always increased heart rate synchrony but HR visualization only with non-co-located dyads. We also found that physiological linkage was strongly connected to self-reported social presence. The results encourage further exploration of the possibilities of sharing group member's physiological components of emotion by technological means to enhance mediated communication and strengthen social presence.Peer reviewe

Nods, vocal continuers, and the perception of empathy in storytelling

In her influential paper on stance, alignment, and affiliation in conversational storytelling, Tanya Stivers argued that two basic conversational means of receiving a story, nods and vocal continuers, differ in their function: whereas vocal continuers display alignment with the telling activity, nods, during the mid-telling, convey affiliation with the storytellers' affective stance. In this paper, we elaborate these insights on the basis of a quantitative study informed by conversation analysis. Using a database of 317 stories told in Finnish, we analyzed how story recipients' nods and continuers in different phases of storytelling (before and after the story climax) predict naive raters' judgments of the story recipients' empathy toward the storyteller. We found that vocal continuers accounted for the perception of empathy during mid-telling, whereas the effect of nods remained weak. The study offers further support to the notion of structural organization of storytelling, and suggests that the significance of vocal continuers as a vehicle of empathy may be greater than has been generally thought of.Peer reviewe

Empathy, Challenge, and Psychophysiological Activation in Therapist-Client Interaction

Two central dimensions in psychotherapeutic work are a therapist's empathy with clients and challenging their judgments. We investigated how they influence psychophysiological responses in the participants. Data were from psychodynamic therapy sessions, 24 sessions from 5 dyads, from which 694 therapist's interventions were coded. Heart rate and electrodermal activity (EDA) of the participants were used to index emotional arousal. Facial muscle activity (electromyography) was used to index positive and negative emotional facial expressions. Electrophysiological data were analyzed in two time frames: (a) during the therapists' interventions and (b) across the whole psychotherapy session. Both empathy and challenge had an effect on psychophysiological responses in the participants. Therapists' empathy decreased clients' and increased their own EDA across the session. Therapists' challenge increased their own EDA in response to the interventions, but not across the sessions. Clients, on the other hand, did not respond to challenges during interventions, but challenges tended to increase EDA across a session. Furthermore, there was an interaction effect between empathy and challenge. Heart rate decreased and positive facial expressions increased in sessions where empathy and challenge were coupled, i.e., the amount of both empathy and challenge was either high or low. This suggests that these two variables work together. The results highlight the therapeutic functions and interrelation of empathy and challenge, and in line with the dyadic system theory by Beebe and Lachmann (2002), the systemic linkage between interactional expression and individual regulation of emotion.Peer reviewe

Evidence for a Behaviourally Measurable Perseverance Trait in Humans

The aim was to create and study a possible behavioural measure for trait(s) in humans that reflect the ability and motivation to continue an unpleasant behaviour, i.e., behavioural perseverance or persistence (BP). We utilised six different tasks with 54 subjects to measure the possible BP trait(s): cold pressor task, hand grip endurance task, impossible anagram task, impossible verbal reasoning task, thread and needle task, and boring video task. The task performances formed two BP factors. Together, the two-factor solution is responsible for the common variance constituting 37.3% of the total variance in the performances i.e., performance times. Excluding the impossible anagram task, the performance in any given task was better explained by performances in the other tasks (i.e., “trait”, η2 range = 0.131–0.253) than by the rank order variable (“depletion”, i.e., getting tired from the previous tasks, η2 range = 0–0.096)

Evidence for a Behaviourally Measurable Perseverance Trait in Humans

The aim was to create and study a possible behavioural measure for trait(s) in humans that reflect the ability and motivation to continue an unpleasant behaviour, i.e., behavioural perseverance or persistence (BP). We utilised six different tasks with 54 subjects to measure the possible BP trait(s): cold pressor task, hand grip endurance task, impossible anagram task, impossible verbal reasoning task, thread and needle task, and boring video task. The task performances formed two BP factors. Together, the two-factor solution is responsible for the common variance constituting 37.3% of the total variance in the performances i.e., performance times. Excluding the impossible anagram task, the performance in any given task was better explained by performances in the other tasks (i.e., “trait”, η2 range = 0.131–0.253) than by the rank order variable (“depletion”, i.e., getting tired from the previous tasks, η2 range = 0–0.096)

Understanding depressive symptoms through psychological traits and physiological stress reactivity

Peer reviewe

Emotion, psychophysiology, and intersubjectivity

Publisher Copyright: © 2021 John Benjamins Publishing Company.Conversation analytical studies on emotion show how expression of emotion is part of the intersubjective experience. Emotions, however, are as much physiological as experiential events. Physiological processes pertaining to emotion involve changes in cardiovascular activity, in the activation of sweat glands, and in muscular activity. The dyadic systems theory by Beebe and Lachmann (2002) suggests that actions that regulate social interaction also serve in the regulation of internal emotional states of interacting subjects. Drawing from this theory, our overall research questions was: how is the expression of emotion in social interaction linked to physiological responses in the participants? Our main result was that thorough conversational affiliation, the participants share the emotional load in the interaction.Peer reviewe