Expanding the Circle - Roche
Michael Dufner, Ruben Arslan, Birk Hagemeyer, and Felix Schönbrodt (2015) employed a multi-method research design with 191 university students to examine affective contingencies in the affiliation domain, what SITAR members might refer to as communion. From the time of Sullivan, it was expected that perceiving increased communion in others results in one experiencing positive emotions. Several recent research articles by SITAR members find this positive association in ecological momentary assessment research designs (Sadikaj, Russel, Moskowitz, & Paris, 2010) as well as laboratory research designs that code for other behavior and self-affect (Ross et al., 2017). We also know from this research that personality traits/disorders can moderate this effect (e.g. Sadikaj, Moskowitz, & Zuroff, 2011; Wang, Roche, Pincus, Conroy, Rebar, & Ram, 2014), meaning that there are individual differences in one’s ability to derive pleasure from affiliation cues. This association will now be referred to as communion-pleasure reactivity.
This research article captured communion-pleasure reactivity (CPR) using a lab based physiological measure. Participants were asked to view affiliative images (e.g. family members eating together, going on a walk together) and the researchers examined the participant’s smiling behavior as the measure of reactivity toward communal stimuli. Specifically, they used electromyograpgy to measure increased facial muscular activity around the corners of the mouth (zygomaticus major) and decreased activity around the muscle that knits the eye brows (corrugator supercilii). They first demonstrated that the facial muscular activity was higher for the corner of the mouth and lower for the knit of the eyebrows during the affiliation stimuli. This effect had adequate internal consistency, and test-retest reliability in the second wave of data collection spaced approximately 14 months apart. Importantly, the facial muscular activity was unique to affiliative stimuli (versus power and achievement stimuli also presented to the participants). As a validation check, a self-report measure of positive emotions during the stimulus presentation was also positively correlated with affiliation stimuli.
The authors then examined how this marker of CPR was associated with communal motivations across self-report, informant report, and tasks of implicit motives. Aggregating across several self-report instruments, the authors found a 0.24 (p < .05) correlation between CPR and communal motives. Three informant reports were collected for each participant, and CPR was again positively correlated with informant-reported communal motives of the participant (r = 0.14, p < .05). An implicit association task was developed for affiliative motives, but it was not significantly associated with CPR. As another implicit task, participants were asked to complete a 14-day diary study at each wave of data collection, where each night they were presented with a picture and asked to make up a story about it. These stories were coded reliably for communal themes. There was a trend where CPR was positively associated with communal themes in these stories (r = 0.13, p < .10).
Next, the authors examined whether CPR predicted communal behavior. They expected a situation selection mechanism where individuals with stronger CPR would be more likely to seek out affiliative situations. Using the daily diary methodology, CPR was positively associated (r = 0.25, p < .05) with reporting more affiliative situations in their daily life (e.g. spending time with someone they like, having a good talk with someone else, etc.). Participants were also asked to list their top five favorite movies, with the assumption that movie preferences are one example of selecting stimuli that one is exposed to. Participants with higher CPR tended to list romantic movies (r = 0.24, p < .05) which presumably include higher content of communion compared to crime or action films.
The authors also anticipated a situation modification mechanism that would drive those with higher CPR to change their environment in favor of communal experiences. The authors examined this by having the experimenter ask a series of structured questions without the participant being aware that this was part of the study (participant later debriefed). These conversations were codes for socializing (e.g. eye contact, focal warmth, relaxed voice) and self-disclosure (e.g. amount of information disclosed, intimacy of the verbal content) themes as these are behaviors a participant can do to promote deeper communion with their interaction partner. Both socializing (r = 0.27, p < .05) and self-disclosure (r = .22, p < .05) were related to CPR. Researchers also asked the participants to share their facebook profile, and then coded it for affiliative content, finding a similar positive association with CPR (r = 0.29, p < .05).
Importantly, these effects were significant 92% of the time when also controlling for an additional method of capturing affect motives (e.g. self-report, informant report, etc.), indicating this marker of CPR is capturing unique information.
This article was interesting for its multi-method approach to examining a physiological marker of communion. The field of psychopathology is increasingly interested in connecting constructs across various units of analysis (e.g. circuits, physiological, self-report, etc.), perhaps most comprehensively summarized in the efforts to establish research domain criteria at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH, 2017).
References
Dufner, M., Arslan, R. C., Hagemeyer, B., Schönbrodt, F. D., & Denissen, J. J. (2015). Affective contingencies in the affiliative domain: Physiological assessment, associations with the affiliation motive, and prediction of behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 109, 662-676.
National Institute of Mental Health (2013). Research Domain Criteria. Retrieved December 20, 2017, from https://www.nimh.nih.gov/research-priorities/rdoc/index.shtml.
Ross, J. M., Girard, J. M., Wright, A. G., Beeney, J. E., Scott, L. N., Hallquist, M. N., ... & Pilkonis, P. A. (2017). Momentary patterns of covariation between specific affects and interpersonal behavior: Linking relationship science and personality assessment. Psychological assessment, 29, 123-134.
Sadikaj, G., Moskowitz, D. S., & Zuroff, D. C. (2011). Attachment-related affective dynamics: Differential reactivity to others’ interpersonal behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100, 905–917.
Sadikaj, G., Russell, J. J., Moskowitz, D. S., & Paris, J. (2010). Affect dysregulation in individuals with borderline personality disorder: Persistence and interpersonal triggers. Journal of Personality Assessment, 92, 490–500.
Wang, S., Roche, M. J., Pincus, A. L., Conroy, D. E., Rebar, A. L., & Ram, N. (2014). Interpersonal dependency and emotion in everyday life. Journal of Research in Personality, 53, 5-12.
This research article captured communion-pleasure reactivity (CPR) using a lab based physiological measure. Participants were asked to view affiliative images (e.g. family members eating together, going on a walk together) and the researchers examined the participant’s smiling behavior as the measure of reactivity toward communal stimuli. Specifically, they used electromyograpgy to measure increased facial muscular activity around the corners of the mouth (zygomaticus major) and decreased activity around the muscle that knits the eye brows (corrugator supercilii). They first demonstrated that the facial muscular activity was higher for the corner of the mouth and lower for the knit of the eyebrows during the affiliation stimuli. This effect had adequate internal consistency, and test-retest reliability in the second wave of data collection spaced approximately 14 months apart. Importantly, the facial muscular activity was unique to affiliative stimuli (versus power and achievement stimuli also presented to the participants). As a validation check, a self-report measure of positive emotions during the stimulus presentation was also positively correlated with affiliation stimuli.
The authors then examined how this marker of CPR was associated with communal motivations across self-report, informant report, and tasks of implicit motives. Aggregating across several self-report instruments, the authors found a 0.24 (p < .05) correlation between CPR and communal motives. Three informant reports were collected for each participant, and CPR was again positively correlated with informant-reported communal motives of the participant (r = 0.14, p < .05). An implicit association task was developed for affiliative motives, but it was not significantly associated with CPR. As another implicit task, participants were asked to complete a 14-day diary study at each wave of data collection, where each night they were presented with a picture and asked to make up a story about it. These stories were coded reliably for communal themes. There was a trend where CPR was positively associated with communal themes in these stories (r = 0.13, p < .10).
Next, the authors examined whether CPR predicted communal behavior. They expected a situation selection mechanism where individuals with stronger CPR would be more likely to seek out affiliative situations. Using the daily diary methodology, CPR was positively associated (r = 0.25, p < .05) with reporting more affiliative situations in their daily life (e.g. spending time with someone they like, having a good talk with someone else, etc.). Participants were also asked to list their top five favorite movies, with the assumption that movie preferences are one example of selecting stimuli that one is exposed to. Participants with higher CPR tended to list romantic movies (r = 0.24, p < .05) which presumably include higher content of communion compared to crime or action films.
The authors also anticipated a situation modification mechanism that would drive those with higher CPR to change their environment in favor of communal experiences. The authors examined this by having the experimenter ask a series of structured questions without the participant being aware that this was part of the study (participant later debriefed). These conversations were codes for socializing (e.g. eye contact, focal warmth, relaxed voice) and self-disclosure (e.g. amount of information disclosed, intimacy of the verbal content) themes as these are behaviors a participant can do to promote deeper communion with their interaction partner. Both socializing (r = 0.27, p < .05) and self-disclosure (r = .22, p < .05) were related to CPR. Researchers also asked the participants to share their facebook profile, and then coded it for affiliative content, finding a similar positive association with CPR (r = 0.29, p < .05).
Importantly, these effects were significant 92% of the time when also controlling for an additional method of capturing affect motives (e.g. self-report, informant report, etc.), indicating this marker of CPR is capturing unique information.
This article was interesting for its multi-method approach to examining a physiological marker of communion. The field of psychopathology is increasingly interested in connecting constructs across various units of analysis (e.g. circuits, physiological, self-report, etc.), perhaps most comprehensively summarized in the efforts to establish research domain criteria at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH, 2017).
References
Dufner, M., Arslan, R. C., Hagemeyer, B., Schönbrodt, F. D., & Denissen, J. J. (2015). Affective contingencies in the affiliative domain: Physiological assessment, associations with the affiliation motive, and prediction of behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 109, 662-676.
National Institute of Mental Health (2013). Research Domain Criteria. Retrieved December 20, 2017, from https://www.nimh.nih.gov/research-priorities/rdoc/index.shtml.
Ross, J. M., Girard, J. M., Wright, A. G., Beeney, J. E., Scott, L. N., Hallquist, M. N., ... & Pilkonis, P. A. (2017). Momentary patterns of covariation between specific affects and interpersonal behavior: Linking relationship science and personality assessment. Psychological assessment, 29, 123-134.
Sadikaj, G., Moskowitz, D. S., & Zuroff, D. C. (2011). Attachment-related affective dynamics: Differential reactivity to others’ interpersonal behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100, 905–917.
Sadikaj, G., Russell, J. J., Moskowitz, D. S., & Paris, J. (2010). Affect dysregulation in individuals with borderline personality disorder: Persistence and interpersonal triggers. Journal of Personality Assessment, 92, 490–500.
Wang, S., Roche, M. J., Pincus, A. L., Conroy, D. E., Rebar, A. L., & Ram, N. (2014). Interpersonal dependency and emotion in everyday life. Journal of Research in Personality, 53, 5-12.