Stephanie Spielmann, Samantha Joel, Geoff MacDonald, and Alex Kogan's article entitled "Ex Appeal: Current Relationship Quality and Emotional Attachment to Ex-partners" will appear in the March 2013 issue of Social Psychology and Personality Science. In a 6-month longitudinal study, they found that declines in relationship quality over time predicted increased longing for ex-partners. This "ex appeal" was seen above and beyond desire for relationship alternatives more generally, suggesting a unique draw towards thoughts of ex-partners. Increased longing for ex-partners over time also predicted decreased relationship quality, but only among those considering recent ex-partners. The results of this study suggest that, in times of lower relationship quality, people may draw on connections with ex-partners to satisfy the need to belong. Furthermore, the results suggest that resolving feelings for one's most recent ex may be important for maximizing a new relationship's potential.

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Posted on Feb 10, 2013 by admin

Stephanie Spielmann, Jessica Maxwell, Geoff MacDonald, and Patricia Baratta (now at University of Guelph) published in the February 2013 issue of Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. In the series of studies presented in their article entitled "Don't get your hopes up: Avoidantly attached individuals perceive lower social reward when there is potential for intimacy," they found that avoidantly attached individuals lower their expectations for intimacy and closeness in romantic contexts that are richer in intimacy potential. However, they do not tend to lower their expectations for such rewards in contexts where intimacy isn't likely. Their final study illustrated that such lowered expectations for connection may be motivated by reducing distress from reward loss. Simply put, those with avoidant attachment may approach their relationships with a perspective that "if you don't get your hopes up, you have less to lose and can't be disappointed."

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Posted on Feb 06, 2013 by admin

Titled "Meditation, mindfulness, and executive control: The importance of emotional acceptance and brain-based performance monitoring," Rimma Teper and Michael Inzlicht's paper appears in the January 2013 issue of Social Cognitive Affective Neuroscience. In this special issue of SCAN, which focuses on the neuroscience of meditation and mindfulness, Teper and Inzlicht present a study relating meditation practice to improved executive function, and provide evidence that this effect is accounted for by increases in the non-judgmental acceptance of thoughts and emotions and by increases in error-related negativity, a brain response stemming from the anterior cingulate cortex and associated with the distress that follows error and conflict detection.

Michael Inzlicht has a second paper appearing in the same special issue of SCAN, titled, "Dispositional mindfulness and the attenuation of neural responses to emotional stimuli." In this paper, Inzlicht and co-authors Kirk Brown and Robert Goodman (Virginia Commonwealth University) relate trait levels of mindfulness to early brain responses to emotional stimuli. The paper suggests that when exposed to highly arousing and unpleasant images, that people high in trait mindfulness exhibit smaller late positive potentials, a brain response thought to reflect motivated attention and associated with emotion regulation.

Click her to download Teper & Inzlicht, 2013

Click here to download Brown, Goodman, & Inzlicht, 2013

Posted on Jan 23, 2013 by admin

Stephanie Spielmann, Geoff MacDonald, and Jennifer Tackett's article entitled "Social Threat, Social Reward, and Regulation of Investment in Romantic Relationships" was published in the December 2012 issue of Personal Relationships. This article explored the extent to which perceived opportunity for intimate connection is a motivating factor in romantic investment. In a series of studies, participants assessed risks of rejection and opportunity for connection from hypothetical future partners, current partners, and ex-partners. Beyond concerns about rejection, people were particularly likely to pine for an ex-partner if they perceived that ex-partner as having the potential for close, meaningful connection. Rewarding ex-partners garnered particularly strong feelings of love and longing when future/current partners were perceived to be lacking in such intimacy potential. These results suggest that the need to belong may motivate pursuit of intimacy in a hydraulic fashion: When connection is lacking in one relationship, the draw of intimacy from another becomes particularly strong.

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Posted on Jan 22, 2013 by admin

Emily Impett, and Amy Muise, with their co-authors Laura Saslow, from the University of California, San Francisco, and Matt Dubin, from Claremont Graduate University, have published a paper entitled "Can You See How Happy We Are? Facebook Images and Relationship Satisfaction." This paper uses Facebook profile pictures as a novel way to tap into romantic partner's merged identities. In three studies, a cross-sectional study, a longitudinal study, and a 14-day daily experience study, they found that individuals who posted dyadic profile pictures on Facebook reported feeling more satisfied with their relationships and closer to their partners than individuals who did not. The authors also found that on days when people felt more satisfied in their relationship, they were more likely to share relationship-relevant information on Facebook. This study expands our knowledge of how online behavioral traces give us powerful insight into the satisfaction and closeness of important social bonds.

Click this link for a look into the article.
Click here to download a pdf of the article.

Posted on Jan 22, 2013 by admin