Three variables will be discussed -- social integration,
social support, and negative interaction.  Each characterizes
a different aspect of our social relationships.  I will argue that
each is associated with our health and well-being; that each
influences health through different mechanisms; and that
associations between these variables and health are not
spurious findings attributable to our personalities.  I will also
address marriage as a special case whose effects on health
partly reflect integration, support and negative interactions.
.

.		View PowerPoint Slideshow
.		Listen to Audio (MP3 File, 42 minutes, 21MB)

.

Our work involves making a distinction between children's
acceptance by peers versus children's participation in close
friendships.  Both acceptance and friendship play a role in
children's emotional well being (e.g., loneliness) and school
adjustment. After briefly discussing this background, I will
describe a proposed taxonomy of the social tasks children
and adults face in making and keeping friends.  The empirical
work I will describe next focuses on some of these friendship
tasks: how children and college students respond to conflicts
of interests in friendship, how children respond to the
challenges of giving and receiving help, and how children and
college students respond to the challenges that they face
when friends disappoint (e.g., violate widely held friendship
expectations). Responding effectively to these tasks involves
not just an effective behavioral repertoire (social skills), but
having adaptive beliefs and understandings about friendship,
making relationship promoting interpretations of other
peoples' behavior in conflict of interest situations, and having
adaptive relationship goals in specific social situations.
The presentation will conclude by discussing the need for
intervention research on friendship competencies.
.

.		View PowerPoint Slideshow
.		Listen to Audio (MP3 File, 64 minutes, 31MB)

.

A definition and examples of relational aggression as well
as an overview of available theory and research on the
antecedents, correlates, and outcomes associated with
these types of hostile behaviors will be provided.

Topics to be covered include:
1) gender differences
2) friendships
3) antipathies
4) romantic relationships
5) parent-child relationships
6) sibling relationships
7) social-information processing patterns
8) social-psychological adjustment; and
9) heritability
 

.		View PowerPoint Slideshow
.		Listen to Audio (MP3 File, 52 minutes, 26MB)

Close relationships are a primary context for human
development that changes from infancy to adulthood in
content and significance.  This talk will address the
growing body of evidence that adult relationships are rooted
in earlier relationships with both family members and peers.
Drawing from research on 180 individuals followed from
birth to age 30, I will illustrate the relevance of a
longitudinal-developmental perspective in accounting for
satisfaction, stability, subjective emotional experiences,
and conflict resolution in dating and partnered couples along
with implications for physical health and well being of the
partners.
.

.		View PowerPoint Slideshow
.		Listen to Audio (MP3 File, 62 minutes, 31MB)

Inspired by attachment theory, we tested a series of
theoretically-derived predictions about connections between
attachment working models (attachment to one’s parents
assessed by the Adult Attachment Interview; AAI) and the
effectiveness of specific types of caregiving spontaneously
displayed by dating partners during a stressful conflict
resolution discussion. Each partner first completed the AAI.
One week later, each couple was videotaped while they tried
to resolve a current problem in their relationship. Trained
observers then rated each interaction for the degree to which:
(a) emotional, instrumental, and physical caregiving behaviors
were displayed, (b) care recipients appeared calmed by their
partners’ caregiving attempts, and (c) each partner appeared
distressed during the discussion. Individuals who had more
secure representations of their parents were rated as being
more calmed if/when their partners provided greater emotional
care, especially if they were rated as more distressed.
Conversely, individuals who had more insecure (dismissive)
representations of their parents reacted more favorably to
instrumental caregiving behaviors from their partners,
especially if they were more distressed. The broader
theoretical and applied implications of these findings will
be discussed.
.

.		View PowerPoint Slideshow
.		Listen to Audio (MP3 File, 37 minutes, 18MB)