Substituting the forest for the trees: social networks and the prediction of romantic relationship state and fate.

This research focused on perceptions held by heterosexual couples' friendship network concerning the couple's relationship. In a three-wave longitudinal study, we examined (a) whether these perceptions were similar to the couple's views of the relationship, (b) whether they predicted current relationship state and future fate, and (c) how they compared with the couple's perceptions in predicting fate. Consistent with within-dyad idealization, results from a North American sample indicated that network perceptions of relationship state were significantly more negative than those held by a couple. Although both the couples' and the total networks' perceptions predicted fate, friends of the female couple member were particularly successful at predicting relationship dissolution. An examination of possible mechanisms whereby friends may come to possess particularly predictive perceptions supported the role of couple-disclosure in this process.

Commitment, pro-relationship behavior, and trust in close relationships.

The present work advances and tests an interdependence-based model of the associations among commitment, pro-relationship behavior, and trust. Findings from two longitudinal studies revealed good support for model predictions. Commitment-inspired acts such as accommodation and willingness to sacrifice provide diagnostic information regarding a partner's pro-relationship motives. Individuals come to trust their partners when they perceive that their partners have enacted pro-relationship behaviors, departing from their direct self-interest for the good of the relationship. The results of mediation analyses are consistent with a model of mutual cyclical growth in which (a) dependence promotes strong commitment, (b) commitment promotes pro-relationship acts, (c) pro-relationship acts are perceived by the partner, (d) the perception of pro-relationship acts enhances the partner's trust, and (e) trust increases the partner's willingness to become dependent on the relationship. Auxiliary analyses revealed that self-reported attachment style does not account for substantial variance beyond the features of interdependence that form the basis for the present model.

Studying the retention of rural physicians.

Rural communities and policy-makers struggle with efforts to enhance the retention of rural physicians. Research available to guide these efforts is often weak methodologically and thus may be pointing retention efforts in nonproductive directions. This article discusses a range of methodologic issues encountered in rural physician retention studies for the purpose of strengthening future studies. Ideal study approaches to answer causal questions, including questions about the "causes" of rural physician retention, must demonstrate good internal validity, for which chance, bias, and confounding are accounted. Retention studies that rely simply on asking physicians why they stay or leave rural areas can be useful at times, but are too prone to bias and their findings difficult to verify. Simply identifying what physicians find satisfying or dissatisfying about rural work also will not reliably reveal why they stay or leave, a related but still distinct question. Stronger approaches to studying retention include the traditional quantitative study--in which retention factors are identified when they are statistically related to physicians' retention, and the increasingly popular qualitative study--in which retention issues are revealed through prolonged, in-depth interactions with physicians. This article also discusses various definitions of retention, the use of survival curves to present retention findings, and the importance of studying retention in inception cohorts. The benefits and downside of studying retention with prospective and retrospective study designs are described.

Querying physicians' beliefs in career choice studies: the limitations of introspective causal reports.

Numerous studies in family medicine literature explore the determinants of physicians' specialty and practice location choices. A research approach frequently used in these studies has been to ask study physicians what led them to make specific career choices, labeled here as the introspective causal reports study design. This paper explores the validity of introspective causal reports and their usefulness in making health manpower policy recommendations. The accuracy of people's beliefs about the causes of their own behaviors is examined, and social psychology literature is drawn upon in this examination. Data are presented characterizing the use of introspective causal reports in recent family medicine literature. Recommendations are made for stronger research designs in future physician career choice determinant studies.