Love and the commitment problem in romantic relations and friendship.

On the basis of the proposition that love promotes commitment, the authors predicted that love would motivate approach, have a distinct signal, and correlate with commitment-enhancing processes when relationships are threatened. The authors studied romantic partners and adolescent opposite-sex friends during interactions that elicited love and threatened the bond. As expected, the experience of love correlated with approach-related states (desire, sympathy). Providing evidence for a nonverbal display of love, four affiliation cues (head nods, Duchenne smiles, gesticulation, forward leans) correlated with self-reports and partner estimates of love. Finally, the experience and display of love correlated with commitment-enhancing processes (e.g., constructive conflict resolution, perceived trust) when the relationship was threatened. Discussion focused on love, positive emotion, and relationships.

Who attains social status? Effects of personality and physical attractiveness in social groups.

One of the most important goals and outcomes of social life is to attain status in the groups to which we belong. Such face-to-face status is defined by the amount of respect, influence, and prominence each member enjoys in the eyes of the others. Three studies investigated personological determinants of status in social groups (fraternity, sorority, and dormitory), relating the Big Five personality traits and physical attractiveness to peer ratings of status. High Extraversion substantially predicted elevated status for both sexes. High Neuroticism, incompatible with male gender norms, predicted lower status in men. None of the other Big Five traits predicted status. These effects were independent of attractiveness, which predicted higher status only in men. Contrary to previous claims, women's status ordering was just as stable as men's but emerged later. Discussion focuses on personological pathways to attaining status and on potential mediators.

Fear, anger, and risk.

Drawing on an appraisal-tendency framework (J. S. Lerner & D. Keltner, 2000), the authors predicted and found that fear and anger have opposite effects on risk perception. Whereas fearful people expressed pessimistic risk estimates and risk-averse choices, angry people expressed optimistic risk estimates and risk-seeking choices. These opposing patterns emerged for naturally occurring and experimentally induced fear and anger. Moreover, estimates of angry people more closely resembled those of happy people than those of fearful people. Consistent with predictions, appraisal tendencies accounted for these effects: Appraisals of certainty and control moderated and (in the case of control) mediated the emotion effects. As a complement to studies that link affective valence to judgment outcomes, the present studies highlight multiple benefits of studying specific emotions.

Just teasing: a conceptual analysis and empirical review.

Drawing on E. Goffman's concepts of face and strategic interaction, the authors define a tease as a playful provocation in which one person comments on something relevant to the target. This approach encompasses the diverse behaviors labeled teasing, clarifies previous ambiguities, differentiates teasing from related practices, and suggests how teasing can lead to hostile or affiliative outcomes. The authors then integrate studies of the content of teasing. Studies indicate that norm violations and conflict prompt teasing. With development, children tease in playful ways, particularly around the ages of 11 and 12 years, and understand and enjoy teasing more. Finally, consistent with hypotheses concerning contextual variation in face concerns, teasing is more frequent and hostile when initiated by high-status and familiar others and men, although gender differences are smaller than assumed. The authors conclude by discussing how teasing varies according to individual differences and culture.

Expressions of positive emotion in women's college yearbook pictures and their relationship to personality and life outcomes across adulthood.

To test hypotheses about positive emotion, the authors examined the relationship of positive emotional expression in women's college pictures to personality, observer ratings, and life outcomes. Consistent with the notion that positive emotions help build personal resources, positive emotional expression correlated with the self-reported personality traits of affiliation, competence, and low negative emotionality across adulthood and predicted changes in competence and negative emotionality. Observers rated women displaying more positive emotion more favorably on several personality dimensions and expected interactions with them to be more rewarding; thus, demonstrating the beneficial social consequences of positive emotions. Finally, positive emotional expression predicted favorable outcomes in marriage and personal well-being up to 30 years later. Controlling for physical attractiveness and social desirability had little impact on these findings.

Influence of restricted food intake on estrous cycles and pseudopregnancies in dogs.

OBJECTIVE: To examine effects of restricted food intake on estrous cycle frequency, interestrus interval, and pseudopregnancy prevalence in dogs. ANIMALS: 28 female Labrador Retrievers. PROCEDURE: Dogs were paired by body weight when they were 6 weeks old and fed so that the limit-fed pair-mate received 75% of the amount of food offered to its maintenance-fed counterpart. Estrous cycle, interestrus interval, and pseudopregnancy data were recorded. RESULTS: Mean annual frequency of estrous cycles and duration of interestrus intervals did not differ between feeding groups. Prevalence of clinically evident pseudopregnancy was significantly greater among females that were maintenance fed, although results of endocrinologic testing did not identify a mechanism for this observation. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Pseudopregnancy in dogs can be influenced by physiologic factors related to nutrition. Clinicians should consider a variety of physiologic and environmental factors when evaluating reproductive function in dogs.

Teasing in hierarchical and intimate relations.

Following E. Goffman's (1967) face threat analysis of social interaction, it was hypothesized that the aggressive, playful content of teasing would vary according to social status and relational satisfaction, personality, role as teaser or target, and gender. These 4 hypotheses were tested in analyses of the teasing among fraternity members (Study 1) and romantic couples (Study 2). Consistent with a face threat analysis of teasing, low-status fraternity members and satisfied romantic partners teased in more prosocial ways, defined by reduced face threat and increased redressive action. Some findings indicate that disagreeable individuals teased in less prosocial ways, consistent with studies of bullying. Targets reported more negative emotion than teasers. Although female and male romantic partners teased each other in similar ways, women found being the target of teasing more aversive, consistent with previous speculation.

Interpersonal ambivalence, perceived relationship adjustment, and conjugal loss.

Ambivalence is widely assumed to prolong grief. To examine this hypothesis, the authors developed a measure of ambivalence based on an algorithmic combination of separate positive and negative evaluations of one's spouse. Preliminary construct validity was evidenced in relation to emotional difficulties and to facial expressions of emotion. Bereaved participants, relative to a nonbereaved comparison sample, recollected their relationships as better adjusted but were more ambivalent. Ambivalence about spouses was generally associated with increased distress and poorer perceived health but did not predict long-term grief outcome once initial outcome was controlled. In contrast, initial grief and distress predicted increased ambivalence and decreased Dyadic Adjustment Scale scores at 14 months postloss, regardless of initial scores on these measures. Limitations and implications of the findings are discussed.

A study of laughter and dissociation: distinct correlates of laughter and smiling during bereavement.

Laughter facilitates the adaptive response to stress by increasing the psychological distance from distress and by enhancing social relations. To test these hypotheses, the authors related measures of bereaved adults' laughter and smiling 6 months postloss to measures of their (a) subjective emotion and dissociation from distress, (b) social relations, and (c) responses they evoked in others. Duchenne laughter, which involves orbicularis oculi muscle action, related to self-reports of reduced anger and increased enjoyment, the dissociation of distress, better social relations, and positive responses from strangers, whereas non-Duchenne laughter did not. Lending credence to speculations in the ethological literature, Duchenne laughter correlated with different intrapersonal and interpersonal responses than Duchenne smiles. Discussion focuses on the relevance of these findings to theories of positive emotion.

Embarrassment: its distinct form and appeasement functions.

The authors address 2 questions about embarrassment. First, Is embarrassment a distinct emotion? The evidence indicates that the antecedents, experience, and display of embarrassment, and to a limited extent its autonomic physiology, are distinct from shame, guilt, and amusement and share the dynamic, temporal characteristics of emotion. Second, What are the theoretical accounts of embarrassment? Three accounts focus on the causes of embarrassment, positioning that it follows the loss of self-esteem, concern for others' evaluations, or absence of scripts to guide interactions. A fourth account focuses on the effects of the remedial actions of embarrassment, which correct preceding transgressions. A fifth account focuses on the functional parallels between embarrassment and nonhuman appeasement. The discussion focuses on unanswered questions about embarrassment.

Facial expressions of emotion and the course of conjugal bereavement.

The common assumption that emotional expression mediates the course of bereavement is tested. Competing hypotheses about the direction of mediation were formulated from the grief work and social-functional accounts of emotional expression. Facial expressions of emotion in conjugally bereaved adults were coded at 6 months post-loss as they described their relationship with the deceased; grief and perceived health were measured at 6, 14, and 25 months. Facial expressions of negative emotion, in particular anger, predicted increased grief at 14 months and poorer perceived health through 25 months. Facial expressions of positive emotion predicted decreased grief through 25 months and a positive but nonsignificant relation to perceived health. Predictive relations between negative and positive emotional expression persisted when initial levels of self-reported emotion, grief, and health were statistically controlled, demonstrating the mediating role of facial expressions of emotion in adjustment to conjugal loss. Theoretical and clinical implications are discussed.

Benign familial hyperphosphatasemia in Siberian huskies.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate benign familial hyperphosphatasemia involving serum alkaline phosphatase (SAP) in pups. DESIGN: Pups with markedly increased SAP activity were evaluated and compared with unaffected siblings, and with other unaffected Siberian Husky pups from the same colony. ANIMALS: 8 related litters of Siberian Husky pups (n = 56). PROCEDURE: At ages 11 and 16 weeks, pups were given physical examinations and blood was obtained for hematologic and serum biochemical analyses (including electrolytes and isoenzymes of alkaline phosphatase), ionized calcium concentration, and serum parathyroid hormone concentration. Diet, growth and health performance, skeletal radiographs, and genealogical data also were evaluated. RESULTS: Of 42 pups tested, 17 had markedly high total SAP values. Mean total SAP activity of affected pups at ages 11 and 16 weeks was over 5 times greater than mean total SAP activity of unaffected siblings and other unaffected Siberian Husky pups of the same age (P < 0.001). Clinical, radiologic, and biochemical evaluation of the subjects revealed no other abnormal findings. The source of the increased SAP activity was characterized in 5 affected pups as bone isoenzyme. The mode of inheritance could be deduced from the data, but the trait clearly is familial and autosomal. CONCLUSION: The condition described in the family of Siberian Huskies bears similarity to human benign, persistent, familial hyperphosphatasemia. CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Benign familial hyperphosphatasemia should be considered in the differential diagnosis of markedly increased SAP activity in young dogs.

Facial expressions of emotion and psychopathology in adolescent boys.

On the basis of the widespread belief that emotions underpin psychological adjustment, the authors tested 3 predicted relations between externalizing problems and anger, internalizing problems and fear and sadness, and the absence of externalizing problems and social-moral emotion (embarrassment). Seventy adolescent boys were classified into 1 of 4 comparison groups on the basis of teacher reports using a behavior problem checklist: internalizers, externalizers, mixed (both internalizers and externalizers), and nondisordered boys. The authors coded the facial expressions of emotion shown by the boys during a structured social interaction. Results supported the 3 hypotheses: (a) Externalizing adolescents showed increased facial expressions of anger, (b) on 1 measure internalizing adolescents showed increased facial expressions of fear, and (c) the absence of externalizing problems (or nondisordered classification) was related to increased displays of embarrassment. Discussion focused on the relations of these findings to hypotheses concerning the role of impulse control in antisocial behavior.

When avoiding unpleasant emotions might not be such a bad thing: verbal-autonomic response dissociation and midlife conjugal bereavement.

It has been widely assumed that emotional avoidance during bereavement leads to either prolonged grief, delayed grief, or delayed somatic symptoms. To test this view, as well as a contrasting adaptive hypothesis, emotional avoidance was measured 6 months after a conjugal loss as negative verbal-autonomic response dissociation (low self-rated negative emotion coupled with heightened cardiovascular activity) and compared with grief measured at 6 and 14 months. The negative dissociation score evidenced reliability and validity but did not evidence the assumed link to severe grief. Rather, consistent with the adaptive hypothesis, negative dissociation at 6 months was associated with minimal grief symptoms across 14 months. Negative dissociation scores were also linked to initially high levels of somatic symptoms, which dropped to a low level by 14 months. Possible explanations for the initial cost and long-term adaptive quality of emotional avoidance during bereavement, as well as implications and limitations of the findings, are discussed.

Beyond simple pessimism: effects of sadness and anger on social perception.

In keeping with cognitive appraisal models of emotion, it was hypothesized that sadness and anger would exert different influences on causal judgments. Two experiments provided initial support for this hypothesis. Sad Ss perceived situationally caused events as more likely (Experiment 1) and situational forces more responsible for an ambiguous event (Experiment 2) than angry Ss, who, in contrast, perceived events caused by humans as more likely and other people as more responsible. Experiments 3, 4, and 5 showed that the experience of these emotions, rather than their cognitive constituents, mediates these effects. The nonemotional exposure to situational or human agency information did not influence causal judgments (Experiment 3), whereas the induction of sadness and anger without explicit agency information did (Experiments 4 and 5). Discussion is focused on the influence of emotion on social judgment.

Ovulation without cervical stimulation in domestic cats.

Progesterone was measured by radioimmunoassay of serum collected at monthly intervals for 9 months (April-December) in 24 adult female American short-hair cats (age 2.5-11 years, mean 7.4 years); 20 cats were intact, and four were ovariohysterectomized controls. One of the 20 intact queens was ovariohysterectomized after 7 months, when pyometra was diagnosed. Cats could see and hear one another, and could see and hear male cats housed individually in the same room. Direct contact with other cats was prevented. Tactile stimulation of the cats' hindquarters and perineal regions by handlers was avoided. Serum progesterone concentration > or = 4.8 nmol l-1 was defined as evidence of ovulation. This concentration was exceeded in seven of 20 intact queens (35%) at one or more occurrences of non-coital ovulation; there were 13 such occurrences in all (1-3 per queen). Serum progesterone concentration ranged from 0.2 to 103.4 (mean 14.09 +/- 2.0) nmol l-1 in these seven cats, and was significantly greater than concentrations in the other intact and neutered cats. In the remaining 13 intact and four ovariohysterectomized cats, serum progesterone concentrations ranged from 0.2 to 3.2 (mean 1.24 +/- 1.46) nmol l-1. These data suggest that, at least as far as cats housed in proximity to one another are concerned, intact female cats do not always require cervical stimulation to induce ovulation.