Narcissism in Romantic Relationships: Using Communal Activation to Promote Relationship Enhancing Attitudes.

Background: People with elevated vulnerable narcissism (VN) or grandiose narcissism (GN) trait levels tend to experience greater difficulties in their romantic relationships than their counterparts with lower levels of VN or GN. Although there are no evidence-based approaches to alter the interpersonal behavior of persons with VN or GN traits, experimental research shows that it is possible to produce relationship-enhancing attitudes in people with GN traits through communal activation (CA). Objective: We examined whether a CA manipulation in the context of relationship education improves attitudes that promote romantic relationship health, and whether VN and GN would moderate these associations. Method: Participants (Nwomen =148, Nmen = 71) watched psychoeducational videos on relationships and were randomly assigned to either answer questions about the videos' content (control group) or to complete CA exercises (experimental group) in addition to questionnaires to measure empathy, criticism, commitment, desire for closeness, and communication (positive interaction, demand/withdraw communication, criticize/defend communication) before and after the experimental manipulation. Results: There was a main effect of condition, such that, relative to the control group, fewer improvements in perceived demand/withdraw communication were observed in the experimental condition. VN, but not GN, moderated the link between condition and commitment, demand/withdraw and criticize/defend communication, such that elevated VN levels predicted the most improvement in commitment, demand/withdraw and criticize/defend communication in the experimental condition. Discussion: We conclude with recommendations to adopt ego-enhancing reinforcement for communal behaviors with clients who endorse GN traits and considering less personally relevant CA exercises with clients who endorse VN traits.

Contributions of Demand/Withdraw Processes and Alcohol Consumption on Emotional Flooding in Distressed Violent versus Distressed Non-Violent Couples.

Purpose: Although alcohol-related intimate partner violence (IPV) is a serious public health problem, the mechanisms underlying this association are poorly understood. For instance, prior research has shown differences in distressed violent (DV) and distressed nonviolent (DNV) couples' demand/withdraw communication and the extent to which they become emotionally flooded (i.e., physiologically aroused) in response to conflict. Additionally, alcohol use is associated with increased demand/withdraw communication, IPV, and emotional flooding. Therefore, the present study sought to clarify the association between demand/withdraw communication and emotional flooding among relationally couples who use alcohol and who do and do not experience IPV. Methods: Relationally distressed couples (Mage =30.1 years) reported on their physical aggression, demand/withdraw communication, emotional flooding, and total number of drinks during the past six months. Couples were denoted as DV (N = 58) if at least one partner reported IPV and DNV (N = 29) if neither partner reported IPV. Actor-partner interdependence modeling was used to test whether couple type (DV versus DNV) moderates the link between demand/withdraw behavior and emotional flooding. Results: With one exception, alcohol use was unrelated to any of the processes under investigation in the current study. Moreover, men's and women's report of a woman-demand/man-withdraw pattern and man-demand/woman-withdraw pattern, respectively, were positively associated with each partner's own emotional flooding. Couple type (DV vs DNV) did not moderate these associations. Conclusions: The present results highlight the need for sensitive measures that can capture the nuanced processes that underlie IPV in couples who use alcohol.

Heart rate variability may index emotion dysregulation in alcohol-related intimate partner violence.

Introduction: Intimate partner violence is a serious public health problem that costs the United States more than $4.1 billion in direct medical and mental health costs alone. Furthermore, alcohol use contributes to more frequent and more severe intimate partner violence incidents. Compounding this problem is treatments for intimate partner violence have largely been socially informed and demonstrate poor efficacy. We argue that improvements in intimate partner treatment will be gained through systematic scientific study of mechanisms through which alcohol is related to intimate partner violence. We hypothesize that poor emotional and behavioral regulation as indexed by the respiratory sinus arrythymia measure of heart rate variability is a key mechanism between alcohol use and intimate partner violence. Method: The present study is a placebo-controlled alcohol administration study with an emotion-regulation task that investigated heart rate variability in distressed violent and distressed nonviolent partners. Results: We found a main effect for alcohol on heart rate variability. We also found a four-way interaction whereby distressed violent partners exhibited significant reductions in heart rate variability when acutely intoxicated and attempting to not respond to their partners evocative stimuli. Discussion: These findings suggest that distressed violent partners may adopt maladaptive emotion regulation strategies such as rumination and suppression when intoxicated and attempting to not respond to partner conflict. Such strategies of emotion regulation have been shown to have many deleterious emotional, cognitive and social consequences for individuals who adopt them, possibly including intimate partner violence. These findings also highlight an important novel treatment target for intimate partner violence and suggest that novel treatments should focus on teaching effective conflict resolution and emotion-regulation strategies that may be augmented by biobehavioral treatments such as heart rate variability biofeedback.

Daily relationship satisfaction and depressed mood: The moderating roles of support satisfaction, over- and underprovision.

Research on the impact of romantic partner social support on depressed mood and relationship satisfaction focuses primarily on the discrepancies between actual and desired frequency of support behaviors, which are conceptualized as social support over- and underprovision. However, frequency counts of support behaviors neglect other potentially important qualities of those behaviors, such as whether the support behaviors, however frequent, are satisfying, or even occurring in relevant domains. In the present study, 62 opposite-sex couples completed daily online questionnaires to assess their depressed mood, relationship satisfaction, actual and desired frequency of emotional/esteem, informational, tangible, and physical support as well as satisfaction with their partner's support. Results of lagged, multilevel moderation analyses showed that satisfaction with prior-day informational, physical, and tangible support was associated with a greater decrease in relationship satisfaction if partners had reported an increase in prior-day depressive symptoms. In addition, overprovision of prior-day tangible support mitigated the negative impact of prior-day depressed mood on relationship satisfaction and vice versa. These results are consistent with prior research on the bidirectional nature of the association between depressed mood and relationship satisfaction, and clarify the role of frequency of and satisfaction with support behaviors in relationships. Recommendations for couples therapists working with depressed partners focus on emphasizing gradual changes in support behaviors to avoid overwhelming the partner reporting depressed mood and encouraging tangible support provision between partners who report depressed or relational distress. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Improvements in closeness, communication, and psychological distress mediate effects of couple therapy for veterans.

OBJECTIVE: Empirically based couple therapy results in significant improvements in relationship satisfaction for the average couple; however, further research is needed to identify mediators that lead to change and to ensure that improvements in mediators predict subsequent-not just concurrent-relationship satisfaction. In addition, given that much of the current literature on couple therapy examines outcomes in a research environment, it is important to examine mediators in a treatment-as-usual setting. METHOD: To address these questions, 161 heterosexual couples (322 individuals) received treatment-as-usual couple therapy at one of two Veteran Administration Medical Centers (M = 5.0 and 13.0 sessions at the two sites) and were assessed before every session. The majority of couples were married (85%) and had been together for a median of 7.8 years (SD = 13). Participants were primarily White, non-Hispanic (69%), African American (21%), and White, Hispanic/Latino (8%). RESULTS: Individuals' own self-reported improvements in communication, emotional closeness, and psychological distress (but not frequency of behaviors targeted in treatment) mediated the effect of treatment on their subsequent relationship satisfaction. When all significant mediators were examined simultaneously, improvements in men's and women's emotional closeness and men's psychological distress independently mediated subsequent relationship satisfaction. In contrast, improvements in earlier relationship satisfaction mediated the effect of treatment only on subsequent psychological distress. CONCLUSION: This study identifies unique mediators of treatment effects and shows that gains in mechanisms predict subsequent relationship satisfaction. Future investigations should focus on the role of emotional closeness and psychological distress-constructs that have often been neglected-in couple therapy. (PsycINFO Database Record

Couples' agreement on presenting problems predicts engagement and outcomes in problem-focused couple therapy.

This study investigated the impact of couples' agreement regarding relationship problems at therapy intake on subsequent treatment engagement and success. One hundred and 47 couples seeking marital therapy at one of two Veteran Administration Medical Centers completed questionnaires assessing relationship satisfaction and were asked to indicate their three biggest relationship concerns. Agreement on relationship concern was defined as one person's list containing the partner's top relationship problem. Pretreatment agreement on relationship problems was unrelated to treatment course or outcomes when the therapy was longer and more integrative in nature. However, when couples received a brief, problem-focused treatment, agreement predicted greater engagement in therapy process and more positive treatment outcomes. Specifically, couples who were in agreement were more likely to attend the minimum number of required sessions and were more likely to be assessed as having received a full course of therapy by their treatment provider. Additionally, partners who agreed with each other were more likely to experience clinically significant changes during treatment. Taken together, results suggest that therapists and researchers should consider assessing agreement on relationship problems at the beginning of treatment and potentially suggest that couples who perceive their relationship differently should receive more integrative treatment. Future research is needed to examine the most effective sequencing for addressing differing, presenting problems as well as the mechanisms through which disagreement on presenting problems impacts treatment course and outcomes.