Interpersonal Intimacy Research Articles

Predicting Family Stability Based on Emotion Regulation and Sexual Self-Efficacy: The Mediating Role of Marital Intimacy

Background: Consolidating families is a crucial strategy that can enhance and ultimately solidify marital relationships. Factors such as emotions, personality traits, and interpersonal intimacy significantly influence family stability, contributing to mental health promotion and overall societal happiness. Thus, this study aims to predict family stability through emotional regulation and sexual self-efficacy while examining the mediating role of marital intimacy. Methods: This descriptive-correlational research targeted all married individuals in Yazd City (with a minimum of five years marriage) in 2022. A total of 200 participants were selected using convenience sampling methods. The study employed questionnaires assessing family stability(Low scores in the family stability questionnaire indicate greater stability), sexual self-efficacy, emotion regulation, and marital intimacy. Data analysis was conducted using Amos and SPSS software packages. Results: The findings revealed that there was no statistically significant relationship between cognitive reappraisal and suppression considering family stability (p > 0.05). Conversely, a significant negative correlation was found between family stability and sexual self-efficacy (p < 0.05). Furthermore, a positive and significant association was between sexual self-efficacy and cognitive reappraisal, while a negative and significant correlation was observed between marital intimacy and suppression (p < 0.05). Sexual self-efficacy demonstrated a significant direct negative impact on family stability (β = -0.22). In addition, both sexual self-efficacy (β = 0.16) and cognitive reappraisal (β = 0.66) exhibited significant and direct positive effects, whereas suppression (β = -0.46) had a significant direct and negative effect on marital intimacy. Conclusion: Enhancing sexual self-efficacy along with marital intimacy and effective emotion regulation among couples can create favorable conditions for family stability and consolidation, marking an important advancement in promoting lasting marital relationships.

A Comparison of People’s Attachments to Romantic Partners and Pet Cats

ABSTRACT The purposes of our study were to investigate the suitability of human attachment concepts (anxiety and avoidance) in describing attachment to cats and to directly compare people’s attachment to their romantic partner with that to a pet cat. We used the 12-item Experiences in Close Relationships Scale-Short form (ECR-S) and the same measure adapted for cats. Items in the two measures had identical wording; only the attachment figure differed (e.g., “I feel close to my romantic partner” and “I feel close to my cat”). Items referred to a specific attachment figure (e.g., “my cat,” not “cats”). We received 453 valid responses to our online survey from participants in a romantic relationship who also had one cat. Factor analysis of the adapted ECR-S (for cats) did not result in the same factors as the ECR-S for humans. However, the six components of attachment anxiety (fear of interpersonal rejection or abandonment, excessive need for approval from others, and distress when one’s partner is unavailable or unresponsive) and avoidance (fear of dependence and interpersonal intimacy, excessive need for self-reliance, and reluctance to self-disclose) were structurally similar for both relationships. Although participants sought some degree of emotional support from their cats, they did not necessarily need reassurance from their cat or feel distress when their cat was unavailable to them the way they might about a romantic partner. The ECR needs further testing and external validation to be adapted for the human–cat relationship. Future research could investigate why the responses from cat owners do not result in the same attachment factors for cats as for romantic relationships.

Secrets as Storytelling: Family Histories and Interpersonal Intimacy

Keeping and telling secrets are acts of intimacy. This article explores secret-telling-friendly methodologies, capable of encouraging individuals to share their life stories in their own terms, with particular episodes, emotional connections, protagonists, and also secrets. The openness of our research design played an important part in the identification of the role of secret-storytelling in the understanding of life. This was enhanced by methodological tools mobilized during the biographical interviews with individuals of families (the life calendar and the socio-genealogical tree). It testifies the importance of the research design, and method lato sensu, in the sociological analysis of secrets. Each secret connects to the person’s biography, social positioning, historical context, and generational anchor, contributing to understand more about wider social, gender, family, interpersonal, and normative values of given time-space coordinates. Secrets are narrative and emotional devices to build biographical narratives and chronologize life stories, bridging biography and society, exemplarily.

A Few Close Friends? Adolescent Friendships’ Effect on Internalizing Symptoms Is Serially Mediated by Desire for More Friends and Social Goal Orientation

Interpersonal connection is a fundamental human motivation, and the extent to which it is fulfilled is a strong predictor of symptoms of internalizing disorders such as social anxiety and depression, perhaps especially during the “social reorienting” period of adolescence. However, little is known about the contribution to this effect of the individual’s social motivations, which are intensified during adolescence. Furthermore, social goal orientation – an individual’s priorities and intentions in social interactions – is an important predictor of vulnerability to internalizing symptoms. Adolescents spend most of their waking lives in classrooms, bounded social networks with a limited pool of candidates for befriending. This study investigated whether friendships within one’s class protects against internalizing symptoms in part by reducing the desire for more classmate friendships, which may tend to promote maladaptive social goals. Participants were 423 young adolescents (M age = 13.2, sd = 0.52 years; 49.4% girls). As predicted, adolescents’ number of reciprocated classroom friendships had a protective effect on internalizing symptoms which was serially mediated by desire for more such friendships, and social goal orientation. However, only demonstration-avoidance goals significantly predicted internalizing symptoms. Unreciprocated friendship nominations were unexpectedly associated with stronger desire and more social anxiety symptoms. The results suggest that the effect of number of friends is mediated by the individual’s thoughts and feelings about their number of friendships, such that a strong desire for more friendships promotes maladaptive goals, oriented toward social status and consequently less oriented toward the cultivation of interpersonal intimacy with the friends they already have.

Smile Back at Me, But Only Once: Social Norms of Appropriate Nonverbal Intensity and Reciprocity Apply to Emoji Use

In computer-mediated communication, small graphical icons (emojis) can be used to compensate for the lack of nonverbal cues such as facial expressions or hand gestures. Accordingly, literature suggests that the use of emojis may also be subject to social norms—similar to nonverbal behavior in face-to-face interactions. However, actual empirical investigations into this assumption remain lacking. To remedy this research gap, I explored whether traditional norms of appropriate emotional intensity and reciprocity also apply to emoji usage. A first online experiment (N = 188) revealed that excessive emoji use in a first-contact scenario leads to diminished interpersonal outcomes, corresponding to the drawbacks of overly intense nonverbal displays in natural interactions. Proceeding to a different communicative stage, Experiment 2 (N = 242) explored nonverbal reciprocity with acquainted interaction partners. Inviting participants to reply to fictitious text messages (at varying levels of interpersonal intimacy), it was observed that stimulus messages containing more emojis also evoke stronger emoji use in return—indicating that principles of nonverbal attunement are in full effect during text-based online interactions.

Controlling for pleasure and risk: The experiences of sexuality and gender diverse people who use GHB.

GHB is used among some sexuality and gender diverse populations at elevated rates, however little qualitative research has explored GHB use among these populations with regards to diverse contexts, settings, practices, and experiences of use. Internationally, harms relating to GHB overdose appear to be increasing. Research outlining consumers' experiences of GHB-related pleasures and their strategies to reduce harms may inform GHB education and intervention responses. N=31 participants reporting three or more occasions of GHB use within the previous 12 months were recruited via digital advertising and snowball methods. Semi-structured interviews were conducted, data were transcribed and analysed in NVivo using a thematic framework analysis. Emergent themes were charted, and divergences and convergences were considered with regards to the sexuality and gender identities of participants. Pleasures associated with GHB were described in relation to the sensation of the GHB high and experiences of intimacy, and connection. GHB was used to enhance socialising and sex in domestic, private, and commercial venues. Participants prioritised terminology of 'control' when describing their practices associated with GHB dosing, measuring, timing and peer moderation. Most participants reported personal experience of GHB overdose with loss of consciousness. Participants' near-ubiquitous experience of GHB overdose highlights ongoing education needs around overdose prevention. Efforts must target people new to GHB use who appeared particularly susceptible to overdose. Inconsistencies in understandings around GHB overdose, the perceived severity of overdose and the differences between GHB and its precursors GBL and 1,4-BD, highlight potential focus areas of future education responses. Further research is required to better understand consumers' experiences of sexual violence in the context of GHB use.

A Network Public Opinion Trend Estimation Model Using a Scale-Free Network Algorithm

Online public opinion is gradually becoming an important medium that influences society’s mainstream direction in today’s period of rapid development of new media and network oversight. The propagation of public opinion on the Internet has become a serious issue affecting economic and social development, as well as national security. As a result, this research investigates the evolution of public opinion and the evolutionary stability strategy of groups. Furthermore, a scale-free network is introduced to develop a network public opinion propagation model based on the scale-free network to tackle the problem that the existing public opinion propagation model cannot fully reflect the law of public opinion propagation in real life. The model incorporates components such as external environmental influences, individual personality characteristics, and interpersonal intimacy, in addition to the law of public opinion dissemination in real society. This study uses MATLAB to carry out simulation and comparison analysis in order to test the model’s performance. Simulation findings reveal that this model’s stability is around 95.6 percent, and its highest accuracy is 94.3 percent, which is greater than that of the Krause–Hegselmann and Deffuant models. The obtained forms of public opinion are richer, and the results of public opinion evolution are more in line with the process of public opinion evolution in real society, thanks to this model’s ability to visually reflect the changes in individual opinions held over time in the process of public opinion evolution. It has practical implications for future studies.

EXPRESSION AND INTERPRETATION OF ATTRACTION AND INTERPERSONAL INTIMACY: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF FEMALE NONVERBAL BEHAVIOUR

The study investigates cross-cultural similarities and differences in the expression and interpretation of attraction and interpersonal intimacy. Nonverbal behaviors of American (North America; NUS = 170) and Ukrainian (Eastern Europe; NUA = 173) women were compared. Nonverbal behaviour was coded with respect to speech-related gestures, self-focused/other person focused touching behaviour, eye behaviour, facial expressions, and posture. The results showed that women’s choice is motivated by their intentions of (1) expressing attraction, interest, seduction, flirtatiousness, and excitement, (2) conveying submissiveness, little self-confidence, coyness, and embarrassment, (3) promoting small talk by greeting/parting rituals, (4) communicating self-disclosure/self-presentation. Although these intentions are similar in both cultures, the choice of nonverbal cues is different. These findings have implications for theorizing on cultural norms/gender stereotypes in a contemporary context of flirtation, courtship, and seduction.

The Impacts of Interpersonal Intimacy and Relational Aggression on Dating Violence of University Students

최근, 데이트폭력으로 인한 범죄가 많이 보고되고 있다. 이에 따라 본 연구는 데이트폭력에 영향을 미칠 것으로 보이는 대인관계 친밀감과 관계적 공격성 간의 관계와 영향요인을 파악하여 자기파괴적 행동의 데이트폭력을 예방하고 개입방안 마련을 위한 프로그램 개발 및 법의학적 교육중재 시 필요한 학문적 근거를 제시하고자 시도되었다. 국내에 거주하는 대학생 196명에게 친밀감, 관계적 공격성, 이성교제 중 데이트폭력 척도의 자기보고식 온라인 설문으로 자료를 수집하여 기술통계, 상관관계 및 다중회귀분석을 사용하여 최종 분석되었다. 데이트폭력에 미치는 영향요인을 분석하기 위한 단계적 다중회귀분석(F=113.69, p< .001)에서 신뢰감(β= &#8722;.11, p= .046)과 주도적 관계공격성 요인(β= .60, p< .001), 애정적 관계공격성 요인(β= .20, p< .001) 순으로 유의한 영향요인으로 밝혀졌다. 이 회귀분석 모형의 전체 설명력 값은 69.8%로 높았다. 이와 같이 데이트폭력에 미치는 영향요인으로 주도적 관계적 공격성과 애정적 관계공격성이 데이트폭력을 실행하게 하는 가장 중요한 영향요인으로 나타났다.

Sharing biosignals: An analysis of the experiential and communication properties of interpersonal psychophysiology

What is it like to hear another person’s heartbeat during communication? How would direct access to a person’s skin conductance influence our sense of interpersonal intimacy or trust? Can biosignal...

Adult attachment and engagement with fictional characters.

Adult attachment influences how people engage with stories, in terms of how immersed or transported they become into these narratives and the tendency to form close bonds with characters. This likely stems from the ability of stories and story characters to provide interpersonal intimacy without the threat of rejection. In Study 1, we expand on this work to examine how attachment relates to two previously uninvestigated aspects of character engagement: character identification and parasocial interactions. Taking a statistically conservative approach, controlling for broader traits, we demonstrate that the attachment dimensions of anxiety and avoidance differentially predict these forms of character engagement. A high-powered, pre-registered, Study 2 follows up on these results by examining the types of characters that are most appealing, based on one’s attachment orientation. Together, these studies demonstrate that attachment plays an essential role in both how we engage with characters and the types of characters to whom we are attracted.

Znaczenie intymności i zaangażowania interpersonalnego w regulacji dystansu w związkach miłosnych we wczesnej dorosłości

The aim of the theoretical and empirical studies presented in the article was to analyze the relationship between intimacy and interpersonal commitment experienced in love relationships during early adulthood. The study involved 172 participants asked completed Interpersonal Commitment Questionnaire and Intimacy Questionnaire. The results of the research confirmed the occurrence of a relationship between interpersonal commitment and experienced intimacy, but not in all their dimensions. It was also established that the length of the relationship does not matter for the dimensions of both experienced intimacy and interpersonal commitment. For some of them, the type of love relationship is significant.

The Queer Gift of Black Folk Double Consciousness in W. E. B. Du Bois's Detective Story "The Case"

The Queer Gift of Black Folk Double Consciousness in W. E. B. Du Bois's Detective Story "The Case" Erika Renée Williams (bio) W. E. B. Du Bois's theory of double consciousness, which he defines as "a problem" in the Euro-American imaginary, has long been understood to denote an alienated black subjectivity and an American body politic divided by racial caste. The white gaze, Du Bois instructs, has the potential to restrict the parameters of black subjectivity by barring black subjects from fully accessing their citizenship and expressing their humanity. In the opening chapter of his 1903 The Souls of Black Folk, "Of Our Spiritual Strivings," he recounts the childhood memory that perhaps occasioned his divided consciousness: that of a young white female classmate refusing the affection he offered with the gift of a "gorgeous" calling card.1 The incident leads him to realize that his blackness signals not approbation but abjection to many of his white compatriots and thus to see that they deem him a problem and not fully a person. Because he likens this experience of failed interpersonal, interracial affection to that of being cast out from his native land, Du Bois arguably suggests a parallel failed "romance," understood in its most capacious sense as any heightened exchange of intersubjective affect, between himself and the American nation writ large. In rendering the young white girl a symbol of an ungenerous and withholding white nation, Du Bois implicitly ties the development of individual states of black consciousness to the promise and pathos of black assimilation into a Euro-centrist American body politic, foregrounding the way interpersonal dynamics of intimacy shape collective processes of nation-building and implicitly rendering double consciousness a matter of misbegotten love. [End Page 27] Moreover, Du Bois's recounting of a childhood story of foreclosed "puppy love" to set up his theory of double consciousness in Souls marks his deployment of a literary trope that I term the "cross-caste romance." Drawing on Lisa L. Moore's work regarding the role of intercultural love in imagining and shaping the fabric of a nation, I define the cross-caste romance as an intimate relation between persons separated by differences (e.g., race, class, and gender) that are purportedly immutable but are in fact constructed, a relation that foregrounds the fragility of intersubjective exchange and the tenuousness of nation formation.2 Simultaneously a remainder of transatlantic slavery, a harbinger of antiracist and decolonial critique, and an object of metaphysical inquiry, double consciousness cannot be understood solely by way of history, politics, or philosophy. Rather, I argue that it must be approached through the framework of the story with which he introduces it and through its trope of failed interpersonal intimacy, which symbolizes not just the psycho-social alienation of black subjects but the broader material and sociopolitical divisions fracturing the United States. Indeed, Du Bois's various narrative projects, both fictional and nonfictional, describe the urgency of America's revaluation and acceptance of its ethnic others by using the language of intersubjective and intrasubjective intimacy—whether figured as romantic courtship or as other forms of love or eros. For Du Bois, the solution to the conundrum of the black subject's compulsory, divided consciousness is twofold: first, a robust process of black recovery and reclamation, premised partly on the recovery and reclamation of African ancestry and African folkways, and second, an attempt at some form of black assimilation, through which the black subject might "consent," with Motenian echoes, not to being reduced to a "single being" but rather to being incorporated into the American body politic while still maintaining some measure of cultural distinction.3 Du Bois suggests that black American subjects, once having taken sustenance from the legacy of "wasted, dispersed, or forgotten" African "genius," might then be freer to offer up the gifts—however conditional—of their affective labor.4 Like his anecdote in The Souls of Black Folk, Du Bois's forgotten 1907 detective story "The Case" frames double consciousness as a form of misbegotten love and in terms of the challenge of placing black self-love on a parallel track with black assimilation in the form of affective, intersubjective...

The effect of the similarity of personality types on military adaptation, psychological well-being and interpersonal intimacy in the dormitory organization of the trainees

The effect of the similarity of personality types on military adaptation, psychological well-being and interpersonal intimacy in the dormitory organization of the trainees

Soledad en la pareja y su relación con el apego

La soledad es un fenómeno con importantes repercusiones en la vida de quien la padece, impactando en su salud psicológica. Esta ha sido concebida como una experiencia desagradable relacionada con la necesidad de intimidad interpersonal no satisfecha, lo que implica un desequilibrio en el nivel de interacción socio-afectiva de un individuo, y ocurre cuando la red social del individuo es deficiente. Su medición se ha realizado a través de diferentes instrumentos, entre los que resalta, por sus características psicométricas, la Escala de Soledad Social y Emocional para Adultos (SELSA), que comprende la soledad en tres dominios sociales: pareja, familia y amigos. El objetivo de la presente investigación fue la validación psicométrica de la Escala de Soledad Social y Emocional para Adultos (SELSA) en el contexto de la relación de pareja, así como evaluar su relación con los estilos de apego en México. Para ello, se trabajó con una muestra no probabilística accidental de 194 parejas heterosexuales. El diseño del estudio fue de tipo instrumental, debido a que se realizó la validación de una nueva medida de soledad; y correlacional, al realizarse un análisis de correlación de Pearson entre los factores obtenidos de soledad y los estilos de apego. Como resultado a la validación se obtuvieron 5 factores: acompañamiento de los amigos, acompañamiento de la pareja, acompañamiento de la familia, sentimiento de vacío y añoranza, de los cuales, los dos últimos no habían sido obtenidos en la versión original. Finalmente, al analizar las relaciones entre estilos de apego y soledad, se observaron datos interesantes que señalan la importancia del acompañamiento de la pareja cuando se tiene apego seguro, y de la familia y amigos cuando se tienen apegos ansiosos o evitantes, además de mayores índices de sentimientos de vacío y añoranza.

Virtual intimacy in human-embodied conversational agent interactions: the influence of multimodality on its perception

Interacting with an embodied conversational agent (ECA) in a professional context addresses social considerations to satisfy customer-relationship. This paper presents an experimental study about the perception of virtual intimacy in human-ECA interactions. We explore how an ECA’s multimodal communication affects our perception of virtual intimacy. To this end, we developed a virtual Tourism Information counselor capable of exhibiting verbal and nonverbal intimate behaviors according to several modalities (voice, chatbox, both media), and we built a corpus of videos showing interactions between the agent and a human tourist. We interrogated observers about their perception of the agent’s level of intimacy. Our results confirm the human ability to perceive intimacy in an ECA displaying multimodal behaviors, although the contribution of nonverbal communication remains unclear. Our study suggests that using voice channel increases the perception of virtual intimacy and offers further evidence that human-inspired design of ECAs is needed. Finally, we demonstrate that intimate cues do not disturb the comprehension of task-related information and are valuable for an attentional focus on the agent’s animation. We discuss the concept of virtual intimacy in relation to interpersonal intimacy, and we question its perception in terms of attentional mechanisms.

Intimacy perception : Does the artificial or human nature of the interlocutor matter ?

• Virtual counselors can be perceived as much intimate as human counselors. • The lack of social behaviors highly affects the perception of intimacy in humans. • Social expectations influence the perception of intimacy in humans and agents. Professional embodied conversational agents (ECAs) are increasingly present in society. Beyond these virtual agents’ professional expertise, they must have a social dimension to build long-term relationships with users. Interpersonal intimacy is at the core of the most gratifying social exchanges, and we claim that it could constitute a remarkable means to reinforce the social dimension of ECAs. This paper presents an experimental study that compares the perception of intimacy in human and human-agent interactions. Are nature and social expressiveness critical factors for the perception of intimacy? To answer this question, we created two corpora of videos showing a human or a virtual tourism information (TI) counselor using or not using intimate behaviors in the course of an interaction with a human tourist. Using the Virtual Intimacy Scale (VIS) designed in previous work, we asked observers to judge the intimacy level of the TI counselor during the interaction. We demonstrate that intimate behaviors expressed by the virtual counselor and the human counselor are equally perceived by participants, which supposes a common model of intimacy for human and human-agent dyads. Participants perceive the human counselor less intimate than the virtual counselor when having non intimate behaviors. We posit that humans and agents elicit different expectations regarding social abilities, which directly affect their perceived level of intimacy. Our work raises questions regarding the expression of social behaviors and questions social representations.

Success of assisted reproductive technology treatment and couple relationship: A pilot study on the role of romantic attachment.

Infertility is a deeply distressing experience, which can threaten important personal and martial goals, frequently affecting the psychophysical health. A supportive relationship and a secure romantic attachment appear to reduce infertility stress, as well as play a relevant role in the success of assisted reproductive technology treatments. The principal aim of the study is to investigate the predictive effect of romantic attachment, couple characteristics, quality of life and age on assisted reproductive technology outcome. A total of 88 infertile women, enrolled in an assisted reproductive technology Centre of Rome, completed the Experience in Close Relationship-Revised, the Couple Relationship Inventory, the Fertility Quality of Life and a socio-demographic questionnaire. The participants completed the questionnaires at the beginning of the medical treatment. Data analyses showed significant associations among Experience in Close Relationship-Revised dimensions, Couple Relationship Inventory and Fertility Quality of Life Scales. Assisted reproductive technology outcome was negatively correlated to Experience in Close Relationship-Revised Avoidance and positively related to Couple Relationship Inventory Dependence. A multi-variable logistic regression revealed that Experience in Close Relationship-Revised Avoidance decreased the probability of pregnancy. The present findings partially confirmed the study hypotheses since several associations among couple characteristics, attachment anxiety and avoidance dimensions, infertility-related quality of life in infertile women were found. Furthermore, according to a definition of Avoidance, assisted reproductive technology positive outcome appears to be associated to lower levels of fear of dependence and interpersonal intimacy, and to a low need both for self-reliance and for reluctance to self-disclose within the romantic relationship. Further investigations are needed both to confirm this preliminary finding and for promoting focused therapeutic interventions for couples facing assisted reproductive technology.

Concordance and added value of informant- versus self-report in personality assessment: a systematic review

Both in personality assessment and scientific research, self-report questionnaires are frequently used, yet the use of informant-report is increasing. The aim of this systematic review is to address the concordance and added value of informant- versus self-report in measuring personality pathology in (older) adults. A systematic search has been carried out for relevant literature published between 2000 and 2018, via the databases Scopus, PsychINFO and PubMED. Also the reference lists of included articles have been checked, resulting in an inclusion of 46 studies. The concordance between informant- and self-report appears to be only moderate, but highest when the relationship is characterized by interpersonal intimacy (such as between partners). The concordance between informants is somewhat better than between informant- and self -reports. Informants have an added value over self-report in the context of externalizing personality traits and interpersonal functioning. In addition, they appear to be a better predictor for health, adaptability and professional functioning. Self-report on the other hand captures intrapsychic characteristics more thoroughly. In personality assessment, informant- and self-reports could be complementary. However, empirical research among older adults is almost uncharted territory and deserves more attention.

The Effect of Sweet Taste on Romantic Semantic Processing: An ERP Study

Previous studies have found that sweet perception affects the subjective evaluation of interpersonal intimacy and romantic semantic processing. However, the cognitive processes involved in this effect are unclear. The aim of the current study was to investigate the sweet-love embodied effect in semantic processing and its underlying mechanism by Event-Related potentials technique. Participants were randomly exposed to sweet-taste or tasteless conditions, during which they performed a lexical decision-task that involved romantic and non-romantic words. The results showed an enhanced N400 for romantic words compared to non-romantic words in the sweet-taste condition, and a larger P200 for romantic words relative to non-romantic words. The results demonstrate that taste sensations can cross-modally facilitate the semantic processing of romance. These findings support the embodied effect of sweet-love and are discussed from the perspective of embodied cognition with knowledge activation of concept and semantic richness.