Problematic Interpersonal Behavior Research Articles

How loneliness undermines close relationships and persists over time: The role of perceived regard and care.

Although loneliness has been associated with negative perceptions of social life in past research, little is known about the implications of loneliness for interpersonal perception within close relationships. The current research includes three studies (total N = 1,197) suggesting that loneliness is associated with a negative bias in perceiving relationship partners' regard and care and that this bias partially accounts for the effects of loneliness on lower relationship quality and problematic interpersonal behaviors. Loneliness was associated with perceiving family members (Study 1), friends (Studies 1 and 2), and romantic partners (Studies 1-3) as less admiring and caring, and these effects were independent of a variety of accuracy benchmarks, including partners' self-reports (Studies 1-3), reports from informants (Study 2), and objective observers' assessments of partners' responsive behavior (Study 3). Loneliness also predicted changes in perceptions of partners' regard over time (Study 3) and indirectly predicted lower relationship satisfaction, commitment, self-disclosure, and support provision through negative perceptions of relationship partners' regard and care (Studies 1-3). Studies 2 and 3 replicated these results in terms of day-to-day experiences (total daily observations = 16,064). The negative perceptions of partners' regard and care associated with loneliness predicted subsequent loneliness (Studies 2-3). Loneliness effects were statistically independent of self-esteem and attachment insecurity in all studies. Taken together, these findings suggest that, due to negative biases in perceiving relationship partners' regard and care, loneliness may compromise the quality of close relationships, motivate interpersonally problematic behaviors, and become persistent. Implications are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Functional Analytic Psychotherapy for Nursing Home Residents: A Single-Subject Investigation of Session-by-Session Changes

Nursing home settings contain unique environmental factors that may promote the acquisition and maintenance of problematic interpersonal behaviors. Functional Analytic Psychotherapy (FAP) is a contextually-based behavior therapy that can be used to modify problematic interpersonal behaviors via carefully provided and contingent in-session responses of the therapist to client behaviors. Thus, FAP would appear to be a particularly well-suited intervention approach for nursing home residents. To date, the effects of FAP have not been reported for nursing home residents. The current single case study assessed the effects of FAP on three nursing home residents using a single-subject AB design. The AB design consisted of a 2-weeks baseline phase followed by a 4-week FAP treatment phase. The nursing home residents completed pre-treatment and post-treatment measures of interpersonal relating. Client interpersonal behaviors were also recorded during each session and coded into two categories: Maladaptive in-session behaviors and adaptive in-session behaviors. Using the reliable change index and Swanson’s dsw to evaluate questionnaire outcomes, results indicated that all three participants reported a significant change in interpersonal functioning. Analysis of in-session behavior indicated that there were significant decreases in maladaptive behaviors and an increase in adaptive behaviors for two clients. Finally, observed in-session behavior changes were congruent with self-reported changes in interpersonal behavior. These results indicate that FAP was an effective intervention for these nursing home residents.

Blissfully Blind or Painfully Aware? Exploring the Beliefs People With Interpersonal Problems Have About Their Reputation.

Problematic interpersonal behavior might stem from and be maintained by the beliefs people have about how others see them (i.e., metaperceptions). The current study tested whether people with interpersonal problems formed more or less accurate metaperceptions about their personality (meta-accuracy), whether they thought others saw them in more or less positive ways (positivity), and whether they underestimated or overestimated how much others saw them as they saw themselves (transparency). Participants (NTime1 = 189; NTime2 = 175; Mage = 19.78; 36% male) completed a measure of interpersonal problems and provided personality judgments and metaperceptions for a group of peers after a first impression and after 4 months of acquaintanceship. Generalized distress was associated with less positive metaperceptions at both times and with higher meta-accuracy after 4 months. Dominance problems were not associated with meta-accuracy, positivity, or transparency after a first impression, but dominance was linked to lower meta-accuracy and lower positivity after 4 months. Affiliation problems were associated with higher meta-accuracy after a first impression and with higher positivity and transparency at both times. Metaperceptions were linked to interpersonal problems, and these expectations might partially explain some maladaptive patterns of behavior.

The impact of validation and invalidation on aggression in individuals with emotion regulation difficulties.

For individuals with difficulty regulating their emotions, aggression has been found to be a particularly problematic interpersonal behavior. Invalidation (i.e., rejection of one's emotional experience) is thought to play a role in the etiology of disorders of emotion regulation, and it may be a trigger for aggressive behaviors. The present study experimentally manipulated validation and invalidation after a sad mood induction among individuals with few versus many difficulties regulating their emotions. Subsequent aggression was measured using an in-laboratory behavioral task. Results indicate that, among individuals with many difficulties regulating their emotions, validation led to significantly less aggression than did invalidation. However, among individuals with few difficulties regulating their emotions, aggressive behaviors were generally low and did not differ after validation as compared with invalidation. The findings suggest that validation of emotional experiences may help to prevent aggressive behaviors among individuals with difficulties regulating their emotions.

Another Venue for Problematic Interpersonal Behavior: The Effects of Depressive and Anxious Symptoms on Social Networking Experiences

The current study examined the influence of depressive, global anxiety, and social anxiety symptoms on the frequency and quality of social networking experiences among young adults. Three hundred and one participants (62% female; mean age = 19.44 years, SD = 2.05) completed an initial survey and a follow-up survey three weeks later. Results indicated that depressive, global anxiety, and social anxiety symptoms were not significantly associated with changes in time spent engaging in social networking activities. In contrast, depressive symptoms were generally associated with increases in negative interactions and negative affect following interactions. Further, global and social anxiety symptoms were generally not significantly associated with changes in the quality of social networking interactions. These findings suggest that social networking activities are another venue in which psychological problems manifest in dysfunctional interpersonal interactions. Further, different types of psychological proble...

Defenses in Interpersonal Interaction: Using a Theory-Building Case Study to Develop and Validate the Theory of Interpersonal Defense

I investigated interpersonal defense theory, an interpersonal reconceptualization of defense processes, using the theory-building case study approach. Close examination of patient-therapist interaction during a psychotherapy session provided support for tenets of the theory. The analyses of the clinical material also elucidate some of the key concepts of interpersonal defense theory. Those concepts include a new way of conceptualizing the nature of problematic interpersonal behavior, which offers a novel approach to understanding patients' contributions to the alliance and transference phenomena. The analyses also clarify ideas from the theory about how defensive behavior on the part of one individual affects how the other person in a relationship behaves. These ideas lead to a new approach to countertransference, point away from common formulations of the self-fulfilling prophecy concept, and offer a novel response to the question of why dysfunctional processes persist. In addition to considering these substantive matters related to interpersonal defense theory, I also consider methodological issues related to the theory-building case study approach. The analyses presented illustrate the process of simultaneously examining whether multiple tenets from a theory are supported by observations on a single case, a crucial part of the theory-building case study approach that can make unique contributions to validating theories. I also discuss the role played by case formulations in the process of determining whether observations conform to theoretical tenets, which is an aspect of the logic of theory validation that has not been considered previously in the literature on the theory-building case study approach.

Cognitive Therapy vs Interpersonal Psychotherapy in Social Anxiety Disorder

Cognitive therapy (CT) focuses on the modification of biased information processing and dysfunctional beliefs of social anxiety disorder (SAD). Interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT) aims to change problematic interpersonal behavior patterns that may have an important role in the maintenance of SAD. No direct comparisons of the treatments for SAD in an outpatient setting exist. To compare the efficacy of CT, IPT, and a waiting-list control (WLC) condition. Randomized controlled trial. Two academic outpatient treatment sites. Patients Of 254 potential participants screened, 117 had a primary diagnosis of SAD and were eligible for randomization; 106 participants completed the treatment or waiting phase. Treatment comprised 16 individual sessions of either CT or IPT and 1 booster session. Twenty weeks after randomization, posttreatment assessment was conducted and participants in the WLC received 1 of the treatments. The primary outcome was treatment response on the Clinical Global Impression Improvement Scale as assessed by independent masked evaluators. The secondary outcome measures were independent assessor ratings using the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale, the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression, and patient self-ratings of SAD symptoms. At the posttreatment assessment, response rates were 65.8% for CT, 42.1% for IPT, and 7.3% for WLC. Regarding response rates and Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale scores, CT performed significantly better than did IPT, and both treatments were superior to WLC. At 1-year follow-up, the differences between CT and IPT were largely maintained, with significantly higher response rates in the CT vs the IPT group (68.4% vs 31.6%) and better outcomes on the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale. No significant treatment × site interactions were noted. Cognitive therapy and IPT led to considerable improvements that were maintained 1 year after treatment; CT was more efficacious than was IPT in reducing social phobia symptoms.

Conversation analysis and interpretive quantitative research on psychotherapy process and problematic interpersonal behavior

In this article, I examine conversation analysis, a fruitful area of qualitative research, in order to extend my prior explorations of the idea that quantitative methods can and should be part of the repertoire of interpretive approaches employed by investigators committed to treating psychological phenomena as irreducibly meaningful. My examination includes considering several lines of research by investigators who are not practitioners of conversation analysis in which quantitative methods were employed to study patient behavior in psychotherapy and defensive behavior more generally. These lines of inquiry show that (a) quantitative research methods have a good deal to offer practitioners of conversation analysis as they endeavor to advance our understanding of the organization of interactions, and (b) we can employ quantitative methods and continue to embrace a commitment to interpretive inquiry. I also offer a critique of fundamental methodological precepts associated with conversation analysis, which differ notably from the precepts guiding most qualitative research efforts in psychology. In a fascinating twist, these precepts, which include discomfort with interpretive research procedures, have resulted in limitations in very recent attempts by some practitioners of conversation analysis to employ quantitative methods in their investigations.

Gender Differences in the Associations Between Interpersonal Behaviors and Stress Generation

Research has demonstrated that females experience higher levels of stress than males, particularly stress that is generated by the individual. The current study examines whether gender moderates the impact of interpersonal behavior on stress generation, such that these behaviors are more strongly associated with stress in women as compared to men. Ninety-nine undergraduate students reported on their problematic interpersonal behaviors, and stressful life events they experienced over a six-week period. Self-reported problematic behavior of too caring was more strongly associated with stress generation in young women as compared to young men.

Conversational Self-Focus in Adolescent Friendships: Observational Assessment of an Interpersonal Process and Relations with Internalizing Symptoms and Friendship Quality

Although youth with internalizing symptoms experience friendship difficulties, surprisingly little is known about their problematic interpersonal behaviors. The current observational study identifies a new construct, conversational self-focus, defined as the tendency to direct the focus of conversations to the self and away from others. Results indicated that youth with internalizing symptoms were especially likely to engage in self-focus when discussing problems with friends and that doing so was related to their friends perceiving the relationship as lower in quality, particularly helping. Content analyses further indicated that self-focused youth talked about themselves in ways that were distracting from their friends' problems and that they changed the subject abruptly. Last, conversational self-focus was not redundant with related constructs of rumination and self-disclosure. This research highlights the importance of intervention efforts aimed at teaching self-focused youth ways to cope with distress that are more effective and will not damage their friendships.

Psychotherapie bei chronischer Depression

Patients with chronic depression constitute a problem group because of therapy resistance, symptom severity, and impaired psychosocial functioning. Compared with healthy groups, they show increased comorbidity with psychological and medical disorders, report more adverse conditions in childhood, show problematic interpersonal behaviors, and differ in structural characteristics of their thought processes. For these reasons, several specific treatment manuals have been developed for this target population. First results suggest that specific psychotherapy may be effective in chronic depression.

Relationship Perfectionism, Dysphoria, and Hostile Interpersonal Behaviors

Problematic interpersonal behaviors and their consequences for relationships with others have been implicated in the maintenance and onset of depression. The mechanism leading to aversive social behaviors was examined in this study using a sample of dysphoric and nondysphoric undergraduate female students. Specifically, we examined two questions: (a) Is relationship perfectionism associated with depression?; and (b) Does relationship perfectionism mediate the relation between depression and aversive interpersonal behaviors? Using a self-report measure of relationship perfectionism, results revealed that perfectionistic expectations and standards for relationships were higher for the dysphoric than the nondysphoric, never-depressed women. Moreover, perfectionistic relationship expectations for others, in particular, partially explained the relation between dysphoria and hostile interpersonal behaviors. These findings are discussed in terms of past studies of perfectionism and depression and in terms of current conceptualizations of perfectionism and depressive social behaviors.

Interpersonal problem behaviors associated with dysfunctional attitudes

In recent years, there has been increasinginterest in the integration of cognitive andinterpersonal features of depression and other emotionaland behavioral disorders. Based on the hypothesis thatcognitive and interpersonal styles mutually influence oneanother, the current study examined the perceivedinterpersonal problem behaviors associated withdysfunctional attitudes regarding themes of achievement and autonomy versus approval and acceptance ina sample of 390 undergraduates. Results suggested thatdysfunctional attitudes regarding achievement andautonomy, and to a lesser extent approval andacceptance, were related to perceived problematicinterpersonal behaviors. A secondary purpose of thestudy was to conduct a confirmatory factor analysis ofCane, Olinger, Gotlib, and Kuiper's (1986) two-factormodel of the Dysfunctional Attitude Scale. Resultsprovided only a modest replication of a two-factorsolution. Post hoc modifications resulted in a revisedtwo-factor solution that provided a better fit with the data.

Avoidant personality disorder: Interpersonal problems as predictors of treatment response

Patients with avoidant personality disorder (AVPD) display varied responses to behavioral treatment. This study examined the extent to which differences in patients' problematic interpersonal behavior influenced treatment response. Outpatients (N=76) meeting diagnostic criteria for AVPD completed the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems Circumplex Scales (IIP-C), a self-report measure that provides information on eight categories of interpersonal problems. As would be expected, all these patients reported problems with social avoidance and nonassertiveness. However, those patients who also had interpersonal problems related to distrustful and angry behavior benefited from the graduated exposure procedure but not from skills training. Patients with AVPD who experienced interpersonal problems related to being coerced and controlled by others, in addition to avoidance and nonassertiveness, benefited from both procedures. Skills training focused on the development of intimate relationships was of particular benefit to these patients. These results suggest that patients with AVPD differ in terms of their interpersonal problem “profiles” and that these differences influence response to behavioral intervention.

The functional relation between depression and problematic interpersonal behavior.

The functional relation between depression and problematic interpersonal behavior.