Cynthia D. Mohr

Daily interpersonal experiences, context, and alcohol consumption : Crying in your beer and toasting good times

The authors explored a multidimensional view of drinking, whereby social and solitary drinking represent distinct behaviors associated with positive and negative experiences, respectively. Using daily diary methodology and multilevel analytic strategy, the authors examined, over 30 days, the within-person association of negative and positive experiences and alcohol consumption in different contexts and focused on interpersonal experiences. On days with more negative interpersonal experiences, participants engaged in more solitary drinking (i.e., drinking at home and alone), whereas on days with more positive interpersonal experiences they drank more in social contexts. The authors also demonstrated that individuals high on neuroticism drank more in solitary contexts on days with more negative interpersonal experiences, relative to those with lower neuroticism. These findings lend support to models linking daily drinking motivation and context-dependent drinking behavior.

Moving Beyond the Keg Party: A Daily Process Study of College Student Drinking Motivations.

Theoretical models of alcohol consumption assert that young adults endorse multiple drinking motives, including drinking to cope with negative experiences and to enhance positive experiences. Social contacts may be important to both pathways. This study applied daily process methodology to determine the relationship between college student drinking in different contexts and daily social contacts and moods. Each afternoon for 3 weeks, 122 undergraduates (43% men, 57% women) logged onto a secure Web site during specified hours to report daily activities, moods, and contacts. Hierarchical linear modeling analyses provided support for motivational models and the context-specific nature of motivated drinking. Individual differences were revealed for each motivation. These findings highlight the importance of studying within-person processes using daily process designs.

A social relations variance partitioning of dyadic behavior.

The authors investigate the relative importance of actor and interaction partner as determinants of dyadic behavior. Using the social relations model (D. A. Kenny, 1994a; D. A. Kenny & L. La Voie, 1984), the authors estimate the variance attributable to each determinant plus the reciprocity of behavioral responses from 7 studies. The authors find evidence for moderate behavioral consistency in a persons behavior across interaction partners, little or no evidence that people consistently engender the same behavioral response from others, and preliminary evidence of unique responding to particular partners. They also consider several methodological issues concerning behavioral measurement as well as the implications of the results for the study of accuracy.

A Daily Process Examination of the Stress-Response Dampening Effects of Alcohol Consumption

The authors used a daily process design to assess alcohols stress-response dampening (SRD) effects. Moderate to heavy social drinkers (N=100) reported on palmtop computers their alcohol consumption and social context in vivo for 30 days. Participants also reported on their mood states in the late morning and early evening and completed a paper-and-pencil daily diary in which they recorded their negative events. The association between negative events and mood was weaker on days when individuals consumed alcohol prior to the final mood assessment. However, the moderating effect of alcohol on the negative event-mood association was limited to drinking in social situations. Alcohols SRD effects varied as a function of several between-person risk factors.

Friends and family: A cross-cultural investigation of social support and subjective well-being among college students

Despite the growing number of cross-cultural studies focusing on well-being, little is known about social support outside of western civilization, particularly among people in Middle Eastern cultures. The current study examined the relationships between perceived social support and components of subjective well-being (i.e. positive and negative affect, satisfaction with life) among college students in Iran, Jordan, and the United States. Perceived support from family significantly predicted each aspect of well-being within each country. However, perceived support from friends did not predict any component of well-being in Iran; yet, in Jordan and the US, friend support predicted higher levels of positive mood. These results will be examined in terms of roles and relationship norms in these countries.

Do we know how much people like one another

Metaperception is a persons perception about a second persons perception of a third person. The purpose of this article is to examine the accuracy of metaperceptions of liking. A related question concerns whether the heuristics of balance, reciprocity, and agreement are used by perceivers when forming such judgments. The authors present analyses from 5 diverse research studies that used an adaptation of the social relations model for triads (C.F. Bond, E.M. Horn, & D.A. Kenny, in press). The results indicate that people know how much people like one another, even with small amounts of information. Although there is evidence for the use of heuristics, particularly reciprocity and agreement, accuracy is sometimes enhanced by using these heuristics.

How Can Psychological Theory Help Cities Increase Walking and Bicycling

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Planners need a clear understanding of what influences walking and bicycling behavior to develop effective strategies to increase use of those modes. Transportation practitioners have largely focused on infrastructure and the built environment, although researchers have found that attitudes are also very important. The theory of planned behavior (TPB) suggests that behavior such as active transportation results from a mixture of personal attitudes toward these modes, subjective norms, and a persons perceived behavioral control, giving us a way to conceptualize psychological factors that influence travel behavior. Using data from a random phone survey of three neighborhoods in Portland (OR), we test whether TPB explains the possible causal relationships among the built environment, socio-demographics, and active transportation. We find that both the built environment and demographics influence cycling and walking, although indirectly, by influencing attitudes and perceived behavioral control. Moreover, it is important to look at bicycle-specific infrastructure separately from other environmental characteristics. For example, relatively flat neighborhoods with well-connected, low-traffic streets and multiple destinations were associated with more frequent bicycling, but striped bike lanes were not. Takeaway for practice: Practitioners cannot rely solely on changing the environment to increase bicycling. Programs such as public events and individualized marketing that influence attitudes may be necessary to reinforce positive environmental features. This is particularly true for women and older adults. Moreover, adding bike lanes to an otherwise poor bicycling environment may not increase bicycling in any significant way.

Evidence for Positive Mood Buffering Among College Student Drinkers

Positive experiences play an important role in buffering the effects of negative experiences. Although this process can play out in a myriad of contexts, the college context is one of particular importance because of significant concerns about student stress levels and alcohol abuse. Building on evidence that at least some students drink in response to negative experiences, we considered the possibility that positive moods would moderate college student negative mood—drinking relationships. Using a Web-based daily process study of 118 (57% women) undergraduate student drinkers, the authors reveal that positive moods indeed buffer the effects of negative moods on student drinking, depending on the mood and drinking context. Furthermore, the buffering of ashamed mood appears to explain the buffering of other negative moods. Implications of these findings are considered in terms of the relationship between negative self-awareness and drinking to cope.

A temporal investigation of the direct, interactive, and reverse relations between demand and control and affective strain

Abstract Few studies have tested how stressors affect outcomes over time. We sought to extend the literature by means of a longitudinal study testing for direct, interactive, and causal relations between demands and control and affective strain. We extended prior work testing causal relationships for Karaseks (1979) Job Demand-Control (JDC) model by examining both the effects of demands and control on strain and in turn the effects of strain on demand and control. We tested our hypotheses using hierarchical linear modelling with a military sample of 1539 soldiers who completed six waves of survey data at 3-month time lags. The results replicate earlier cross-sectional studies reporting effects of work characteristics on strain; however, in our study these effects did not persist past three months. The results also provide evidence for reverse causal effects such that higher strain was associated with higher subsequent work overload and lower control over a six month time period. Similar to past research, we did not find support for the interactive effects of work overload and control on strain. We discuss the implications of our findings for theory and practice (such as the optimum time for applying interventions during the management of change), especially in terms of understanding the specific time lags for different stress–strain associations and the need for additional theories to explain reverse relationships.

Don't fear the reaper: : trait death anxiety, mortality salience, and occupational health

Despite multiple calls for research, there has been little effort to incorporate topics regarding mortality salience and death anxiety into workplace literature. As such, the goals of the current study were to (a) examine how trait differences in death anxiety relate to employee occupational health outcomes and (b) examine how death anxiety might exacerbate the negative effects of mortality salience cues experienced at work. In Study 1, we examined how death anxiety affected nurses in a multitime point survey. These results showed that trait death anxiety was associated with increased burnout and reduced engagement and that death anxiety further exacerbated the relationship between mortality salience cues (e.g., dealing with injured and dying patients) and burnout. These results were replicated and extended in Study 2, which examined the impact of death anxiety in firefighters. In this multitime point study, death anxiety related to burnout, engagement, and absenteeism. The results further showed that death anxiety moderated the relationship between mortality cues and burnout, where people high in trait death anxiety experience higher levels of burnout as a result of mortality cues than people lower in death anxiety. Across the 2 studies, despite differences in the methods (e.g., time lag; measures), the effect sizes and the form of the significant interactions were quite similar. Overall, these results highlight the importance of understanding death anxiety in the workplace, particularly in occupations where mortality salience cues are common. We discuss recommendations, such as death education and vocational counseling, and provide some avenues for future research.