Masumi Iida

A Procedure for Evaluating Sensitivity to Within-Person Change: Can Mood Measures in Diary Studies Detect Change Reliably?

The recent growth in diary and experience sampling research has increased research attention on how people change over time in natural settings. Often however, the measures in these studies were originally developed for studying between-person differences, and their sensitivity to within-person changes is usually unknown. Using a Generalizability Theory framework, the authors illustrate a procedure for developing reliable measures of change using a version of the Profile of Mood States (POMS; McNair, Lorr, & Droppleman, 1992) shortened for diary studies. Analyzing two data sets, one composed of 35 daily reports from 68 persons experiencing a stressful examination and another composed of daily reports from 164 persons over a typical 28-day period, we demonstrate that three-item measures of anxious mood, depressed mood, anger, fatigue, and vigor have appropriate reliability to detect within-person change processes.

Receiving Support as a Mixed Blessing: Evidence for Dual Effects of Support on Psychological Outcomes

Although social support is thought to boost feelings of closeness in dyadic relationships, recent findings have suggested that support receipt can increase distress in recipients. The authors investigated these apparently contrary findings in a large daily diary study of couples over 31 days leading up to a major stressor. Results confirm that daily support receipt was associated with greater feelings of closeness and greater negative mood. These average effects, however, masked substantial heterogeneity. In particular, those recipients showing greater benefits on closeness tended to show lesser cost on negative mood, and vice versa. Self-esteem was examined as a possible moderator of support effects, but its role was evident in only a subset of recipients. These results imply that models of dyadic support processes must accord a central role to between-individual heterogeneity.

Modeling Support Provision in Intimate Relationships

Whereas supportive interactions are usually studied from the perspective of recipients alone, the authors used a dyadic design to incorporate the perspectives of both provider and recipient. In 2 daily diary studies, the authors modeled provider reports of support provision in intimate dyads over several weeks. The 1st involved couples experiencing daily stressors (n = 79); the 2nd involved couples experiencing a major professional stressor (n = 196). The authors hypothesized that factors relating to (a) recipients (their requests for support, moods, and stressful events), (b) providers (their moods and stressful events), (c) the relationship (relationship emotions and history of support exchanges), and (d) the stressor (daily vs. major stressors) would each predict daily support provision. Across both studies, characteristics of providers, recipients, and their relationship emerged as key predictors. Implications for theoretical models of dyadic support processes are discussed.

When the Going Gets Tough, Does Support Get Going? Determinants of Spousal Support Provision to Type 2 Diabetic Patients

Although spousal support has been linked to positive outcomes in various health-related contexts, some research has found that the amount of social support provided to those who are chronically ill deteriorates over time. The current study refines the literature by considering multiple factors associated with spouses’ provision of emotional support to partners with Type 2 diabetes. This diary study (N = 126 couples) examined the roles that stressor (disease severity and diabetes-specific anxiety), recipient (negative and positive affect), provider (negative and positive affect), and relationship (tension and enjoyment) factors play in spouses’ provision of emotional support. Daily disease severity, patients’ and spouses’ daily negative affect, and spouses’ daily relationship enjoyment were predictors of support provision. Wives, but not husbands, provided more support on days when patients experienced diabetes-specific anxiety. Results advance understanding of support provision in the context of a chronic stressor.

Daily symptoms, distress and interaction quality among couples coping with type 2 diabetes

In this electronic diary study (N = 127 couples), we examined how a diabetic partner’s symptoms and distress are associated with relationship interactions over 24 days. Using dyadic multilevel models, we examined the effects of patients’ daily diabetes symptom severity and diabetes-specific distress on each partner’s evaluations of their daily interaction enjoyment and tension. For both patients and spouses, diabetes symptoms were associated with a decrease in enjoyment and an increase in tension. For spouses, but not for patients, daily diabetes distress was marginally associated with an increase in tension. Among spouses whose patients’ diabetes was of longer duration, the negative association of symptoms and spouses’ enjoyment was stronger. These findings suggest that the stress of patients’ disease and distress affects both partners on a daily basis.

Initial elevation bias in subjective reports

Significance People’s reports of their own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are essential assessment tools in biomedical and social science. When subjective states have been studied over time, however, researchers have often observed an unpredicted and puzzling decrease with repeated assessments. Our results across multiple outcomes in four field experiments suggest that this pattern is due to an initial elevation bias. This effect is larger for reports of internal states than for behaviors and for negative mental states and physical symptoms than for positive states. This initial elevation bias needs to be considered in all types of research using subjective reports. People’s reports of their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are used in many fields of biomedical and social science. When these states have been studied over time, researchers have often observed an unpredicted and puzzling decrease with repeated assessment. When noted, this pattern has been called an “attenuation effect,” suggesting that the effect is due to bias in later reports. However, the pattern could also be consistent with an initial elevation bias. We present systematic, experimental investigations of this effect in four field studies (study 1: n = 870; study 2: n = 246; study 3: n = 870; study 4: n = 141). Findings show clear support for an initial elevation bias rather than a later decline. This bias is larger for reports of internal states than for behaviors and for negative mental states and physical symptoms than for positive states. We encourage increased awareness and investigation of this initial elevation bias in all research using subjective reports.

Ebb and Flow in Parent-Child Interactions: Shifts from Early through Middle Childhood

SYNOPSIS Objective. This study documents the strength of relations between key parent and child behaviors as they occur during typical encounters for both mothers and fathers, and determines whether there were shifts in the strength of relations between parent and child behaviors during early and middle childhood. Design. Multivariate multi-level modeling was used to examine associations between three parent behaviors (respect for autonomy, stimulation of development, hostility) and two child behaviors (agency, negativity) as they occurred in typical parent-child activities at four time points from 54 months through fifth grade for 817 families. Results. For mothers and fathers, respect for autonomy and stimulation were associated with child agency. Paternal hostility was negatively associated with child agency, but for mothers the relation became more positive with age. Parental respect for autonomy and hostility were associated with child negativity for both mothers and fathers; however, for mothers, relations between autonomy support and child negativity became more positive, and relations between hostility and child negativity became less positive. Conclusions. There are clear shifts in the strength of relations between some parenting behaviors and child behaviors from early to middle childhood, indicative of a changing dialectic as children become more independent and different dialectics for mothers and fathers. Parenting behavior links to child competence and adaptive behavior, and the findings may help resolve some uncertainties about relations between parental behavior and children’s developmental trajectories.

Models of interdependent individuals versus dyadic processes in relationship research

In this article, we consider the statistical models that are appropriate to understand relationship processes between two people who are in a committed relationship. Some of these processes capture inherently individual processes where individuals happen to be interrelated and others capture inherently dyadic processes. We compare several different statistical approaches to model these phenomena, including the actor–partner interdependence model, common fate model, and a dyadic score model. We compare and contrast these models using a data set on closeness and time spent together from 201 couples where one partner is distinguished by stress associated with an upcoming professional exam. The models yield results that appear to give different interpretations of the data. We discuss situations in which each model may be preferred and invite relationship researchers to model relationship data using the statistical model that matches their conceptual framework, rather than using a rigid statistical methodology.

The Influence of Daily Coping on Anxiety Under Examination Stress: A Model of Interindividual Differences in Intraindividual Change:

Although much is known about people’s attempts to cope with stressors, unmeasured heterogeneity in these stressors has made it difficult to assess the effectiveness of coping attempts. We remedied this problem by focusing on coping effectiveness in people preparing for a major, planned, uniform stressor, the Bar Examination. Within-person analyses of longitudinal data on anxiety in 321 persons over 35 days provided evidence on (a) coping effectiveness for the typical person, (b) how effectiveness changed across time, and (c) the extent to which individuals differed in their effectiveness. For the typical person, active coping and positive reinterpretation on one day were associated with reduced anxiety the next morning, whereas practical support seeking, venting, and mental disengagement were associated with increased anxiety. The effectiveness of planning, acceptance, and disengagement varied as a function of time to the stressful event. Finally, there were large individual differences in coping effectiveness across the sample.

Assessing Model Similarity in Structural Equation Modeling

Two models can be nonequivalent, but fit very similarly across a wide range of data sets. These near-equivalent models, like equivalent models, should be considered rival explanations for results of a study if they represent plausible explanations for the phenomenon of interest. Prior to conducting a study, researchers should evaluate plausible models that are alternatives to those hypothesized to evaluate whether they are near-equivalent or equivalent and, in so doing, address the adequacy of the study’s methodology. To assess the extent to which alternative models for a study are empirically distinguishable, we propose 5 indexes that quantify the degree of similarity in fit between 2 models across a specified universe of data sets. These indexes compare either the maximum likelihood fit function values or the residual covariance matrices of models. Illustrations are provided to support interpretations of these similarity indexes.