Does African American Women’s Racial Identity Mediate Gendered Racism on Anticipated Relationship Threat?

The present study examined the question of whether racial identity among African American women mediated the relationship between gendered racism and anticipated relationship threat. Using the Multicultural Assessment Intervention Process (MAIP) framework, we examined the relationship of gendered racism, racial identity, and anticipated relationship threat among a convenience sample of 411 African American women. A structural model was configured with gendered racism directly predicting anticipated relationship threat and racial identity serving as a mediator. Results indicated that greater levels of perceived gendered racism were associated with greater perceptions of anticipated relationship threat. Racial identity was found to not mediate the association with anticipated relationship threat. Individuals with less education experienced higher levels of concern regarding physical safety and controlling behaviors than those with more education. Implications for future relationship threat research with African American women are discussed.

Anxiety Buffer Disruption: Relationship Threat, Death Anxiety, and Coping Appraisals Among Low and High Posttraumatic Stress Symptom Samples

Objective: Prior work suggests that people function effectively in the world, in part, by relying on sociocultural anxiety-buffer systems to protect against death anxiety. However, traumatic experiences may overwhelm and disrupt those systems, and this work tests whether posttraumatic stress symptoms reflect a vulnerability to death anxiety and risk of coping failure. Method: Following posttraumatic stress screening (n = 4129), individuals with low (n = 187) and high (n = 186) posttraumatic stress symptoms engaged in either an anxiety-buffer stressor task (contemplating relationship problems) or control task. Participants subsequently reported death anxiety and made coping appraisals. Results: Results supported four key hypotheses. Among individuals with low posttraumatic stress: (1) death anxiety was low under control conditions but moderately increased after contemplating relationship problems; and (2) perceived coping ability remained high in both conditions. However, among those with high posttraumatic stress: (3) death anxiety was exceptionally high in both the relationship problems prime and the control conditions—indicating anxiety buffer disruption; and (4) perceived coping ability was low in the control condition, and even lower after contemplating relationship problems. Conclusions: These findings support the hypotheses and make novel contributions, in that prior research on the existential implications of PTSD have not considered that anxiety buffer disruption may be associated with failure to cope with new challenges after traumatic experiences. Future research should determine whether therapies can improve the core dimensions of functional worldviews, a sense of meaning and self-esteem, and whether such improvements result in improvements to perceived coping abilities.

The role of attachment avoidance and defensive fight in aggression

Attachment insecurity (i.e., levels of attachment anxiety and avoidance) is associated with interpersonal violence and aggression. However, evidence suggests that the associations are more consistent for attachment anxiety than for attachment avoidance. This raises questions as to whether there are particular moderators that may help to explain the lack of consistency in findings for attachment avoidance. In this article, we focus on a novel moderator regarding the association between attachment avoidance and aggression. Drawing on attachment theory, the aggression literature, and research into systems of threat detection, we suggest that the association between attachment avoidance and aggression may reflect a defensive fight (DF) response in situations of high relationship threat. Across two studies (Study 1, a self-report cross-sectional design; N = 128; Study 2, a cross-sectional experimental design, N = 126), we tested the extent that DF moderated the association between attachment avoidance and aggression under perceived relationship threat. In line with our suggestion, a three-way interaction was found across both studies between attachment avoidance, relationship threat, and DF. The findings have important theoretical and practical implications for the study of interpersonal aggression from an attachment theory perspective.

“S/he’s Taken”

Narcissists’ threat reactivity can be differentiated into cognitive, emotional, and tactical-behavioral responses, and these dimensions of reactivity are presumed to vary as a function of grandiose and vulnerable narcissism. The present research applied this conceptual model to situations involving a relationship threat from a rival. A college sample completed measures of vulnerable narcissism, pathological and non-pathological measures of grandiose narcissism, and then indicated anticipated cognitive, emotional, and tactical responses to situations involving high and low levels of rival threat. All narcissism forms generally converged on similar tactical responses – specifically, enhanced coercive and mate-value-enhancement tactics. Yet, both pathological and non-pathological expressions of grandiose narcissism diverged from vulnerable narcissism on cognitive and emotional outcomes, such that only vulnerable narcissism related to enhanced worrying and negative emotionality. Furthermore, all narcissism forms were more strongly related to coercive tactics against the rival following high (vs. low) rival threat.

Attachment and Jealousy: Understanding the Dynamic Experience of Jealousy Using the Response Escalation Paradigm

Jealousy is a complex, dynamic experience that unfolds over time in relationship-threatening situations. Prior research has used retrospective reports that cannot disentangle initial levels and change in jealousy in response to escalating threat. In three studies, we examined responses to the Response Escalation Paradigm (REP)—a 5-stage hypothetical scenario in which individuals are exposed to increasing levels of relationship threat—as a function of attachment orientations. Highly anxious individuals exhibited hypervigilant, slow escalation response patterns, interfered earlier in the REP, felt more jealousy, sadness, and worry when they interfered, and wanted to engage in more vigilant, destructive, and passive behaviors aimed at their partner. Highly avoidant individuals felt more anger when they interfered in the REP and wanted to engage in more partner-focused, destructive behaviors. The REP offers a dynamic method for inducing and examining jealousy and introduces a novel approach to studying other emotional experiences.

Feeling bad when your partner is away: The role of dysfunctional cognition and affect regulation strategies in insecurely attached individuals

Close relationships have a positive impact on partners’ well-being. However, not every individual seems to benefit to the same extent from being in a close relationship. Insecure attachment is suggested to play a role in this. This study examined the role of attachment insecurity in people’s negative cognitions and dysfunctional affect regulation when faced with a potential relationship threat. Based on the Articulated Thoughts in Simulated Situations Paradigm, cognitions of 155 participants were recorded while they imagined a separation from their romantic partner. Highly anxious individuals were found to think more negatively about their romantic relationship while imagining a potential relationship threat, which in turn increased their negative affect and negative ratings of the self and their relationship. A different pattern was found for avoidance; highly avoidant individuals benefited from negating the potential threat which in turn decreased their negative affect. Insecurely attached individuals, especially highly anxious people, should be helped to engage in more adaptive thinking and affect regulation in relationship-threatening situations to improve both their relational and individual well-being.

Self-Esteem, Relationship Threat, and Dependency Regulation: Independent Replication of Murray, Rose, Bellavia, Holmes, and Kusche (2002) Study 3

Across three studies, Murray et al. (2002) found that low self-esteem individuals responded in a negative manner compared to those high in self-esteem in the face of relationship threat, perceiving their partners and relationships less positively. This was the first empirical support for the hypothesized dynamics of a dependency regulation perspective, and has had a significant impact on the field of relationship science. In the present research, we sought to reproduce the methods and procedures of Study 3 of Murray et al. (2002) to further test the two-way interaction between individual differences in self-esteem and situational relationship threat. Manipulation check effects replicated the original study, but no interaction between self-esteem and experimental condition was observed for any primary study outcomes.