Stinky Tofu and Smelly Cheese

This paper investigates how multilingual couples with different languages and cultural backgrounds construct their identities through their conversations about food from a socio-cultural perspective. It is based on the interviews, observations, and naturally-occurring conversations between three multilingual couples. The participants consist of Taiwanese nationals, and their foreign partners (Irish, Italian, and South-African) living in England. In order to understand such talk in interaction, the study takes an interactional sociolinguistic approach to analyze how their discourse identities are performed. The study attempts to provide a better understanding of multilingual couples’ interaction in food and identity contexts through a microanalysis of the sequential turns. The analysis demonstrates how the three Taiwanese-foreign couples use different discourse strategies to negotiate and share their different attitudes, preferences, cultural values and identities during conversations about food.

Relationship Quality and Alcohol-Related Social Reinforcement During Couples Interaction

Individuals who are unhappy in their intimate partnerships are at risk for developing alcohol problems. But little is known about the mechanisms underlying this link. One possibility is that couples with poor relationship quality gain more reinforcement from alcohol in certain contexts—a possibility that has never previously been empirically examined. In the current study, 304 individuals (152 couples) were assigned to receive alcohol (target BAC .08%) or a nonalcoholic beverage. They then engaged in a conflict-resolution interaction with their partners. Videotaped interactions were coded by trained observers. Results revealed a significant interaction between alcohol and relationship quality across multiple measures. Alcohol decreased negative behaviors, decreased negative reciprocity, and enhanced self-reported experience to a greater extent during interactions involving individuals reporting low relationship quality and had comparatively little effect among those reporting high relationship quality. Findings point to a potential mechanism underlying problem drinking among couples with poor relationship quality.

Bayesian Hierarchical Modeling of Heterogeneity in Multiple Contingency Tables: An Application to Behavioral Observation Data

Intervention studies often rely on microcoded data of social interactions to provide evidence of change due to development or treatment. Traditionally these data have been collapsed into small contingency tables. Such an approach can introduce spurious findings. Instead of treating each unit’s contingency table independently, or collapsing the tables into single aggregate table, it is more efficient to analyze associations in all units simultaneously using hierarchical models. This article presents Bayesian hierarchical models to analyze several two-way categorical data with random effects that allow different levels of variation across several events. To illustrate this approach, the authors present an analysis of couples’ interaction data from a recent study investigating how couples cope when one partner has become unemployed.