T D Afifi
Biographic Data
| ID | 27565 |
|---|---|
| NAME | T D Afifi |
| GIVEN NAMES | T D |
| FAMILY NAME | Afifi |
| SIGNATURE | AFIFI T D |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California, Santa Barbara |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4582-8760 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 46 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 397 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 46 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2003 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 12 |
The Anatomy of Resilient Talk
Drawing on the theory of resilience and relational load, we examined linguistic features of resilient talk across two datasets: one involving couples managing the chronic stress of a child's type 1 diabetes and the other addressing general relational stressors. Using natural language processing, we analyzed syntactic, temporal, and lexical features of couples’ stress-related conversations. Language reflecting obligation, uncertainty, and detachme…
Balancing Face-to-Face and Digital Communication
This study examines how face-to-face (FtF) and computer-mediated communication (CMC) contribute to relationship maintenance and resilience in dual-earning families, a largely overlooked area in family communication research. Guided by the theory of resilience and relational load (TRRL), we test how ongoing FtF and CMC maintenance behaviors predicted well-being across a week among 62 families (i.e., two parents and one adolescent). Using a week-lo…
Using the Theory of Resilience and Relational Load to Examine the Impact of Couples’ Financial Conflict on Relational Load and (Hair and Salivary) Cortisol
This study examined whether romantic partners’ relationship maintenance and communal orientation predict their financial conflict, and, in turn, their relational load and physiological stress. Eighty-two heterosexual, cohabitating couples participated in a conversation about their financial stress, completed surveys, and provided saliva and hair samples for cortisol. Overall, greater communal orientation and ongoing relationship maintenance were …
Maintaining closeness at a distance
The transition to college represents a pivotal developmental moment, particularly for young adult women navigating increased independence and emotional complexity. During this period, mother-daughter relationships often serve as vital sources of support and connection. Drawing from Zoom conversations with 126 mother-daughter dyads, this thematic analysis explores the everyday and strategic ways technology facilitates or complicates their relation…
Communicative and Methodological Challenges Related to Collecting Data with Older Adults with Dementia in Senior Living Communities During the Covid-19 Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic presented significant challenges to researchers collecting data with older adults, particularly older adults with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD). The goal of this article is to articulate the communicative and methodological challenges and lessons learned from collecting data with older adults in senior living communities with mild cognitive impairment and ADRD and their adult children (who were geographica…
Carrying Your History is a Form of Resilience”
Caught Within the Family System
This study investigated the dilemmas faced by emerging adults serving as supporting siblings (SS) for their sibling with depression (SWD). A thematic analysis of 49 interviews revealed the family system as central to sibling depression. Family histories of dysfunction contributed to SWDs’ lasting symptoms, prompting SSs’ felt obligation to their sibling. SSs managed mental health communication in the family by protecting their SWD against their p…
Psychometric properties of the American version of the Chronic Uncertainty scale
The evidence suggests that the CU scale offers psychometrically sound assessments of chronic uncertainty across a range of dimensions. Further assessments and implementations of the CU in different contexts using diverse samples are encouraged to test the efficacy of the CU measures as screening tools of general aspects of chronic uncertainty
College students with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca)
Reflecting on 50 years of theory inHuman Communication Research
This essay is an introduction to the special issue on "Rethinking and Expanding Communication Theories on HCR's 50th Anniversary." We begin by arguing that communication research has expanded substantially since Human Communication Research's inaugural issue. However, in light of changes in communication technologies, political discourse, means of engaging in interpersonal communication, and awareness of the importance of diversity and inclusion,…
Using Virtual Reality to Improve the Quality of Life of Older Adults with Cognitive Impairments and their Family Members who Live at a Distance
This study examines whether using virtual reality (VR) with older adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or mild to moderate dementia with a family member who lives at a distance can improve the quality of life of the older adult and the family member. Twenty-one older adults in a senior living community and a family member (who participated in the VR with the older adult from a distance) engaged in a baseline telephone call, followed by thr…
The importance of relationship maintenance in marriage at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic
The theory of resilience and relational load (TRRL) was used to understand the disparate impact of COVID-19 on married individuals. We hypothesized that women and people of color would experience greater stress, more conflict with their marital partners, and express more anger over time due to the increased financial hardship and additional stressors of work-family life during COVID-19. Married individuals (N = 3601 at T1) completed online survey…
Relational load
This study examined how ongoing relationship maintenance and communal perspectives influence relational load and executive functioning immediately after a stressful conversation in the laboratory in a sample of predominantly white romantic partners. It also explored the aftermath of relational load on partners’ communal perspectives and mental health five consecutive days following the conversation. Receiving greater maintenance from one’s partne…
Explaining the impact of differences in voting patterns on resilience and relational load in romantic relationships during the transition to the Trump presidency
The theory of resilience and relational load was used to examine the impact of voting patterns in the 2016 U.S. presidential election on individuals' romantic relationships. Married/cohabitating individuals ( N = 961) completed online surveys at three time points during the transition to the Trump Presidency. The results supported our emotional capital hypothesis in that ongoing relationship maintenance in one's relationship predicted less stress…
A Grounded Theory of Interracial Romantic Partners’ Expectations for Support and Strain with Family Members
Interracial romantic partners (IRPs) are known to experience additional hardships in their relational functioning compared to same-race partners. This study explores the support processes that IRPs engage in with those who are often the source of external pressures on the romantic unit – family members. The study examines IRPs’ support expectations from family and how this shapes the support and resilience of the IRP over time. In-depth interview…
Venting to Unify the Front
In families with children, presenting a unified front is important for healthy couple and family functioning, yet the behavioral mechanisms that explain how coparental communication strengthens the interparental relationship remain unclear. In this study, we examined how parents’ negative relational disclosures about their children to each other serve as mediators of coparental communication and relational quality in divorced (n = 65 dyads) and m…
Advances in methods and statistics
When reflecting back on the special issues I have gravitated toward over the years, those on innovative methods and statistics immediately come to mind. These types of special issues tend to stimul
Making our research matter
It is truly an honor to be editor of Communication Monographs – one of the flagship journals of our discipline. I am thankful to my colleagues for entrusting me with this position and for accompany
Networks of Passing
Undocumented Latin American immigrants are one of the fastest-growing populations in the United States, and they are one of the most vulnerable. Due to constant fear of deportation, these immigrants have to communicatively “pass” for documented in a variety of situations, and they might be likely to use informal network ties (social capital) to do so. Through eight diverse focus group interviews of undocumented immigrants, this study explores how…
The United States of wealth
During the Great Recession, discourses of what constituted prosperity flooded the global landscape. The concept of prosperity became a prominent master narrative that dictated the ways families operated and made decisions. The goal of this study was to examine how 82 married couples experiencing economic uncertainty in California (re)negotiated their family narratives of wealth and prosperity in the wake of the Great Recession. The findings revea…
Communication, Biology, and Physiology
As perhaps the most social of all the social primates, humans have an undeniable stake in regulating their communicative behavior, from the intrapersonal level to the global level. Communication is
(Unmet) Standards for emotional support and their short- and medium-term consequences
The purpose of this study is to explore the effects of emotional support discrepancy (ESD), or the degree to which people feel their standards for emotional support are met, immediately after a supportive interaction and in the days following the interaction. One hundred thirteen dating couples discussed in the laboratory a topic that was stressful for one of the partners and then completed daily diary logs for seven days. Immediately following t…
Family functioning and posttraumatic growth among parents and youth following wildfire disasters
A conceptual model was used to investigate how demographic characteristics, perceived fire stress, aspects of the recovery environment (life stressors since the disaster, social support), mental health, and coping influences parent and youth reports of family functioning and posttraumatic growth (PTG) following multiple wildfires. Participants included 50 parent-youth dyads (M = 14.5 years) who had been evacuated because of the fire, many of whom…
Putative Secrets and Conflict in Romantic Relationships over Time
When people discover their romantic partner is keeping a secret from them but allow their partner to believe the secret is still unknown (creating what Caughlin, Scott, Miller, and Hefner referred to as a putative secret), this can have negative implications for their relationship. This study examined how putative secrets influence conflict in romantic relationships over time and whether certain factors (including perceived reasons for the secrec…
Pillow Talk and Cognitive Decision-making Processes
This study explores individuals' postcoital disclosures by investigating the role of orgasm and alcohol on communication after sexual activity over a two-week period. Assessments of the risks and benefits of disclosing were expected to influence the associations among orgasm, alcohol, and postcoital communication. The results revealed that individuals who orgasmed perceived greater benefits to disclosing to their partners after sexual activity. T…
Feeling caught” as a mediator of adolescents' and young adults' avoidance and satisfaction with their parents in divorced and non-divorced households
Numerous researchers have argued that divorce may not have as much of an impact on children's relationships with their parents as the degree of interparental con.ict (e.g., Ahrons & Rodgers, 1987; Amato, Loomis, &Booth, 1995). In the current model the degree to which adolescents and young adults felt caught between their parents was tested as a mediator between divorce and children's avoidance and satisfaction with them. The results revealed that…
Toward a Theoretical Model of Communal Coping in Postdivorce Families and Other Naturally Occurring Groups
The purpose of this study was to develop a theoretical model of communal coping in postdivorce families and other naturally occurring groups. This framework builds upon previous models of communal coping (C. A. Berg, S. P. Meegan, & F. P. Deviney, 1998; R. F. Lyons, K. Mickelson, J. L. Sullivan, & J. C. Coyne, 1998) in its identification of appraisal and action dimensions. However, the current model extends this work in five important ways by: (a…
The Revelation Risk Model (RRM)
The primary goal of this manuscript is to advance a new risk revelation model (RRM) that explains the factors that predict when people will reveal or continue to conceal secrets. We propose, among other things, that people assess the risks involved with the disclosure of secrets and that this risk assessment is what predicts people's “readiness” or willingness to reveal them. People are more willing to reveal their secrets under certain condition…
Communication Processes that Predict Young Adults’ Feelings of Being Caught and their Associations with Mental Health and Family Satisfaction
In this study, the degree to which young adults felt caught between their parents was tested as a mediator between marital conflict behaviors and young adults’ mental health and family satisfaction. Participants included 1170 young adult children from first marriage and postdivorce families in four different states. Using structural equation modeling, the results revealed that parents’ symbolic aggression, demand/withdraw patterns, and negative d…
Inappropriate Parental Divorce Disclosures, the Factors that Prompt them, and their Impact on Parents’ and Adolescents’ Well-Being
Recent research has shown that parents’ inappropriate disclosures about the divorce process can be stressful for adolescents. However, little is known about the conditions that prompt parents to disclose inappropriate information about the divorce to them. The current study examines factors (a lack of social support, a lack of control over divorce stressors, and the severity of the divorce stressors) that potentially influence parents to reveal i…
The Chilling Effect in Families and the Pressure to Conceal Secrets
In this study two models were constructed to test the link between the chilling effect and family members' continued concealment of secrets. The direct effects model suggests that coercive power in families has a direct influence on family members' concealment, such that it suppresses the desire to reveal sensitive information for fear of negative consequences. In contrast, the indirect effects model contends that coercive power diminishes family…
"You Need to Stop Talking About This!"
This study examined whether the type of support individuals receive when they are verbally ruminating affects their cognitive rumination (brooding), anxiety, and relationship satisfaction; 233 young adults were randomly assigned to be the subject, 233 others the confederate. The confederate was trained to provide “good support” or “poor support” to the subject who talked about a topic he/she had been verbally ruminating about recently. When indiv…
Why Can't We Just Talk About It
This study examined how parents and adolescents talk about sex with each other and how that influences their anxiety and avoidance tendencies. When parents were receptive, informal, and composed during the conversations, their adolescents were less anxious and, in turn, were less avoidant. The child's perception of the parent's communication competence also predicted the child's anxiety, which influenced the child's avoidance. The quality of the …
Explaining the impact of differences in voting patterns on resilience and relational load in romantic relationships during the transition to the Trump presidency
The theory of resilience and relational load was used to examine the impact of voting patterns in the 2016 U.S. presidential election on individuals' romantic relationships. Married/cohabitating individuals ( N = 961) completed online surveys at three time points during the transition to the Trump Presidency. The results supported our emotional capital hypothesis in that ongoing relationship maintenance in one's relationship predicted less stress…
In the Wake of the Great Recession
Journal Article In the Wake of the Great Recession: Economic Uncertainty, Communication, and Biological Stress Responses in Families Get access Tamara Afifi, Tamara Afifi 1Department of Communication Studies, University of Iowa, IA 52240, USA, 1Corresponding author: Tamara Afifi; Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Sharde Davis, Sharde Davis 1Department of Communication Studies, University of Iowa, IA 52240, U…
Analyzing divorce from cultural and network approaches
Because of the high divorce rate and subsequent outpouring of research on divorce in the United States and other Westernized countries, divorce is often framed from an individualistic perspective as a process that is negotiated between two individuals - as 'his and her divorce. 'A primary assumption is that the spouses negotiate what is best for them and their children, seemingly irrespective of extended kin or culture. This study provides a more…
(Unmet) Standards for emotional support and their short- and medium-term consequences
The purpose of this study is to explore the effects of emotional support discrepancy (ESD), or the degree to which people feel their standards for emotional support are met, immediately after a supportive interaction and in the days following the interaction. One hundred thirteen dating couples discussed in the laboratory a topic that was stressful for one of the partners and then completed daily diary logs for seven days. Immediately following t…
Examining the Bidirectional Nature of Topic Avoidance and Relationship Dissatisfaction
This study examined the bidirectional nature of the association between one's own topic avoidance and relationship dissatisfaction. It also explored how perceptions of a dating partner's communication competence and one's own communication efficacy affect this association. Three hundred undergraduates tracked their topic avoidance with their dating partner over a two week period. The results provided modest support for the idea that the associati…
Parents' Communication Skills and Adolescents' Salivary α-Amylase and Cortisol Response Patterns
The primary goal of this study was to examine patterns or groupings of adolescents’ hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA) (measured through cortisol) and sympathetic nervous system (SNS) (measured through salivary alpha amylase or sAA) responses as a function of their parents’ communication skills. A related goal was to decipher whether adolescents who demonstrate different patterns of physiological reactivity vary in their personal and relat…
Adolescents’ Avoidance Tendencies and Physiological Reactions to Discussions about Their Parents’ Relationship
A model was constructed to test the argument that when the topic of the parents’ relationship is introduced in conversations between parents and ‘adolescents, adolescents from divorced families may be especially likely to feel caught between their parents due to a need for protection (of themselves, their parent, and their relationship), which should make them anxious (i.e., self-reported anxiety) and physiologically aroused (i.e., changes in ski…
Pillow Talk and Cognitive Decision-making Processes
This study explores individuals' postcoital disclosures by investigating the role of orgasm and alcohol on communication after sexual activity over a two-week period. Assessments of the risks and benefits of disclosing were expected to influence the associations among orgasm, alcohol, and postcoital communication. The results revealed that individuals who orgasmed perceived greater benefits to disclosing to their partners after sexual activity. T…
A Risk and Resiliency Model of Ambiguous Loss in Postdivorce Stepfamilies
This study examined the role of ambiguous loss in postdivorce stepfamilies, developing a grounded theory of individual, familial, and environmental risk and resiliency factors that mediate it. Qualitative interviews with 81 stepfamily members provided the foundation for the theoretical framework. More specifically, the interviews revealed three types of ambiguous loss: (a) the loss of one's previous family form and traditional nuclear family idea…
Relational load
This study examined how ongoing relationship maintenance and communal perspectives influence relational load and executive functioning immediately after a stressful conversation in the laboratory in a sample of predominantly white romantic partners. It also explored the aftermath of relational load on partners’ communal perspectives and mental health five consecutive days following the conversation. Receiving greater maintenance from one’s partne…
A Grounded Theory of Interracial Romantic Partners’ Expectations for Support and Strain with Family Members
Interracial romantic partners (IRPs) are known to experience additional hardships in their relational functioning compared to same-race partners. This study explores the support processes that IRPs engage in with those who are often the source of external pressures on the romantic unit – family members. The study examines IRPs’ support expectations from family and how this shapes the support and resilience of the IRP over time. In-depth interview…
Putative Secrets and Conflict in Romantic Relationships over Time
When people discover their romantic partner is keeping a secret from them but allow their partner to believe the secret is still unknown (creating what Caughlin, Scott, Miller, and Hefner referred to as a putative secret), this can have negative implications for their relationship. This study examined how putative secrets influence conflict in romantic relationships over time and whether certain factors (including perceived reasons for the secrec…
Family-to-work Spillover Stress
One career path that sheds light on the relationship between work and family for women is that of care-giving professionals. Because of the stressful nature of their socialized roles as caregivers at work and at home, these women constitute a unique population. This interpretive study investigated female care-giving professionals' family-to-work spillover stress and revealed eight communication strategies the women used to cope with it in the wor…
Communication, Biology, and Physiology
As perhaps the most social of all the social primates, humans have an undeniable stake in regulating their communicative behavior, from the intrapersonal level to the global level. Communication is
College Students’ Willingness to Reveal Risky Behaviors
This study examined how emerging adults' (ages 18–25) perceptions of confirming, disconfirming, and challenging messages from parents, siblings, and peers shaped their decisions to reveal or conceal their risky behaviors. College students (N = 500) reported on a risky behavior they were keeping from a parent, sibling, or friend and were asked two months later whether they revealed it. They were more willing to reveal their risky behavior to their…
Reflecting on 50 years of theory inHuman Communication Research
This essay is an introduction to the special issue on "Rethinking and Expanding Communication Theories on HCR's 50th Anniversary." We begin by arguing that communication research has expanded substantially since Human Communication Research's inaugural issue. However, in light of changes in communication technologies, political discourse, means of engaging in interpersonal communication, and awareness of the importance of diversity and inclusion,…
Venting to Unify the Front
In families with children, presenting a unified front is important for healthy couple and family functioning, yet the behavioral mechanisms that explain how coparental communication strengthens the interparental relationship remain unclear. In this study, we examined how parents’ negative relational disclosures about their children to each other serve as mediators of coparental communication and relational quality in divorced (n = 65 dyads) and m…
Feeling caught” as a mediator of adolescents' and young adults' avoidance and satisfaction with their parents in divorced and non-divorced households
Numerous researchers have argued that divorce may not have as much of an impact on children's relationships with their parents as the degree of interparental con.ict (e.g., Ahrons & Rodgers, 1987; Amato, Loomis, &Booth, 1995). In the current model the degree to which adolescents and young adults felt caught between their parents was tested as a mediator between divorce and children's avoidance and satisfaction with them. The results revealed that…
A Risk and Resiliency Model of Ambiguous Loss in Postdivorce Stepfamilies
This study examined the role of ambiguous loss in postdivorce stepfamilies, developing a grounded theory of individual, familial, and environmental risk and resiliency factors that mediate it. Qualitative interviews with 81 stepfamily members provided the foundation for the theoretical framework. More specifically, the interviews revealed three types of ambiguous loss: (a) the loss of one's previous family form and traditional nuclear family idea…
The Chilling Effect and Family Secrets
The Chilling Effect in Families and the Pressure to Conceal Secrets
In this study two models were constructed to test the link between the chilling effect and family members' continued concealment of secrets. The direct effects model suggests that coercive power in families has a direct influence on family members' concealment, such that it suppresses the desire to reveal sensitive information for fear of negative consequences. In contrast, the indirect effects model contends that coercive power diminishes family…
Toward a Theoretical Model of Communal Coping in Postdivorce Families and Other Naturally Occurring Groups
The purpose of this study was to develop a theoretical model of communal coping in postdivorce families and other naturally occurring groups. This framework builds upon previous models of communal coping (C. A. Berg, S. P. Meegan, & F. P. Deviney, 1998; R. F. Lyons, K. Mickelson, J. L. Sullivan, & J. C. Coyne, 1998) in its identification of appraisal and action dimensions. However, the current model extends this work in five important ways by: (a…
The Family that Plays Together Fares Better
The purpose of this analysis was to examine the contribution of shared family time to family resilience following divorce. Based on interviews with parents, adolescents and stepparents from 51 families, shared family time served three overarching adaptive functions: (1) communal coping; (2) relationship maintenance; and (3) as a context for growth-oriented change. Study participants emphasized how relatively enjoyable shared family activities wer…
Family-to-work Spillover Stress
One career path that sheds light on the relationship between work and family for women is that of care-giving professionals. Because of the stressful nature of their socialized roles as caregivers at work and at home, these women constitute a unique population. This interpretive study investigated female care-giving professionals' family-to-work spillover stress and revealed eight communication strategies the women used to cope with it in the wor…
Inappropriate Parental Divorce Disclosures, the Factors that Prompt them, and their Impact on Parents’ and Adolescents’ Well-Being
Recent research has shown that parents’ inappropriate disclosures about the divorce process can be stressful for adolescents. However, little is known about the conditions that prompt parents to disclose inappropriate information about the divorce to them. The current study examines factors (a lack of social support, a lack of control over divorce stressors, and the severity of the divorce stressors) that potentially influence parents to reveal i…
Communication Processes that Predict Young Adults’ Feelings of Being Caught and their Associations with Mental Health and Family Satisfaction
In this study, the degree to which young adults felt caught between their parents was tested as a mediator between marital conflict behaviors and young adults’ mental health and family satisfaction. Participants included 1170 young adult children from first marriage and postdivorce families in four different states. Using structural equation modeling, the results revealed that parents’ symbolic aggression, demand/withdraw patterns, and negative d…
Why Can't We Just Talk About It
This study examined how parents and adolescents talk about sex with each other and how that influences their anxiety and avoidance tendencies. When parents were receptive, informal, and composed during the conversations, their adolescents were less anxious and, in turn, were less avoidant. The child's perception of the parent's communication competence also predicted the child's anxiety, which influenced the child's avoidance. The quality of the …
Adolescents’ Avoidance Tendencies and Physiological Reactions to Discussions about Their Parents’ Relationship
A model was constructed to test the argument that when the topic of the parents’ relationship is introduced in conversations between parents and ‘adolescents, adolescents from divorced families may be especially likely to feel caught between their parents due to a need for protection (of themselves, their parent, and their relationship), which should make them anxious (i.e., self-reported anxiety) and physiologically aroused (i.e., changes in ski…
The Revelation Risk Model (RRM)
The primary goal of this manuscript is to advance a new risk revelation model (RRM) that explains the factors that predict when people will reveal or continue to conceal secrets. We propose, among other things, that people assess the risks involved with the disclosure of secrets and that this risk assessment is what predicts people's “readiness” or willingness to reveal them. People are more willing to reveal their secrets under certain condition…
Work and Family in Copreneurial Family Businesses Extending and Integrating Communication Research
Family businesses, especially the enterprises of married couples or copreneurial businesses, are a unique, but largely ignored, context in which work and family domains are intrinsically intertwined. Indeed, scholars from other disciplines who study copreneurial and family businesses have called for investigations from multiple perspectives including communication. We review the literature linking work and family life within the arena of married …
Parents' Communication Skills and Adolescents' Salivary α-Amylase and Cortisol Response Patterns
The primary goal of this study was to examine patterns or groupings of adolescents’ hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA) (measured through cortisol) and sympathetic nervous system (SNS) (measured through salivary alpha amylase or sAA) responses as a function of their parents’ communication skills. A related goal was to decipher whether adolescents who demonstrate different patterns of physiological reactivity vary in their personal and relat…
The Impact of Parents “Friending” Their Young Adult Child on Facebook on Perceptions of Parental Privacy Invasions and Parent-Child Relationship Quality
This study examined whether a parent “friending” his/her child on Facebook.com influenced the parent–child relationship and perceptions of parental privacy invasions. One hundred and eighteen parent–young adult child dyads were randomly assigned to an experimental group where the parent was asked to create a Facebook account, “friend” his/her child, and use the account over 2 months or a control group where the parent did not have a Facebook acco…
Examining the Bidirectional Nature of Topic Avoidance and Relationship Dissatisfaction
This study examined the bidirectional nature of the association between one's own topic avoidance and relationship dissatisfaction. It also explored how perceptions of a dating partner's communication competence and one's own communication efficacy affect this association. Three hundred undergraduates tracked their topic avoidance with their dating partner over a two week period. The results provided modest support for the idea that the associati…
College Students’ Willingness to Reveal Risky Behaviors
This study examined how emerging adults' (ages 18–25) perceptions of confirming, disconfirming, and challenging messages from parents, siblings, and peers shaped their decisions to reveal or conceal their risky behaviors. College students (N = 500) reported on a risky behavior they were keeping from a parent, sibling, or friend and were asked two months later whether they revealed it. They were more willing to reveal their risky behavior to their…
Analyzing Divorce from Cultural and Network Approaches
Analyzing divorce from cultural and network approaches
Because of the high divorce rate and subsequent outpouring of research on divorce in the United States and other Westernized countries, divorce is often framed from an individualistic perspective as a process that is negotiated between two individuals - as 'his and her divorce. 'A primary assumption is that the spouses negotiate what is best for them and their children, seemingly irrespective of extended kin or culture. This study provides a more…
"You Need to Stop Talking About This!"
This study examined whether the type of support individuals receive when they are verbally ruminating affects their cognitive rumination (brooding), anxiety, and relationship satisfaction; 233 young adults were randomly assigned to be the subject, 233 others the confederate. The confederate was trained to provide “good support” or “poor support” to the subject who talked about a topic he/she had been verbally ruminating about recently. When indiv…
Putative Secrets and Conflict in Romantic Relationships over Time
When people discover their romantic partner is keeping a secret from them but allow their partner to believe the secret is still unknown (creating what Caughlin, Scott, Miller, and Hefner referred to as a putative secret), this can have negative implications for their relationship. This study examined how putative secrets influence conflict in romantic relationships over time and whether certain factors (including perceived reasons for the secrec…
Pillow Talk and Cognitive Decision-making Processes
This study explores individuals' postcoital disclosures by investigating the role of orgasm and alcohol on communication after sexual activity over a two-week period. Assessments of the risks and benefits of disclosing were expected to influence the associations among orgasm, alcohol, and postcoital communication. The results revealed that individuals who orgasmed perceived greater benefits to disclosing to their partners after sexual activity. T…
In the Wake of the Great Recession
Journal Article In the Wake of the Great Recession: Economic Uncertainty, Communication, and Biological Stress Responses in Families Get access Tamara Afifi, Tamara Afifi 1Department of Communication Studies, University of Iowa, IA 52240, USA, 1Corresponding author: Tamara Afifi; Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Sharde Davis, Sharde Davis 1Department of Communication Studies, University of Iowa, IA 52240, U…
Communication, Biology, and Physiology
As perhaps the most social of all the social primates, humans have an undeniable stake in regulating their communicative behavior, from the intrapersonal level to the global level. Communication is
(Unmet) Standards for emotional support and their short- and medium-term consequences
The purpose of this study is to explore the effects of emotional support discrepancy (ESD), or the degree to which people feel their standards for emotional support are met, immediately after a supportive interaction and in the days following the interaction. One hundred thirteen dating couples discussed in the laboratory a topic that was stressful for one of the partners and then completed daily diary logs for seven days. Immediately following t…
Psychology (37 works) · Social Psychology (25 works) · Social Psychology (22 works) · Attachment and Relationship Dynamics (21 works) · Developmental psychology (20 works) · Family Dynamics and Relationships (12 works) · Sociology (11 works) · Clinical Psychology (10 works) · Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development (9 works) · Intergenerational Family Dynamics and Caregiving (9 works)