Three levels of measurement of social skill and social anxiety

This study investigates the development and assessment of micro-level behavioral measures of social anxiety and social skill and compares these measures to both midi and global level assessments as well as to a measure of physiological arousal. All behavioral ratings were made on similar Likert scales, thus potentially enhancing their clinical utility. Intraclass correlations exceeded .80 for the judges' ratings. Results of correlational analyses indicate several significant correlates of global anxiety ratings and of physiological arousal. Constituent micro-level behaviors were correlated with five of nine midi-level behaviors. Correlation between any midi-level behavior and its highest correlated constituent micro-level behavior was similar to the multiple correlation between the midi-level behavior and all its constituent behaviors. Implications for the clinical utility of the different levels of measurement studies were discussed.This research was supported by a grant from the Veterans Administration.The authors are indebted to Donna Bicki, Pamela Downing, Kenneth Lander, and Mary Ann Paxson for their assistance in completing this study.     

The Extraction of Nonverbal Behaviors: Using Video Images and Speech-Signal Analysis in Dyadic Conversation

This study examined the validity and possible utility of a new procedure for the extraction of nonverbal behaviors from dyadic conversation. Three methods were used to extract nonverbal behaviors (i.e., hand gestures, adaptors, and utterances). A novel automated method employing video images and speech-signal analysis software programs was compared to the more traditional coding and behavioral rating methods. The automated and coding methods provided an objective count of how many times a target behavior occurred, while behavioral ratings were based on more subjective impressions. Although there was no difference between the automated and coding methods for hand gestures, the coding method using an event recorder yielded marginally significantly more instances of adaptors and utterances as compared to the software programs. Measures of each nonverbal behavior were positively correlated across the different methods. In addition, interpersonal impressions of each speaker were rated by both observers and conversational partners. Although R ² was lower than for the coding/behavioral rating methods, nonverbal behaviors extracted using the software programs significantly predicted familiarity and activeness ratings from both observer and partner points of view. These results support the validity and possible utility of the software-based automated extraction procedure.     

Coparenting and Children’s Adjustment to Divorce: The Role of Geographical Distance from Fathers

After divorce, shorter distances between parents’ homes are often seen as facilitating nonresident fathers’ involvement with their children, good coparenting practices, and children’s well-being. However, few studies have explored how geographical distance relates to coparenting and children’s adjustment. Moreover, the direction of causality remains unclear, as uninvolved fathers due to paternal disinterest, maternal gatekeeping, or interparental conflict are more likely to move farther away from their children. Based on a probability sample of 144 divorced mothers of school-aged children living in Geneva, Switzerland, this study explores how the distance between parents’ homes relates to maternal promotion of the father–child relationship (cohesive coparenting) and children’s emotional and behavioral outcomes. Results show that cohesive coparenting relates more to frequent father–child contacts by phone or e-mails than to residential proximity. Both cohesive coparenting and fathers’ residential proximity have positive and independent effects on children’s adjustment. Children whose fathers live nearby exhibit fewer behavioral difficulties and more prosocial behavior than children whose fathers live far away. These findings suggest that frequent contacts by phone or e-mail can substitute for distance in coparenting, but geographical proximity still matters for fathers’ contribution to children’s well-being. Overall, this study recommends that spatial and mobility dimensions should receive more attention in divorce research.     

SPATIAL MISMATCH AND RACE DIFFERENTIALS IN MALE JOBLESSNESS: Cleveland and Milwaukee, 1990

We evaluate the relationship between job proximity and male joblessness at the neighborhood level in Cleveland and Milwaukee. Using two tract-level measures of proximity to employment (i.e., physical distance and commute time), we find mixed evidence for the spatial mismatch hypothesis. As expected, we find that predominantly black neighborhoods in both cities have higher rates of male joblessness. However, contrary to the spatial mismatch hypothesis, we find that these neighborhoods are also physically closer to low-skill jobs than are predominantly white neighborhoods. In addition, predominantly black neighborhoods have higher average commute times, suggesting that spatial isolation from employment may be better characterized along a temporal rather than a physical dimension.     

Visual Attention to Dynamic Spatial Relations in Infants and Adults

Previous research has found that kinematic features of interactions, such as spatial proximity, capture adult visual attention. The current research uses online measures of gaze behavior to determine attentional capture to objects with reduced interobject spacing in adults as well as infants at 5 and 12 months. The three age groups observed three identical geometrical shapes that moved randomly. Relative distance between the objects was mapped and intervals of high and low spatial proximity were identified. Findings demonstrate that only adults and 12‐month‐olds look significantly more at the objects that are close during instances of high spatial proximity, while 5‐month‐olds look at chance. The findings speak for a developmental trend in oculomotor processes, where a bias to look at objects with high spatial proximity develops within the first year of life.     

Patterns of Nonverbal Behavior Associated with Truth and Deception: Illustrations from Three Experiments

The digital age has brought with it new and powerful computer-based methods of analyzing heretofore elusive patterns of nonverbal behavior. C-BAS (Meservy 2010) is a computer-assisted behavioral observation tool for identifying and tracking nonverbal behaviors from video. THEME (Magnusson, The hidden structure of interaction: from neurons to culture patterns, IOS Press, Amsterdam, pp 4–22, 2005) is a software program that discovers patterns among discrete events in time-ordered data. Together, these tools enable more precise measurement and analysis of nonverbal behavioral dynamics. Applications to three corpora derived from interpersonal deception experiments reveal unique nonverbal patterns that distinguish deceptive from nondeceptive interactions. The first and second experiments produced serial, hierarchically related patterns of behaviors that differed in length and complexity between truthful and deceptive participants during interviews about a theft and cheating, respectively. The third experiment produced differential patterns by and among group members completing a task. Deceivers were inclined toward strategic initiations and interactional control, whereas suspicious group members adopted a more passive, possibly watchful stance. Discovery of these patterns challenges the prevailing view that nonverbal behaviors are too faint and inconsistent to identify deceptive communication. Results have numerous implications regarding the following: the development of new measurement tools locating significant effects of nonverbal behaviors, support for theory that coherent and repetitive relationships exist within and among interactants’ communication, demonstration of the role of nonverbal behaviors in deceptive communication and the dynamic and strategic nature of deception.     

Up and Down or Down and Up? The Process of Change in Constructive Couple Behavior during Traditional and Integrative Behavioral Couple Therapy

Observed positive and negative spouse behavior during sessions of Traditional (TBCT) and Integrative Behavioral Couples Therapy (IBCT) were compared for couples with successful outcomes and their unsuccessful counterparts. One hundred and thirty‐four married chronically and seriously distressed couples (on average in their forties and 80% Caucasian) were randomly assigned to TBCT or IBCT. Trained observers made ratings of 1224 segments from approximately 956 sessions sampled from the course of up to 26 sessions. Multilevel modeling was used to examine change over time. TBCT treatment responders demonstrated a boost‐drop pattern, increasing in constructive behaviors early (more positive behaviors and less negative behaviors) but decreasing later. IBCT responders demonstrated an opposite, drop‐boost pattern, decreasing in constructive behaviors early and increasing later. Patterns were significant for positive behaviors (p < .05) and approached significance for negative behaviors (p = .05). In both treatments, nonresponders showed a significant pattern of decline in positive and increase in negative behaviors over time, although a trend (p = .05) indicates that TBCT nonresponders initially declined in negative behaviors. This study helps clarify the different process of change in two behavioral couple therapies, which may assist in treatment development and provide a guide for therapists in considering behavioral markers of change during treatment.     

SPATIAL COMPETITION AND THE PRICE OF COLLEGE

This article provides the first evidence that universities compete directly on price, and that the market for students depends on the proximity of competitors. Exploiting detailed data from private U.S. universities, price competition is tested by introducing geographic proximity into a spatial-autoregressive tuition model. Standard spatial models show that list and net tuition are inversely related to distance between institutions, consistent with price competition in higher education. An extension to the spatial-econometrics literature relaxes a constraint that estimated spatial relationships are common across all observations, implying that spatial effects differ across qualitative classes of institutions . ( JEL C21, I2, L11)     

Synchronization of Nonverbal Behaviors in Detecting Mediated and Non-mediated Deception

Videoconferencing (VC) is changing the way people communicate in a variety of fields including education, medicine, business, and even interpersonal relationships. In this study, we investigate the effects of the modality of communication, whether through face-to-face (FtF) or VC, on the ability of interactants to develop and maintain nonverbal synchrony. This study is an analysis of 101 interviews between students and professional interviewers in which some of the participants were induced to cheat on a task with a confederate. The results revealed that the VC modality hampered the interactional synchrony of the dyads, especially during the phases of questioning when suspicion-inducing or accusatory questioning was used. For global ratings of synchrony, the greatest impact of modality was for participants whose lies were not sanctioned by the interviewer, suggesting that the VC modality negatively affected the most skilled deceivers. In addition, interactional synchrony improved in the final, accusatory, phase of the interview when subjects confessed, particularly in the FtF modality. The effects of the interviewer and the question type are also discussed.     

The Effect of Attachment Theory in the Development of Eating Disorders: Can Symptoms Be Proximity-Seeking?

The relationship between attachment theory, proximity seeking behaviors and the development of eating disorders was investigated in three groups of adolescent females from various settings; 44 individuals with eating disorders, 28 clinical controls, and 36 non-clinical controls. The Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment and the Parental Attachment Questionnaire were both used in this study and both found that the clinical groups demonstrated a weaker sense of attachment quality compared to their non-clinical counterparts. This study also expands upon John Bowlby's concept of proximity seeking, to offer a possible explanation of the function for eating disorder symptomatology. A new measure, the Proximity-Seeking Scale, found that self-reported changes in both the physical and psychological proximity needs of those with eating disorders had transpired since the clinical diagnosis of the disorder.     

Sex-Typed Body Movements as a Function of Severity of Gender Disturbance in Boys

Specific sex-typed body movements and gestures were recorded in a group of 23 gender-disturbed boys, aged 7 to 17 years, using three standardized procedures- behavioral observation of nine expressive gestures during a 10-minute test period, ratings of sitting, standing and walking on the Barlow Gender-Specific Motor Behavior Form, and ratings of book-carrying behavior. The study found significantly higher frequencies of hand clasp, hyperextension, and limp wrist gestures in gender-disturbed boys as compared to a nonclinical control group. There were significant correlations between severity of gender disturbance and both the frequency of hyperextension gestures and the percentage of feminine motor behaviors recorded on the Barlow Gender-Specific Motor Behavior Form. However, sex-typed carrying behavior did not discriminate between normal and gender-disturbed boys.     

Family Processes and Problem Behaviors in Middle‐Class African American Adolescents

This study examined the joint association between mothers’ and adolescents’ ratings of parental behavioral control and adolescents’ and observers’ ratings of mother – adolescent communication with adolescent problem behaviors in a sample of 86 middle‐class African American early adolescent boys and girls (age: M= 13.08 years, SD= 1.32) and their mothers. Consistent with hypotheses, greater adolescent‐rated parental behavioral control and better observer‐rated mother – adolescent communication were associated with lower levels of adolescent problem behavior, as examined using structural equation modeling. Furthermore, interrelationships between age and adolescent problem behavior were partially mediated by adolescents’ reports of parental behavioral control and observers’ ratings of positive mother – adolescent communication, which both decreased with adolescents’ age. Although the sample was primarily middle class, higher socioeconomic status was associated with more positive mother – adolescent communication, as rated by observers. Problem behavior was greater among boys than girls, but the hypothesized indirect effect of gender on problem behavior through associations with parenting was not observed. The findings demonstrate the utility of conceptually distinguishing between parenting and parent – adolescent relationships, and suggest that both have unique influences on middle‐class African American adolescents’ problem behavior.     

Spatial distance and mobile business social network density

Following the increasing adoption of mobile communication, scholars have shown interest in the role of place on the structure of mobile social networks. The purpose of this study is to investigate the association between spatial distance and the closure and diversity of businesses mobile social networks. We used a database that aggregates actual mobile communication patterns of business users of a large Israeli cell phone company (n?= 16,199). Our findings, among a large sample of businesses, provide support for the place and mobile communication perspective. The results reveal a negative association between spatial distance and mobile business communication networks. As spatial distance between business network members increases, business social ties through mobile communication decreases. Furthermore, the results also revealed a negative association between spatial distance and mobile network density. As the spatial distance between business users increases, the density of the mobile communication network diminishes. Physical proximity promotes the development of dense business networks. The implications of the findings are discussed.     

Honesty and Dishonesty Don’t Move Together: Trait Content Information Influences Behavioral Synchrony

Emerging evidence revealed that honesty and trustworthiness are important drivers of the impression-formation process. Questions remain, however, regarding the role of these moral attributes in guiding real and concrete behaviors. Filling this gap, the present study investigated the influence of honesty on a nonverbal behavior that regulates social interactions: behavioral synchrony. Movements were recorded while participants interacted with a partner who was depicted as honest (versus dishonest) or as friendly (versus unfriendly). Results showed that synchrony was affected only by the honesty of the partner. Specifically, the more the interaction partner lacked honesty, the lower the perceived similarity between the self and the interaction partner, which in turn diminished the promptness to engage in behavioral synchrony. Our findings connected the literature on behavioral synchrony with that on the implication of morality for social perception, revealing the key role of the honesty facet of moral character in shaping nonverbal behaviors.     

The Role of Social Performance and Physical Attractiveness in Peer Rejection of Socially Anxious Adolescents

This study addressed the role of social performance and physical attractiveness in the link between social anxiety and peer rejection in first‐time social situations. Recordings of 20 high and 20 low socially anxious adolescents giving a speech were rated by unfamiliar peers (N = 534) with regard to desire for future interaction (lower scores indicating rejection), social performance, and physical attractiveness; trained adult raters also evaluated social performance. Findings showed high interrelations between the different peer ratings and moderate correlations between adult and peer ratings. High socially anxious students were more rejected and social performance and physical attractiveness partly mediated the link between social anxiety and rejection. The findings may have important implications for socially anxious youth entering new social situations.     

Infant locomotion shapes proximity to adults during everyday play in the U.S.

Learning to walk expands infants’ access to the physical environment and prompts changes in their communicative behaviors. However, little is known about whether walking also shapes infants’ proximity to their adult social partners during everyday activities at home. Here we followed 89 infants (42 boys, 47 girls; 92% White, not Hispanic or Latino) longitudinally and documented connections between infant locomotion and infant-adult proximity on two timescales: (1) across developmental time, by comparing data from a session when infants could only crawl to a later session when they could walk (M walk onset = 12.15 months, range = 8-15); and (2) in real time, by testing whether the amount of time that infants spent in motion (regardless of their locomotor status) related to their interpersonal distance to adults. The developmental transition to walking corresponded to a significant, but modest, decrease in infant-adult proximity. Infants’ moment-to-moment locomotion, however, was strongly related to patterns of interpersonal distance: infants who spent more time in motion spent less time near adults and instigated more proximity transitions, resulting in shorter and more dispersed bouts of proximity throughout sessions. Findings shed new light on how infants’ motor achievements can reverberate across other domains of development, and how changes in infant development that researchers often observe over months arise from infants’ moment-to-moment experiences.     

Beliefs about cues associated with deception

People's beliefs about the association of 19 visual and auditory cues with deception were assessed in one of two questionnaires: Subjects were asked to indicate the association of each cue with deception in their own behavior (self-perception condition) or in other people's behavior (other-perception condition). The 19 behaviors listed in the questionnaires had been previously examined in research on actual behaviors associated with deception; ten of these behaviors had also been examined in research on cues associated with judgment of deception. Stronger association between the various cues and deception were obtained in the other-perception than in the self-perception condition, indicating that people believe they control their own deceptive behavior better than other people control theirs. Beliefs about the association of each behavior with deception (averaged across the two conditions and sex of respondents) correlated .11 with the actual association of each cue with deception, and .44 with the association of each cue with judgment of deception. The possibility that the correspondence between beliefs about deception and actual cues to deception is higher for some specific types of lie-telling was discussed.     

Youth co-offending networks: An investigation of social and spatial effects

This research tests the relative contribution of social distance and spatial distance to the presence of ties between neighborhoods based on youth co-offending. Using official court data from a large U.S. metropolitan area, a set of dyad independence and exponential random graph models are estimated in order to investigate the characteristics of neighborhoods that foster co-offending. Results reveal significant effects of both social and spatial distance. Social distance contributes to network structure net of spatial proximity, though spatial factors better explain the overall network structure. These results have methodological implications for the analysis of spatial effects and criminal behavior.     

Physical Distance Between Romantic Partners as a Marker for Attachment in Couples: A Proof of Concept Study

Proximity seeking is at the core of attachment theory. Previously proximity has been studied almost exclusively in psychological terms. In clinical practice, however, couple therapists may interpret physical distance between romantic partners as a marker for the quality of the attachment bond. Unfortunately, this concept of physical distance between partners as an expression of attachment has never been tested. This study examines whether physical distance between romantic partners is associated with attachment. In 53 students and 43 clinical couples physical distance was repeatedly measured from video using novel software with excellent reliability. Attachment was measured with the Experiences in Close Relationships questionnaire. It was found that male attachment anxiety about rejection repeatedly showed statistically significant associations with physical interpersonal distance in student and clinical couples. We conclude that attachment may manifest itself not only in terms of psychological intimacy but also in terms of physical distance. Clinical utility and research implications are discussed.     

The effects of distance and individual differences in arousability on nonverbal involvement: A test of discrepancy-arousal theory

Mutual influence in human interaction refers to the tendency for persons to alter their verbal, vocal, and kinesic behaviors in response to the intensity, frequency or duration of those behaviors emitted by their partners. Numerous explanations of these processes have been put forward involving principles of approach-avoidance conflict, arousal, reward, and cognitive processes. These explanations are reviewed with special attention given to an arousal based theory, discrepancy-arousal. This theory holds that mutual influence is primarily the result of arousal changes due to the degree of discrepancy of partner's behavior from the receiver's expectation.The theory predicts that persons who differ in reaction to arousal should also differ in their response to a partner's immediacy. This hypothesis was tested on high and low sensation seekers under conditions of near and normal distances during an interview. Several different behavioral responses were coded, including eye gaze, posture and orientation, smiles and laughter, object- and body-focused gestures, vocalization, pauses, and latencies to respond. The hypothesized interaction did not materialize with a median split on sensation seeking. A measure of state-trait sensation seeking (STSS) was developed. The interaction between distance and a median split on the state-trait measure was significant for eye gaze and posture and orientation, with the high STSS subjects compensating less than the low STSS subjects.