Perceived responsiveness, or the extent to which one feels understood, validated, and cared for b... more Perceived responsiveness, or the extent to which one feels understood, validated, and cared for by close others, has shown to play a crucial role in people’s health and well-being. Can this specific interpersonal process also play a protective role in suicidal ideation for people at risk? We assessed if fluctuations in suicidal ideation were associated with fluctuations in the degree of perceived responsiveness that psychiatric patients (admitted in the context of suicidal ideation or attempts or indicating suicidal ideation at intake) experienced in daily interactions immediately after discharge. Specifically, 57 patients reported repeatedly on suicidal ideation (5 times a day) and perceived responsiveness (daily) for 4 consecutive weeks. Effects of established risk factors – thwarted belongingness, perceived burdensomeness, and hopelessness- were assessed as well. Multilevel analyses revealed that the more patients felt that close others had been responsive to them, the less suici...
Supplementary_Materials_Sels for Actual and Perceived Emotional Similarity in Couples' Daily ... more Supplementary_Materials_Sels for Actual and Perceived Emotional Similarity in Couples' Daily Lives by Laura Sels, Yan Ruan, Peter Kuppens, Eva Ceulemans and Harry Reis in Social Psychological and Personality Science
Many relationship theories assume some form of interdependence between relationship partners. Par... more Many relationship theories assume some form of interdependence between relationship partners. Partners are thought to continuously influence each other and to be influenced by each other over time. These influences are not expected to be constant, but dynamic (sometimes partners influence each other a lot, and sometimes they do not influence each other). To investigate such changes in interpersonal dynamics, we showcase the value of using a change point detection approach, which can be used to monitor virtually any preferred quantification of interpersonal dynamics across time. Concretely, we introduce the KCP-RS method, which scans times series for changes in user-specified statistics, in interpersonal emotion dynamic research. We used KCP-RS to investigate changes in 96 couples’ emotional experiences during two 10-minute conversations, which were meant to elicit a negative and a positive interaction context. Based on participants’ continuous reports of the valence of their emotion...
Journal of family psychology : JFP : journal of the Division of Family Psychology of the American Psychological Association, 2021
Many couple therapies focus on enhancing the disclosure of thoughts and feelings, and on an accur... more Many couple therapies focus on enhancing the disclosure of thoughts and feelings, and on an accurate understanding of these. But does the expression of thoughts and feelings lead to better empathic accuracy, as is generally assumed? In this study, we explicitly tested a dynamic expression-leading-to-accuracy account of empathic accuracy in intimate relationships. Specifically, in the conflict interactions of 155 mixed-sex couples, we investigated (a) whether greater momentary expressions of the target (self-reported vs. observed) were associated with more empathic accuracy in the perceiver; (b) whether this outcome was similar for the expression of thoughts versus feelings; and (c) whether the expression-leading-to-accuracy link was moderated by the perceived threat level of these thoughts and feelings. The data revealed that greater (self-reported and observed) expression of the target's thoughts and feelings was associated with better empathic accuracy by the partner; that thi...
Background: Pediatric cancer is a severe life-threatening disease that poses significant challeng... more Background: Pediatric cancer is a severe life-threatening disease that poses significant challenges to the life of the siblings. Based on the social ecology model, the current study is aimed at exploring the association between intrafamilial (family functioning, family support) and contextual (network support) resources, and the individual adjustment of siblings facing cancer in their brother/sister. Methods: Participants were 81 siblings of children with leukemia or non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The mean siblings’ age was 10.32 years. Siblings completed the Family Environment Scale, the Social Support Questionnaire for Children, the Situation-Specific Emotional Reactions Questionnaire, and the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory. Data were analyzed using a multi-level approach. Results: Family functioning, family support, and network support proved to be related to siblings’ cancer-related emotional reactions post-diagnosis. In addition, the present study suggests taking into account the g...
Couples’ relationships affect partners’ mental and physical well-being. Automatic recognition of ... more Couples’ relationships affect partners’ mental and physical well-being. Automatic recognition of couples’ emotions will not only help to better understand the interplay of emotions, intimate relationships, and health and well-being, but also provide crucial clinical insights into protective and risk factors of relationships, and can ultimately guide interventions. However, several works developing emotion recognition algorithms use data from actors in artificial dyadic interactions and the algorithms are likely not to perform well on real couples. We are developing emotion recognition methods using data from real couples and, in this paper, we describe two studies we ran in which we collected emotion data from real couples — Dutch-speaking couples in Belgium and German-speaking couples in Switzerland. We discuss our approach to eliciting and capturing emotions and make five recommendations based on their relevance for developing well-performing emotion recognition systems for couples.
The longitudinal actor-partner interdependence modeling framework (L-APIM) is often used to study... more The longitudinal actor-partner interdependence modeling framework (L-APIM) is often used to study actor and partner effects in dyadic intensive longitudinal data. To capture curvilinear actor and partner patterns, the L-APIM can be extended to include quadratic actor and partner effects. A burning question is how to conduct power analyses for different L-APIM variants. In this paper, we introduce a power analysis application, called PowerLAPIM, and provide a hands-on tutorial for conducting simulation-based power analyses for 32 L-APIM variants, many of which include quadratic effects. With PowerLAPIM, we target the number of dyads needed, but not the number of repeated measurements for both partners, because this is usually fixed in many longitudinal dyadic studies. PowerLAPIM allows studying moderation of the linear and quadratic actor and partner effects by incorporating time-varying covariates or a categorical dyad-level predictor to test group differences. We also provide the f...
Each year, more than 800,000 persons die by suicide, making it a leading cause of death worldwide... more Each year, more than 800,000 persons die by suicide, making it a leading cause of death worldwide. Recent innovations in information and communication technology may offer new opportunities in suicide prevention in individuals, hereby potentially reducing this number. In our project, we design digital indices based on both self-reports and passive mobile sensing and test their ability to predict suicidal ideation, a major predictor for suicide, and psychiatric hospital readmission in high-risk individuals: psychiatric patients after discharge who were admitted in the context of suicidal ideation or a suicidal attempt, or expressed suicidal ideations during their intake. Specifically, two smartphone applications -one for self-reports (SIMON-SELF) and one for passive mobile sensing (SIMON-SENSE)- are installed on participants' smartphones. SIMON-SELF uses a text-based chatbot, called Simon, to guide participants along the study protocol and to ask participants questions about suic...
Following the global outbreak of COVID-19 in March 2020, individuals report psychological distres... more Following the global outbreak of COVID-19 in March 2020, individuals report psychological distress associated with the “new normal”—social distancing, financial hardships, and increased responsibilities while working from home. Given the interpersonal nature of stress and coping responses between romantic partners, based on the systemic transactional model this study posits that perceived partner dyadic coping may be an important moderator between experiences of COVID-19 psychological distress and relationship quality. To examine these associations, self-report data from 14,020 people across 27 countries were collected during the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic (March–July, 2020). It was hypothesized that higher symptoms of psychological distress would be reported post-COVID-19 compared to pre-COVID-19 restrictions (Hypothesis 1), reports of post-COVID-19 psychological distress would be negatively associated with relationship quality (Hypothesis 2), and perceived partner DC wo...
BACKGROUND Multiple symptoms of suicide risk are assessed based on visual and auditory informatio... more BACKGROUND Multiple symptoms of suicide risk are assessed based on visual and auditory information including flattened affect, reduced movement, and slowed speech. Objective quantification of such symptomatology from novel data sources can increase the sensitivity, scalability, and timeliness of suicide risk assessment. OBJECTIVE The goal of this work was to determine if key indicators of the suicide severity could be measured in an objective and automated manner using video data captured during clinical interviews that provided structured questions, but were otherwise kept deliberately open to mimic psychiatric interviewing in routine care. METHODS In the current study we utilized video to quantify facial, vocal, and movement markers associated with mood, emotion, and motor functioning from a structured clinical conversation in 20 patients admitted to a psychiatric hospital following a suicide risk attempt. Measures were calculated using open source deep learning algorithms for pro...
Perceived responsiveness, or the extent to which one feels understood, validated, and cared for b... more Perceived responsiveness, or the extent to which one feels understood, validated, and cared for by close others, has shown to play a crucial role in people’s health and well-being. Can this specific interpersonal process also play a protective role in suicidal ideation for people at risk? We assessed if fluctuations in suicidal ideation were associated with fluctuations in the degree of perceived responsiveness that psychiatric patients (admitted in the context of suicidal ideation or attempts or indicating suicidal ideation at intake) experienced in daily interactions immediately after discharge. Specifically, 57 patients reported repeatedly on suicidal ideation (5 times a day) and perceived responsiveness (daily) for 4 consecutive weeks. Effects of established risk factors – thwarted belongingness, perceived burdensomeness, and hopelessness- were assessed as well. Multilevel analyses revealed that the more patients felt that close others had been responsive to them, the less suici...
Supplementary_Materials_Sels for Actual and Perceived Emotional Similarity in Couples' Daily ... more Supplementary_Materials_Sels for Actual and Perceived Emotional Similarity in Couples' Daily Lives by Laura Sels, Yan Ruan, Peter Kuppens, Eva Ceulemans and Harry Reis in Social Psychological and Personality Science
Many relationship theories assume some form of interdependence between relationship partners. Par... more Many relationship theories assume some form of interdependence between relationship partners. Partners are thought to continuously influence each other and to be influenced by each other over time. These influences are not expected to be constant, but dynamic (sometimes partners influence each other a lot, and sometimes they do not influence each other). To investigate such changes in interpersonal dynamics, we showcase the value of using a change point detection approach, which can be used to monitor virtually any preferred quantification of interpersonal dynamics across time. Concretely, we introduce the KCP-RS method, which scans times series for changes in user-specified statistics, in interpersonal emotion dynamic research. We used KCP-RS to investigate changes in 96 couples’ emotional experiences during two 10-minute conversations, which were meant to elicit a negative and a positive interaction context. Based on participants’ continuous reports of the valence of their emotion...
Journal of family psychology : JFP : journal of the Division of Family Psychology of the American Psychological Association, 2021
Many couple therapies focus on enhancing the disclosure of thoughts and feelings, and on an accur... more Many couple therapies focus on enhancing the disclosure of thoughts and feelings, and on an accurate understanding of these. But does the expression of thoughts and feelings lead to better empathic accuracy, as is generally assumed? In this study, we explicitly tested a dynamic expression-leading-to-accuracy account of empathic accuracy in intimate relationships. Specifically, in the conflict interactions of 155 mixed-sex couples, we investigated (a) whether greater momentary expressions of the target (self-reported vs. observed) were associated with more empathic accuracy in the perceiver; (b) whether this outcome was similar for the expression of thoughts versus feelings; and (c) whether the expression-leading-to-accuracy link was moderated by the perceived threat level of these thoughts and feelings. The data revealed that greater (self-reported and observed) expression of the target's thoughts and feelings was associated with better empathic accuracy by the partner; that thi...
Background: Pediatric cancer is a severe life-threatening disease that poses significant challeng... more Background: Pediatric cancer is a severe life-threatening disease that poses significant challenges to the life of the siblings. Based on the social ecology model, the current study is aimed at exploring the association between intrafamilial (family functioning, family support) and contextual (network support) resources, and the individual adjustment of siblings facing cancer in their brother/sister. Methods: Participants were 81 siblings of children with leukemia or non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The mean siblings’ age was 10.32 years. Siblings completed the Family Environment Scale, the Social Support Questionnaire for Children, the Situation-Specific Emotional Reactions Questionnaire, and the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory. Data were analyzed using a multi-level approach. Results: Family functioning, family support, and network support proved to be related to siblings’ cancer-related emotional reactions post-diagnosis. In addition, the present study suggests taking into account the g...
Couples’ relationships affect partners’ mental and physical well-being. Automatic recognition of ... more Couples’ relationships affect partners’ mental and physical well-being. Automatic recognition of couples’ emotions will not only help to better understand the interplay of emotions, intimate relationships, and health and well-being, but also provide crucial clinical insights into protective and risk factors of relationships, and can ultimately guide interventions. However, several works developing emotion recognition algorithms use data from actors in artificial dyadic interactions and the algorithms are likely not to perform well on real couples. We are developing emotion recognition methods using data from real couples and, in this paper, we describe two studies we ran in which we collected emotion data from real couples — Dutch-speaking couples in Belgium and German-speaking couples in Switzerland. We discuss our approach to eliciting and capturing emotions and make five recommendations based on their relevance for developing well-performing emotion recognition systems for couples.
The longitudinal actor-partner interdependence modeling framework (L-APIM) is often used to study... more The longitudinal actor-partner interdependence modeling framework (L-APIM) is often used to study actor and partner effects in dyadic intensive longitudinal data. To capture curvilinear actor and partner patterns, the L-APIM can be extended to include quadratic actor and partner effects. A burning question is how to conduct power analyses for different L-APIM variants. In this paper, we introduce a power analysis application, called PowerLAPIM, and provide a hands-on tutorial for conducting simulation-based power analyses for 32 L-APIM variants, many of which include quadratic effects. With PowerLAPIM, we target the number of dyads needed, but not the number of repeated measurements for both partners, because this is usually fixed in many longitudinal dyadic studies. PowerLAPIM allows studying moderation of the linear and quadratic actor and partner effects by incorporating time-varying covariates or a categorical dyad-level predictor to test group differences. We also provide the f...
Each year, more than 800,000 persons die by suicide, making it a leading cause of death worldwide... more Each year, more than 800,000 persons die by suicide, making it a leading cause of death worldwide. Recent innovations in information and communication technology may offer new opportunities in suicide prevention in individuals, hereby potentially reducing this number. In our project, we design digital indices based on both self-reports and passive mobile sensing and test their ability to predict suicidal ideation, a major predictor for suicide, and psychiatric hospital readmission in high-risk individuals: psychiatric patients after discharge who were admitted in the context of suicidal ideation or a suicidal attempt, or expressed suicidal ideations during their intake. Specifically, two smartphone applications -one for self-reports (SIMON-SELF) and one for passive mobile sensing (SIMON-SENSE)- are installed on participants' smartphones. SIMON-SELF uses a text-based chatbot, called Simon, to guide participants along the study protocol and to ask participants questions about suic...
Following the global outbreak of COVID-19 in March 2020, individuals report psychological distres... more Following the global outbreak of COVID-19 in March 2020, individuals report psychological distress associated with the “new normal”—social distancing, financial hardships, and increased responsibilities while working from home. Given the interpersonal nature of stress and coping responses between romantic partners, based on the systemic transactional model this study posits that perceived partner dyadic coping may be an important moderator between experiences of COVID-19 psychological distress and relationship quality. To examine these associations, self-report data from 14,020 people across 27 countries were collected during the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic (March–July, 2020). It was hypothesized that higher symptoms of psychological distress would be reported post-COVID-19 compared to pre-COVID-19 restrictions (Hypothesis 1), reports of post-COVID-19 psychological distress would be negatively associated with relationship quality (Hypothesis 2), and perceived partner DC wo...
BACKGROUND Multiple symptoms of suicide risk are assessed based on visual and auditory informatio... more BACKGROUND Multiple symptoms of suicide risk are assessed based on visual and auditory information including flattened affect, reduced movement, and slowed speech. Objective quantification of such symptomatology from novel data sources can increase the sensitivity, scalability, and timeliness of suicide risk assessment. OBJECTIVE The goal of this work was to determine if key indicators of the suicide severity could be measured in an objective and automated manner using video data captured during clinical interviews that provided structured questions, but were otherwise kept deliberately open to mimic psychiatric interviewing in routine care. METHODS In the current study we utilized video to quantify facial, vocal, and movement markers associated with mood, emotion, and motor functioning from a structured clinical conversation in 20 patients admitted to a psychiatric hospital following a suicide risk attempt. Measures were calculated using open source deep learning algorithms for pro...
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