Gayla Margolin - US grants

This investigation is aimed at the detailed examination of intrapersonal (behavioral, cognitive, and physiological) and interpersonal (relationship oriented) variables that are associated with constructive versus destructive modes of coping with marital conflict. Samples of couple interaction will be explored across situations ranging from structured laboratory interactions to unstructured naturalistic home interactions in couples who have a history of being either physically abusive, verbally abusive, nonabusive but distressed, or nonabusive and nondistressed. Laboratory assessment procedures include direct behavioral observations, physiological indices of arousal, spouses' ratings of themselves and one another and self-report data. Analyses within and across these different modes of data collection and sequential analytic procedures will be used to determine (a) the types of interaction sequences that differentiate the four groups of couples, (b) the physiological reactions associated with marital conflict that may have long-range health implications, (c) the impact of anger arousal on spouses' abilities to accurately interpret cues from one another, and (d) the relationship between arousal experienced during an actual interaction and during a videotaped playback of that interaction. Home assessment involves an enactment of a typical conflict plus two weeks of naturalistic home observations and daily telephone interviews on spousal and parent-child tensions. Analyses of these data will indicate the degree of generalizability from laboratory to home data and the impact of marital conflict on parent-child relations. Finally, a one-year follow-up will be conducted to identify variables that predict the escalation of marital aggression over time. The long-range purpose of this study is to improve the assessment and treatment of couples who have problems with anger by providing information on (a) the convergent and discriminant validity among various measurements of marital conflict and (b) the covert and overt processes associated with verbal and physical abuse.

The objective of this study is to identify mechanisms that explain why some adolescents fare worse than others in response to family and community violence. The study hypothesizes that violence exposure erodes family processes and adolescents'daily experiences, and that these proximal variables account for compromised adolescent functioning. The study provides in-depth perspectives of family processes and ongoing daily experiences through behavioral samples of family and peer interactions, and through 14 days of daily diary data. The study also hypothesizes that violence exposure leads to dysregulated biological stress of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis (measured through cortisol), and that violence-exposed youth are primed for HPA activation in response to negative family interactions. This study extends an ongoing investigation involving three previous assessments of marital violence, parent-child aggression, and community violence in an ethnically diverse sample of two-parent families with a child age 9 or 10 when the study began. The proposed project adds three more assessments of these exposure variables, and extends the study from pre-adolescence through late adolescence. Six waves of data collection allow for the study of cascading effects across time, with feedback loops from negative family processes, adolescent daily experiences and adolescent adjustment contributing in a bi-directional fashion to the likelihood of violence. Repeating, detailed assessments of family and community violence allow for testing whether multiple types of violence, violence at an earlier age, and more persistent violence contribute to more pervasive and deleterious outcomes. Adolescence is targeted because of the importance of understanding how the risks associated with violence exposure coincide with the normal challenges at this time, and because adolescents'abilities to successfully negotiate educational, social, and health domains are highly salient to their subsequent physical and psychological adjustment as young adults. The study has multiple reporters (adolescent, mother, father, peer), uses multiples types of data collection, and measures multiple developmental outcomes (behavioral and psychological functioning;aggression toward others;academic achievement;and high-risk, health-compromising behaviors). Through growth curve models estimated using partial least squares latent variable analysis, we examine multiple pathways through which violence exposure influences adolescent outcomes. The focus on proximal, modifiable variables ultimately can be used to inform intervention and prevention programs for adolescents exposed to violence.

In contrast to the prevalent uni-modal perspective, the project focuses on quantitatively integrating information residing in multiple modalities to yield observational behavior analysis descriptions that range from global categories to time continuous behavioral abstractions and contributes novel algorithms and models for recognizing and modeling communicative and affective interaction dynamics elicited in realistic settings of couples and family therapy. The computational challenges are multiple from automated perception of emotionally rich behaviors and cognition through models for domain specific interpretation of the sensed information, to action through combining the knowledge and expertise of humans with the information processing abilities of the machine.

The research impacts a wide range of applications centered on observations of the human state and interactions, e.g., mental health applications, business customer services, negotiation tactics, law enforcement (interviews), etc. The project also provides multi-disciplinary training for undergraduate and graduate students. The expected outcomes include benefits to psychology through novel information augmentation, in technology through improved intelligent and robust human behavior computing, and in observational practice through the introduction of transformational tools.

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Aggression in dating relationships is common and has significant medical, behavioral, and social consequences for individuals and society. An aggressive family environment increases future risk for dating aggression, but many at-risk individuals do not continue aggressive patterns into the next generation. The psychosocial and psychobiological mechanisms underlying dating aggression and factors that predict discontinuity from familial aggression to dating aggression in young adulthood are poorly understood. The proposed study aims to discover both risk and protective factors that affect the intergenerational continuity of aggression from family relationships during adolescence into dating relationships in young adulthood. Multiple levels of inquiry (behavioral, physiological, emotional, and vocal) will be applied to ecologically valid discussions of emotionally charged topics between dating partners. The study will measure stress reactivity through Autonomic Nervous System [ANS] and Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenocortical [HPA] axis activation, through indices of vocal arousal, and through behavioral and emotional deregulation as displayed in hostile or withdrawing behaviors. These forms of reactivity are hypothesized to exacerbate risk for dating aggression. The study also investigates whether compassion (measured through observed displays of empathy and attunement, physiological and vocal co regulation, oxytocin as a biomarker, and self- and partner-reports) is a mitigating factor. Young adulthood is targeted as a critical developmental window-still influenced by previous family relationships but also distinguished by opportunities for change. This study builds on a prospective, multi-wave study involving one member of the dating couple and her or his parents. Data collected during the prior study provide multiple assessments of cumulative family violence across adolescence and also allow for comparison between previously recorded family interactions and the proposed dating couple interactions. The current study draws upon a variety of innovative and exploratory measures across physiological, vocal and observational systems to evaluate the role of stress reactivity and compassion in the intergenerational continuity of aggression. The data will be analyzed using multilevel, multivariate, longitudinal analytic strategies that reflect the multiple forms of dependency in the couple and family data. This study also breaks new conceptual ground on dating aggression by advancing knowledge of individual and interpersonal mechanisms that are exhibited in 'real-life' emotionally-charged dating partner discussions and post-discussion recovery. In line with preventive science, these multi-method, longitudinal, conceptually driven, and data-rich approaches to dating partners' discussions are intended to reveal malleable, clinically relevant factors linked with risk and resilience for dating aggression and critical to the design of preventive interventions.

Aggression between dating partners is a serious societal, health, and criminal justice problem that affects many persons, particularly adolescents and young adults. Although often understood as a phenomenon that is transmitted across generations, growing up in an aggressive household does not necessarily lead to aggressive romantic relationships. Identifying factors associated with resilience versus risk for young adult dating aggression is an important step for developing effective and targeted educational and intervention programs. Much of the prior research focuses on static individual characteristics to identify who is at risk for dating aggression. However, this study focuses on the dynamic interplay between individual, contextual and emotion regulation processes as they unfold in real time. Conflict sensitization theories, which guide this study, propose that conflict can be escalated when individuals experience both heightened physiological arousal and behavioral and emotional sensitivity. Young adult dating couples are relatively unfamiliar with the challenges of handling conflict in romantic relationships. Therefore they offer a prime opportunity for understanding how conflict is triggered in everyday interactions and for linking conflict patterns to earlier family relationships.

This study advances science by taking the study of dating aggression out of the laboratory and into real-world, ecologically-valid home environments. The study examines everyday interactions between dating partners, and how individuals adjust and adapt, a process called "self-regulation," via behavioral, physiological, emotional, and vocal processes. Such processes will vary in dating couples' home environments as a function of naturally-occurring changes in relationship stress. These measures capture regulatory processes that will be time-linked to couple irritation and conflict, allowing for the assessment of the beginning phases of negative escalation cycles. Smartphone technology is used to capture momentary assessment of partners' activities, emotions, spoken words, vocally encoded arousal, and physical proximity. Mobile health technologies assess physiological arousal through measurements of skin conductance and heart rate. Using multi-modal cutting-edge methodologies for data collection in couples' naturalistic environment, this research may provide new insights into how regulatory systems are linked in real time within and across partners. The research will also yield new insights about how aggression affects regulatory processes, and how dating aggression can be reduced.

The Directorate of Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences offers postdoctoral research fellowships to provide opportunities for recent doctoral graduates to obtain additional training, to gain research experience under the sponsorship of established scientists, and to broaden their scientific horizons beyond their undergraduate and graduate training. Postdoctoral fellowships are further designed to assist new scientists to direct their research efforts across traditional disciplinary lines and to avail themselves of unique research resources, sites, and facilities, including at foreign locations. This postdoctoral fellowship award supports a rising scholar at the intersection of Psychology and Engineering (Dynamical Systems). In an increasingly collaborative domain of science, this project represents a unique interdisciplinary direction that should be beneficial for both the fields. The main focus of this project is dating aggression, which poses significant societal problems including the continuity of aggression into committed long-term relationships, negative future implications for parenting, and an array of physical and mental health problems. Identifying mechanisms that explain dating aggression is crucial to interrupting maladaptive patterns of communication and bolstering healthy developmental trajectories for relationships. In contrast to prior research that focuses primarily on global individual characteristics associated with dating aggression, the present study is designed to capture dynamic unfolding of moment-to-moment relational processes that ultimately may lead to aggression. This postdoctoral fellowship award supports a recent Ph.D. who aims to transform the scientific study of dating partner aggression through the interdisciplinary integration of novel technologies from psychology and electrical engineering. The focus of investigation is each partner's physiological state, which will be measured through behavioral, vocal, and physiological channels. Coordination across channels of physiological conditions -within individuals as well as between the dating partners-will be tested as putative factors in current experiences of couple aggression as well as past legacies from exposure to aggression in the dating partners' family-of-origin. Better understanding of factors associated with dating aggression-particularly modifiable factors such communication processes and accompanying physiological states can ultimately inform prevention and intervention efforts designed to reduce dating aggression. Decreasing the incidence of dating aggression as well as limiting the transmission of aggression across generations are priorities for multiple stakeholders: individuals, families, researchers, clinicians, and policy-makers.

The goal of the present project is to expand what is known about dating partner aggression and its link to family-of-origin aggression by identifying patterns of interaction and of physiological conditions that are indices of risk versus resilience for couple aggression. The theoretical innovation of this proposal lies in the conceptualization and testing of synchrony versus asynchrony across different physiological indices: vocal, physiological and psychological. Young dating couples will engage in multiple emotionally-charged discussions during which behaviors, vocal qualities, and physiology (e.g., heart rate, skin conductance) are measured and recorded. Engineering-based methods of acoustic analysis and biomedical signal processing along with psychology-based human coding of behaviors and emotions will allow for the simultaneous capture of multiple regulatory processes. It is hypothesized that patterns of synchrony versus asynchrony across different channels will further knowledge of how ongoing regulatory processes contribute to relational aggression (e.g., physiological states that are not accompanied by concomitant behavioral ones may circumvent escalation). Risk and resilience for aggression, often studied as trait-like propensities, will be examined here from relational perspectives. By focusing on young adults who are in early stages of significant intimate relationships and through the application of novel technologies, this study will advance scientific inquiry on relationship aggression as well as on the continuity of aggression across generations.

This award was provided as part of NSF's Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (SPRF) program. The goal of the SPRF program is to prepare promising, early career doctoral-level scientists for scientific careers in academia, industry or private sector, and government. SPRF awards involve two years of training under the sponsorship of established scientists and encourage Postdoctoral Fellows to perform independent research. NSF seeks to promote the participation of scientists from all segments of the scientific community, including those from underrepresented groups, in its research programs and activities; the postdoctoral period is considered to be an important level of professional development in attaining this goal. Each Postdoctoral Fellow must address important scientific questions that advance their respective disciplinary fields. This postdoctoral fellowship award supports the training and research of a young scientist studying the interpersonal consequences of childhood exposure to family aggression in different relationship contexts. The project also incorporates methodological diversity, relying on longitudinal self-report data, coded observations, and daily diary data, which allow for examining critical micro- and macro-level interpersonal processes. Although past research shows that victims of parental aggression are at increased risk for experiencing victimization and/or exhibiting aggression in the context of their peer and romantic relationships, it remains unclear how and why exposure to family violence increases risk for future victimization and aggression. In order to interrupt these maladaptive cycles of violence, it is important to identify the underlying mechanisms that account for the stability of victimization over time and learn about potential protective factors that can buffer victims from enduring interpersonal difficulties. The current project seeks to delineate the interpersonal characteristics of youth with a history of victimization by directly examining adolescents' observed social behaviors in discussions with a close friend.

The specific aims of the current project are to examine a) how a history of family victimization influences adolescents? interpersonal style (e.g., affect, behavior) within a dyadic, friendship interaction and b) whether observed maladaptive interpersonal functioning with friends can account for the continuity of victimization over time (e.g., from family to dating partners). By studying victimization longitudinally, across different relational contexts (e.g., family, peer, and romantic partner), and using a range of methods (e.g., self-report, observational coding, daily diary), the proposed study has the potential to advance both methodological and theoretical approaches to studying antecedents and consequences of interpersonal violence. In addition to examining maladaptive interpersonal functioning as a key mechanism implicated in the continuity of victimization across different contexts, the project will investigate the buffering role of social support for adolescents with a history of victimization, relying on both lab-based observed interactions with a friend and daily diary reports. By considering interpersonal relationships as involving dynamic processes-unfolding through both moment-to-moment interactions and gradually over time?the project will offer unique insight into how peers can serve as both a source of stress and resilience across childhood and adolescence. Additionally, identifying the specific factors that maintain versus interrupt victimization stability is hoped to offer increased understanding of how to develop targeted intervention and prevention strategies among youth at risk for or experiencing interpersonal aggression.