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Affect Projects

Barnard/Columbia Personality Study

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and Avoidant Personality Disorder (APD) are two relatively common yet very serious psychiatric disorders. Both can be quite disabling, due to a pervasive avoidance of social situations (APD) or to characteristic instability in emotions, interpersonal relationships, behaviors, and self-view (BPD).  Together with Geraldine Downey and Kathy Berenson from Columbia University, we are conducting a study, funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, that applies recent developments in social cognition and in emotion research to the examination of these disorders.

Contact Person: Landon Fuhrman

 

Differentiation of Affect and Mixed Emotions

This project explores individual differences in the clarity and specificity with which people label their emotions. we are
interested in the links between emotion differentiation and emotion regulation and dysregulation. In addition, we are interested in
how emotion differentiation is related to empathic accuracy.

Contact Person: Eshkol Rafaeli

 

 

 

Relationships Projects

Attachment Styles and the Experience of Support and Hindrance in Relationships

We are investigating how an individual's attachment style is related to daily emotions and perceptions of social support and hindrance. The extent to which individuals in dyadic relationships receive support from-, or provide support to their partners, as well as cause or experience hindrance within their relationship, can be central to the way partners interact with one another. Using both background measures and couples daily diary data, we are exploring whether attachment styles predict differential exposure or reactivity to these experiences. 

Contact Person: Eshkol Rafaeli

 

Measuring Empathic Accuracy with Daily Diary Data

How does empathic accuracy (EA) help or hurt a relationship on a day-to-day basis? Is the accurate perception of a partner's fluctuation in certain moods more influential than in others? Traditionally, this question has been examined using lab-based behavioral observations, which provide a micro view of EA. A counterpart, macro, approach to this question uses rich daily diary data which allows for drawing out different elements of empathic mood perception, including bias, discrepancy, pattern, and signal detection. These statistically and theoretically distinct elements are potentially central to our understanding of person perception, and actively enrich the ways in which we can examine the precursors and effects of empathic accuracy in close relationships.

Contact Person: Julie Malyn & Rosara Torisi

 

Skillful Support Intervention

Receiving social support from a romantic partner can have positive effects on intimacy but also negative effects for self-efficacy and mood. This project aims to develop a relationship-enhancement intervention with the double goal of testing several hypothesized processes that could be undermining the effectiveness of support, as well as creating an empirically-grounded (and testable) program strengthening intimate dyadic relationships. For this purpose, we are creating a workshop intervention that gives couples new tools and understanding, based on prior social support research, to help them be better skilled at giving support.

Contact Person: Eshkol Rafaeli