Interpersonal relationship

About: Interpersonal relationship is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 22392 publications have been published within this topic receiving 937957 citations. The topic is also known as: interpersonal status & relationship.

Are you happy for me? How sharing positive events with others provides personal and interpersonal benefits.

Abstract: Sharing good news with others is one way that people can savor those experiences while building personal and interpersonal resources. Although prior research has established the benefits of this process, called capitalization, there has been little research and no experiments to examine the underlying mechanisms. In this article, we report results from 4 experiments and 1 daily diary study conducted to examine 2 mechanisms relevant to capitalization: that sharing good news with others increases the perceived value of those events, especially when others respond enthusiastically, and that enthusiastic responses to shared good news promote the development of trust and a prosocial orientation toward the other. These studies found consistent support for these effects across both interactions with strangers and in everyday close relationships.

Empathic accuracy in the interactions of male friends versus male strangers.

Abstract: In unstructured interactions, male friends were found to be more accurate than male strangers in inferring each other's thoughts and feelings. Plausible reasons for this difference were that friends (a) interacted more and exchanged more information, (b) had more similar personalities and therefore more rapport with each other, and (c) had more detailed knowledge of each other's lives. Data confirmed that the friends did indeed interact more and were more similar in their sociability than the strangers; however, these differences did not account for the friends' greater empathic accuracy. Instead, this was primarily attributable to a difference in knowledge structures, namely, the friends' ability to accurately read their partners' thoughts and feelings about imagined events in another place or time.

The Benefits of Social Technology Use Among Older Adults Are Mediated by Reduced Loneliness

Abstract: Technology has the ability to enhance and enrich the lives of older adults by facilitating better interpersonal relationships. However, few studies have directly examined associations between technology use for social reasons and physical and psychological health among older adults. The current study examines the benefits of technology use in 591 older adults from the 2012 wave of the Health and Retirement Study (Mage = 68.18, SD = 10.75; 55.5% female). Social technology use was assessed through five technology-based behaviors (i.e., using e-mail, social networking sites, online video/phone calls, online chatting/instant messaging, using a smartphone). Attitudes toward the usability and benefits of technology use were also assessed. Older adults had generally positive attitudes toward technology. Higher social technology use was associated with better self-rated health, fewer chronic illnesses, higher subjective well-being, and fewer depressive symptoms. Furthermore, each of the links between soc...

The social network, support and neurosis. The function of attachment in adult life.

Abstract: The psychological function of the social network is considered in terms of attachment theory. Social bonds are proposed as essential for obtaining a commodity commonly but unsatisfactorily referred to as support. Requirements for this complex commodity can be discerned in a wide range of contexts. Examples considered are the evolutionary origin of the social network itself, the concept of psychosocial supplies, the distribution of neurosis in Western and non-Western populations, the use of medical consultations, psychotherapy and habitual responses to adversity or disaster. In these and other contexts, it is apparent that individuals have, quite simply, a requirement for affectively positive interaction with others. Under stressful conditions this interaction is called 'support'. When support is lacking there is evidence that psychiatric and perhaps medical morbidity rates increase. For reaseach, the objective must now be to determine whether depleted primary group interaction is causally related to morbidity, or whether it is only an associated or a secondary factor in aetiology, or indeed wholly unrelated. Elucidating more precisely why people need people constitutes an important new task for social psychiatry.