ICPR Abstracts: Session 2

---

Session 2: Symposium

Communicating Intimacy, Support and Positive Affect 
in Close Relationships

The Role of Emotions in the Social Process

Anita Barbee and Tammy Lawrence
 University of Louisville

Early work in the area of social support examined the role 
of emotion on a person's willingness to seek support for 
various problems and the emotional outcomes for the 
recipients of such support.  This chapter builds on that 
previous work in four major ways.  First, we draw upon 
our theory of interactive coping, Sensitive Interaction 
Systems Theory (SIST), which reflects the dialectics of 
flexibility and delicacy that occurs in communication 
between members of close relationships, particularly in 
supportive interaction.  With this theoretical base, we 
explore other ways in which emotion can affect the seeker 
of support, such as in their choice of support activation 
behaviors, as well as their response to their partner's 
attempt to make them feel better.  Third, we examine the 
role that emotion plays in a potential helper's willingness 
and ability to give effective support, and to react to their 
partner's response to such supportive attempts.  Finally, 
we examine how all of these expressions of emotion in a 
supportive context affect the relationships between 
partners both in the short and long-term.


How Comforting Messages Work:  Potential 
Mechanisms through which Verbalizations Moderate 
Emotional Distress

Brant R. Burleson, Purdue University
Daena J. Goldsmith, University of Illinois

Researchers have investigated (a) what circumstances 
typically lead people to feel bad and (b) what message 
features often help them feel better.  However, we do not 
yet have a very complete understanding of why certain 
messages help those experiencing emotional distress to 
feel better.  Why are some messages more effective than 
others at modifying the emotions of a distressed person?  
The aim of this chapter is to identify some mechanisms 
through which comforting messages may bring about 
alterations in affective states of distressed others.  
Potential mechanisms will be identified by:  examining the 
circumstances that lead to the arousal of certain negative 
emotions, identifying aspects of the appraisals underlying 
those emotions that would need to be changed in order to 
alter the problematic emotional state, and identifying the 
specific features of comforting messages most likely to 
result in modifications of relevant appraisals.  The chapter 
will thus (a) review what is known about the conditions 
that lead to emotional distress and the messages that help 
overcome it, (b) identify some of the theoretical 
mechanisms through which comforting messages may 
work to change emotional states, and (c) propose designs 
for empirical studies that may help determine the specific 
mechanisms through which comforting messages actually 
function.


Expression of Emotion in Close Relationships

Patricia Noller, Judith A. Feeney and Nigel Roberts
University of Queensland

There is no doubt that emotion plays an important part in 
close relationships.  Issues that are addressed in this 
chapter include the accuracy with which partners 
understand each other's emotional expressions, emotional 
control and regulation versus emotion expression, emotion 
and dealing with conflict, and emotion and violence in 
relationships, we also move beyond satisfaction to look at 
factors (such as the security of attachment) that are likely 
to impact the ways that emotions are dealt with in 
relationships.


Loving and Liking

Carolyn B. Taraban, Susan S. Hendrick 
and Clyde Hendrick, Texas Tech University

This chapter explores the intrapersonal emotions that 
constitute loving and liking and places them in the 
interpersonal context in which they are communicated to a 
romantic partner.  Though liking and loving are not the 
same, there is great overlap between them, and both are 
likely constituents of the most successful romantic 
relationships.  The chapter focuses on theoretical and 
empirical work which has explored the effective 
communication of liking and love, in situations ranging 
from initial encounters to long-term relationships.  In 
particular, research on self-disclosure and liking, the 
communication of romantic interest, and the 
communication of love is discussed.


Approach/Avoidance Orientations:  Messages of 
Intimacy, Warmth, and Attachment

Peter A. Andersen, San Diego University
Laura K. Guerrero, Pennsylvania State University

Researchers studying attachment, emotion, and nonverbal 
behavior have investigated how messages of approach and 
avoidance are communicated within interpersonal 
relationships.  This chapter focuses on messages that 
reflect warmth and intimacy, as well as touching upon 
messages reflecting avoidance and anxiety.  We examine 
how dimensions of engagement-detachment and positivity- 
negativity combine to create messages of intimacy, 
hostility, social politeness, and avoidance.  We then 
examine the verbal and nonverbal behaviors that are 
associated with intimacy and warmth, and discuss ways 
that people respond to the intimacy messages of others.  
Factors that moderate how people communicate and 
respond to intimacy messages are also discussed.  These 
include relational level, culture, and personality traits.  
Finally, we examine how dimensions of 
approach/avoidance vary as a function of attachment style.  
In particular, we review literature on attachment-style 
differences in (a) intimacy and positive affect messages, 
(b) emotional control and expressivity, (c) security and 
anxiety, including support seeking and giving, and (d) 
emotions such as anger, jealousy, and sadness.


Communicating Sexual Desire

Sandra Metts and Susan Sprecher, 
Illinois State University
Pamela C. Regan, Albion College

This chapter integrates several bodies of literature that 
help to explain the experience of sexual desire and factors 
that influence its expression.  The first section of the paper 
introduces research and theory on the nature of sexual 
desire and distinguishes sexual desire from related 
phenomena such as sexual arousal and sexual attraction.  
Men's and women's beliefs about sexual desire are 
examined and research that has focused on the various 
causal antecedents and correlates of sexual desire is 
reviewed.  The second section of the chapter explores the 
expression of sexual desire in relationships that are in a 
"presexual" stage of development.  Of particular interest in 
this section are the communicative rituals used to signal 
sexual desire and assess the responsiveness of a target 
(e.g. flirting), the communicative management of first 
sexual involvement, stages of increasing sexual intimacy 
characteristic of sexual episodes, and barriers to the 
expression of sexual desire in developed (i.e., sexual) 
relationships, giving particular attention to the initiation 
and refusal of sexual desire, sex talk as arousing, sex talk 
as disclosure, and the relational consequences of 
decreasing sexual desire and/or sexual expression.