PSYCH 390 - Test 2 Terms

Co-Rumination

A type of self-disclosure that focuses on ruminating over negative issues with someone else. Girls do this more than boys. Associated with higher quality of friendships (and not depressive symptoms) when involving the aspects of rehashing problems, speculating, mutual encouragement of problem talk, and time spent talking about problems. Associated with depressive symptoms (and not friendship quality) when involving the aspect of focusing on the negative feelings associated with the problem.

Rumination

Dwelling on one’s own despressive symptoms, linked with depression and anxiety

Friendship Support Gaps

Discrepancy between one’s level of desired and their perceived support.

Deficits in Support

Negative, receiving less support than desired

Surpluses in Support

Positive, receiving more support than expected/desired

Social Support

Social coping resource drawn on to handle stress.

5 Types of Social Support

Emotional, Esteem, Network (Nurturant Support Types); Informational, Tangible (Action-Facilitating Support Types)

Emotional Support

Expressing care and love for a distressed individual. Most common type and most beneficial.

Esteem Support

Increasing the distressed individual’s acknowledgement and regard for their abilities. Surpluses weren’t related to quality, but deficits have a negative effect.

Network Support

Helping a distressed individual’s sense of belonging in groups that can help relieve stress. More of this is good.

Informational Support

Providing advice, factual comments, and feedback. Surpluses were negatively related to one’s friend’s perceived friendship quality, while a deficit was detrimental to one’s own perceived friendship quality, as receiving unwanted information or advice can be received poorly.

Tangible Support

Providing specifics goods and services, like money, transportation, or help with tasks. Detrimental, too much might diminish autonomy and self-competence.

Friendship Quality

No universal standard, but is often conceptualized as a composite of relational indicators like satisfaction and closeness, and is characterized by supportiveness.

Support Adequacy

The alignment of desired and received support, discrepancies can have individual and relational consequences.

Homophily

Tendency for friends to resemble one another; predictive of establishing friendships and important for friendship maintenance (shared interests makes it easier to talk)

Dissimilarity

Harder to maintain friendship with this, including those who are receiving discrepant levels of rewards (insecure, ambivilant/anxiously attached people would be more willing to stay with a friend, even if they though they were receiving insufficient rewards)

Social Skills

Very undefined term in psychology. Neurodivergent people might struggle with this especially.

“Undesirable” Characteristics in Friends

Impulsivity/ghosting, emotional/behavioral problems, aggression, poor social skills, school competence, poor psychosocial adjustment. Characteristics tend to be more about finding similar people, than those who don’t have any of these characteristics.

School Competence

Grades, how high you achieve (however similarity tends to matter more)

Poor Psychosocial Adjustment

Mental health struggles — people might avoid those going through it, or flock to those who are going through similar things

Survival Analyses

Discrete-time survival analyses measure the occurrence and timing of events through an array of logistic regressions, assessing dissolution at multiple time points. Limitations: The relationships have to have started at the same time (in order to look at specific future times), need heterogeneity (differences amongst the sample) in terms of dissolution timing.

Passive Consent Procedures

Different from assent/informed consent procedures. In this, participants need to opt out in order to not participate.

Social exchange theory

Social interactions involve costs and benefits that participants assess as they establish and sustain relationships. Friendships were seen as more reciprocal than family ties (friendship is voluntary), but older adults reported higher life satisfaction when they felt emotionally (but not instrumentally) over-benefited in friendships, whereas younger adults’ life satisfaction was associated with reciprocity in emotional support exchanges with friends. Idea that equity in exchanges is preferable did not apply to the older adults (reflects the premises of socio-emotional selectivity theory)

Convoy model of relationships

Connects both interactive and structural aspects of relationships. Focuses on differences in perceived level of closeness, allowing for comparisons across types and functions of friendships as well as across stages of the life span.

Socioemotional Selectivity Theory

There are changes in social interactions as older adults perceive their remaining lifetime becoming shorter. Specifically, old people adapt to their changing circumstances by reserving their emotional energy for their most important relationships, shedding those with less meaning and value. Very close friends can continue as central figures in older adults’ social networks even if the networks are shrinking, regardless, perhaps, of frequency of face-to-face contact.

social provisions

benefits one receives from friendship (companionship + recreation, instrumental help, validation + caring, enhancement of worth, reliable partnership, “frankness” (bluntness), emotional support)

interactional processes in friendship

self-disclosure, conflict, conflict resolution, forgiveness

potential issues of friendship termination

disappointment, hurt feelings, loss of companionship

Amplification System in Friendship

Whatever characteristics in the network are intensified