Arguing about social distancing and family relationships

With the COVID-19 pandemic, families are having to coordinate their behaviors to face new challenges, such as negotiating the social distancing measures that the family will or will not take in their daily interaction. This study utilizes Family Communication Patterns Theory to examine conversations that young adults reported having with their family members about social distancing measures and what factors predicted the outcomes of these disagreements. A family’s level of conversation orientation and the interaction of conversation orientation and conformity orientation predicted change in relational closeness due to the argument and the perceived positivity level of predicted outcome value levels for future interaction with these family members. Additionally, level of conformity orientation predicted perceived relational harm from disagreements about social distancing.

Developmental Mathematics: Students’ Predicted Outcome Value of Electronic Communication

This study investigated the predicted outcome value of electronic communication from the viewpoint of developmental mathematics students. Students at a large Texas community college completed a combination of instruments that were administered in three prior studies. Three reasons for using electronic communication that were included in this study were procedural/clarification, personal/social, and efficiency. Results indicated that (a) student-initiated electronic communications conversations were correlated with students’ predicted outcome value of electronic communications; (b) instructor immediacy behaviors via electronic measures was correlated with students’ reasons for electronic communication; (c) instructor immediacy of electronic communication and the reasons for communicating explained 34.3% of the variance in students’ predicted outcome value of electronic communication; (d) procedural/clarification reasons was the largest predictor of predicted outcome value; and (e) the β weight and structure coefficient suggested that personal/social reasons was a possible suppressor. Keywords: developmental mathematics, electronic communication, predicted outcome value, regression, suppressor variable

Representation of the observer’s predicted outcome value in mirror and nonmirror neurons of macaque F5 ventral premotor cortex

Both the populations of F5 mirror neurons and nonmirror neurons represent the predicted value of an outcome resulting from the observation of a grasping action. Value-dependent motivation, arousal, and attention directed at the observed action do not provide a better explanation for this representation. The population activity’s metric suggests an optimal scaling of value representation to task setting.

The relational reconnection function of social network sites

Relational reconnection is a prominent yet under-explored function of social network sites (SNS) that encompasses both the activation and subsequent maintenance of dormant social ties. The present investigation used two data collections (Study 1, six university samples; Study 2, national United States sample) to explore the characteristics of friends who reconnect using SNS, and attempt to predict whether reconnected relationships persisted beyond the initial reconnection. Results indicated that relational reconnection is extremely common, especially among same-sex friends and individuals who identify as heavy SNS users. Predicted outcome value emerged as the best predictor of persistence beyond initial reconnection, in addition to engaging in modality expansion, being female, and reactivating a relationship with greater perceived development pre-loss-of-contact.