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.

Guests’ Desire for Relational Closeness with Hosts: The Roles of Attachment Styles

Extant research is increasingly recognizing the importance of customer attachment styles in service settings because of its significance with regard to relationship marketing. This study examined the impact of guest attachment styles on the desire for relational closeness with hosts using perceived hospitality as a mediator of service evaluation. Findings show that guests with higher levels of attachment anxiety seek closer relationships with hosts, and those with higher levels of attachment avoidance spurn efforts towards relational closeness. Also, perceived hospitality mediates only the impact of attachment avoidance on the desire for relational closeness. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

A Narrative Review Examining the Utility of Interpersonal Synchrony for the Caregiver-Care Recipient Relationship in Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias

The stressful nature of caring for an older adult with a chronic disease, such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD), can create barriers between the caregiver-care recipient, as they try to navigate their continuously changing social relationship. Interpersonal synchrony (i.e., matching or similarity of movement, emotions, hormones, or brain activity), is an innovative approach that could help to sustain caregiving relationship dynamics by promoting feelings of connection and empathy through shared behavior and experiences. This review investigates the current literature on interpersonal synchrony from an interdisciplinary perspective by examining interpersonal synchrony through psychological, neural, and hormonal measures across the adult lifespan. We then present a case for examining the degree to which interpersonal synchrony can be used to facilitate affiliation and well-being in the caregiver-care recipient relationship. We find that there is significant evidence in healthy adult populations that interpersonal synchrony can support affiliative feelings, prosocial behavior, and well-being. Characterizing the psychological, neural, and hormonal mechanisms of interpersonal synchrony is a first step towards laying the groundwork for the development of tools to support relational closeness and empathy in the caregiving context. Finally, we explore the strengths and limitations of using interpersonal synchrony to support relational well-being, and discuss possible avenues for future research.

We Mostly Think Alike: Individual Differences in Attitude Towards AI in Sweden and Japan

Attitudes towards artificial intelligence (AI) and social robots are often depicted as different in Japan, compared to other western countries, such as Sweden. Several different reasons for why there are general differences in attitudes have been suggested. In this study, five hypotheses based on previous literature were investigated. Rather than attempting to establish general differences between groups, subjects were sampled from the respective populations, and correlations between the hypothesized confounding factors and attitudes were investigated within the groups between individuals. The hypotheses in this exploratory study concerned: (H1) animistic beliefs in inanimate objects and phenomena, (H2) worry about unemployment due to AI deployment, (H3) perceived positive or negative portrayal of AI in popular culture, (H4) familiarity with AI, and (H5) relational closeness and privacy with AI. No clear correlations between attitudes and animistic belief (H1), or portrayal of AI in popular culture (H3) could be observed. When it comes to the other attributes, worry about unemployment (H2), familiarity with AI (H4), and relational closeness and privacy (H5), the correlations were similar for the individuals in both groups and in line with the hypotheses. Thus, the general picture following this exploratory study is that individuals in the two populations are more alike than different.

The Effects of the Fear of Missing Out on People's Social Networking Sites Use During the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Mediating Role of Online Relational Closeness and Individuals' Online Communication Attitude

Forced isolation induced by COVID-19 pandemic dramatically impacted individuals' well-being, reducing the opportunities for social encounters, consequently resulting in a greater use of social media in order to maintain social relationships. Although the range of friend-related activities appeared to be severely constrained during quarantine, the Fear of Missing Out (FoMO) needs to be carefully examined, especially in relation to problematic social networking site use (PSNSU). Indeed, FoMO might enhance individuals' need to stay connected and communicate with other people, leading to PSNSU, in order to face the fear of being invisible in the world of social media in circumstances of physical isolation. The present study sought to evaluate the predictive role of FoMO on PSNSU during the COVID-19 pandemic, testing the mediating effect of online relational closeness and online communication attitude. A total of 487 Italian adults (59.3% women), aged between 18 and 70 years (mean age = 29.85 years; SD = 9.76), responded to an online survey during the period of COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in Italy. The survey included self-report measures assessing perceived FoMO, online communication attitude, relational closeness with online friends, and PSNSU. Participants declared they spent significantly more time social networking during the pandemic, particularly women. The total model accounted for a significant amount of variance in participants' PSNSU [R2 = 0.54; F(9, 447) = 58.285, p < 0.001). Despite the other people's social rewarding experiences had been drastically reduced by the lockdown, findings showed a direct effect of FoMO on PSNSU. Moreover, FoMO had an effect on online communication attitude and online relational closeness, although only online communication attitude predicted, in turn, PSNSU. Conversely, relational closeness on social networking sites did not predict PSNSU. The present study suggests that, during COVID-19 lockdown, FoMO levels may have strengthened attitudes toward online communication, which, in turn, may have put some individuals at risk of PSNSU.

Student Evaluations of Instructor Email Response Speed as Chronemic Expectancy Violations

Instructional communication researchers have begun exploring the effects of instructor email response speed on student evaluations of their instructor. To date, researchers have concluded that faster response times result in more favorable evaluations. To extend this line of research, this experiment explores student evaluations of instructor response speed through the lens of expectancy violations theory, arguing that eliciting positive evaluations is not just about responding quickly, but rather, responding more quickly than students expect. Results indicated that positive violations of instructor email response speed are evaluated more favorably than negative chronemic violations in terms of instructor credibility and relational closeness. These findings contribute practical implications for instructors inundated with email exchanges with students and offer theoretical nuance to the study of chronemics in instructor-student email communication.

Proximal Authority

In 1920, the Swiss-American music teacher and occultist Leah Hirsig (1883–1975) was appointed ‘Scarlet Woman’ by the British occultist Aleister Crowley (1875–1947), founder of the religion Thelema. In this role, Hirsig was Crowley’s right-hand woman during a formative period in the Thelemic movement, but her position shifted when Crowley found a new Scarlet Woman in 1924. Hirsig’s importance in Thelema gradually declined, and she distanced herself from the movement in the late 1920s. The article analyses Hirsig’s changing status in Thelema 1919–1930, proposing the term proximal authority as an auxiliary category to Max Weber’s tripartite typology. Proximal authority is defined as authority ascribed to or enacted by a person based on their real or perceived relational closeness to a leader. The article briefly draws on two parallel cases so as to demonstrate the broader applicability of the term in highlighting how relational closeness to a leadership figure can entail considerable yet precarious power.