Timescales in the Study of Social Relationships: From Getting to Know You to Strengthening Bonds

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

Humans are social by nature and social relationships support wellbeing and adaptive development across multiple domains. Individual social interactions form the foundation for long-term relationships. An in-depth examination of social interactions can reveal mechanisms that enable the attainment and long-term maintenance of social relationships. In tandem, examining social relationships over time can highlight how mechanisms underlying social interactions may change or strengthen, providing an understanding of how processes supporting social relationships develop. The presentations in the current symposium explore social relationships at multiple timescales, from a singular social interaction to multiple social interactions across years. The first speaker will present second-by-second data over the course of a peer social interaction to examine how expressed positive affect influences subsequent social attention, as measured by dyadic mobile eye-tracking. The second speaker will examine parent-adolescent social interactions over the course of 9 days, as measured by ecological momentary assessments, to reveal the mutually reinforcing nature of positive engagement in the parent-adolescent relationship. The third presenter will examine how neural sensitivity to social rewards, as measured by fMRI during a computer-based social interaction, predicts behavior in a “real life” peer interaction. The final presenter will examine parent-child neural synchrony, as measured by fNIRS, across multiple interactions to show how change in neural synchrony predicts later childhood internalizing and externalizing problems. These studies represent a breadth of methods, ages and relationship types and highlight the utility of capturing temporal variation in both short- and long-term mechanisms underlying social interactions to better understand processes supporting social relationships.

Sub Unit

• Social Relationships

Chair

• Alicia Vallorani, University of Maryland - College Park

Individual Presentations

• Affect influences subsequent social attention captured via mobile eye-tracking during dyadic play in young children - Presenting Author: Alicia Vallorani, University of Maryland - College Park; Non-Presenting Author: Kayla Melissa Brown, Advocates for Human Potential; Non-Presenting Author: Xiaoxue Fu, University of South Carolina; Non-Presenting Author: Kelley E Gunther, Yale University; Non-Presenting Author: Leigha Alexandra MacNeill, Northwestern University; Non-Presenting Author: Briana Ermanni, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University; Non-Presenting Author: Michael Nelson Hallquist, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Non-Presenting Author: Koraly Elisa Perez-Edgar, Pennsylvania State University, University Park

• “Hey mom, guess what?”: Affective benefits of parental engagement with adolescent positive daily life experiences - Presenting Author: Julianne Griffith, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Non-Presenting Author: Benjamin Hankin, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Neural sensitivity to social interaction predicts success of real-world peer interaction - Presenting Author: Kathryn McNaughton, University of Maryland - College Park; Non-Presenting Author: Diana Alkire, University of Maryland - College Park; Non-Presenting Author: Katherine Rice Warnell, Texas State University; Non-Presenting Author: Laura A Kirby, University of Maryland, College Park; Non-Presenting Author: Junaid Merchant; Non-Presenting Author: Dustin Moraczewski, University of Maryland, College Park; Non-Presenting Author: Elizabeth Redcay, University of Maryland - College Park

• Links between changes in parent-child neural synchrony and children’s internalizing and externalizing behaviors - Presenting Author: Laura E. Quinones-Camacho, University of Texas at Austin; Non-Presenting Author: Lauren S. Wakschlag, Northwestern University; Non-Presenting Author: Susan B. Perlman, Washington University in St. Louis