John Patrick Crowley

University of Delaware | UDel UD · Department of Communication

This study examined whether expressive writing could help lesbian, gay, bisexual, or queer (LGBQ) hate speech victims increase forgiveness for offenders, and accelerate cortisol recovery following a discussion task in which they recalled the details of their experiences. Participants (N = 46) were assigned to a benefit-finding, traumatic disclosure...

The current study sought to investigate how individuals optimize their partner's support during a weight transition to accomplish their weight loss goals. A theoretical model was tested to determine the role of support marshaling in managing the relational turbulence associated with weight transitions. Path modeling broadly identified that support...

The coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak poses a substantial threat to public health. Individual efforts to engage in COVID-19 precautionary behaviors are necessary to flatten the pandemic's curve in the waiting period before a vaccine is developed. This study sought to apply the Theory of Motivated Information Management to investigate the relationship...

This study explored the role of the hormone oxytocin in 49 emerging adult couples’ communication after sexual activity. Guided by the post sex disclosures model, the findings indicated that post sex oxytocin levels, but not increases in pre to post sex oxytocin, were associated with men's general assessments of the benefits and risks of disclosing...

LBGTQ+ individuals (N = 50) engaged in a 10-minute discussion with a close network member about an experience they had with hate speech that was targeted at their sexual orientation. The relative effects of two predominant social support theoretical frameworks, verbal person centeredness and autonomy support, were compared. Discussions were rated b...

Forgiveness is an important component of many of the world’s religions that also has benefits for individuals’ health and relationships. Research on the health benefits of forgiveness is couched predominately in the stress and coping framework, which views forgiveness as buffering the stress associated with unforgiving feelings. This exploratory st...

COVID-19 has dominated news coverage since the beginning of the pandemic. The extent to which exposure to such news affected perceptions of medical research and other health issues is not clear, especially among older adults who are more susceptible to infection and experience more COVID-19-related morbidity and mortality. This study uses a two-wav...

How couples communicate during conflict interactions can have important implications for their relational well‐being. The theory of resilience and relational load provides a valuable lens for exploring the associations among couples' language use during conflict conversations and the extent to which such conversations are perceived as threatening t...

Evolutionary social science is having a renaissance. This volume showcases the empirical and theoretical advancements produced by the evolutionary study of romantic relationships. The editors assembled an international collection of contributors to trace how evolved psychological mechanisms shape strategic computation and behavior across the life s...

This study sought to investigate whether an inoculation message could influence attitudes and purchase intentions toward sustainability apparel and footwear that some have claimed use ambiguous and misleading environmental claims. Participants (N = 156) were assigned to either an experimental condition in which they received an inoculation message...

Research indicates that misperceptions that become part of people’s initial mental models about an issue tend to persist and influence their attitudes even after the misperception has been corrected. Recent work on evolving mental models suggests that communication efforts about the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath may be improved by cra...

Anti-Asian xenophobia (AAX) spiked during Covid-19, exacerbating health disparities among affected groups. This study uses data from a national survey to identify predictors of AAX to enable targeting of audience segments and effective messaging to counteract Anti-Asian attitudes and behaviors. Using Intergroup Threat Theory (ITT) to pinpoint possi...

Background COVID-19 vaccine uptake is an urgent public health priority. Purpose To identify psychosocial determinants (attitudes, normative pressure, and perceived behavioral control) of COVID-19 vaccination intentions for U.S. White, Black, and Hispanic adults, and how COVID-19 misperceptions, beliefs about the value of science, and perceived med...

Parent-child communication about sex and sexuality during adolescence may have long-lasting effects on children’s sexual self-concept and sexual health. As such, the present study explored the connection between mother-son communication about sex and sexuality while growing up and emerging adult sons’ sexual well-being. The sample consisted of 137...

Research has identified that writing can help individuals find forgiveness for their romantic partners in the wake of relational transgressions, but little is known about the actual narrative components that bring about changes in forgiveness. The current study sought to investigate the narrative components that contribute to month-long changes in...

The aim of the study was to examine the impact of supportive communication on acute physiological stress responses during weight-related conversations taking place throughout a couples' weight loss program. Participants were 47 married or cohabitating couples where each partner had a BMI of 25-40 kg/m2. Couples were randomized as a dyad into a trad...

Communication scholars have long recognized the importance of understanding associations between our bodies and communication messages and processes. In the past decade, there has been an increased focus on the role of physiology in interpersonal interactions, resulting in a surge of research exploring topics related to communication in close relat...

Previous research demonstrates the health benefits of both intrapersonal and interpersonal forgiveness as indicated by various markers of physiological activity. Specifically, evidence suggests that forgiveness can help regulate the body’s stress response and increase an individual’s ability to relax after exposure to an acute stressor. This review...

This handbook offered a review of cutting-edge research in the field of interpersonal communication and posed future directions to extend the literature focused on the bidirectional associations between communication and the human body. This chapter serves to summarize the handbook chapters by first reviewing biomarkers favored in communication sch...

Interpersonal communication is a biological behavior that necessitates coordination between multiple physical and physiological systems. Concurrent with the demands placed on the body to communicate, verbal and nonverbal messages impact the body. The goal of this chapter is to introduce the physiological approach toward the study of interpersonal c...

The present study contributes to a growing line of research exploring the associations between physiology and communication behavior. Specifically, this study investigated the influence of testosterone (T) on perceptions of partners' accommodative and nonaccommodative behaviors during a conversation about a relational stressor, and their subsequent...

The present study investigated young adults' self‐reported communication during sexual activity and its link to sexual and relational outcomes. The associations between two forms of communication during sexual activity (i.e., positive relational disclosures and erotic talk) and orgasm and relationship satisfaction were explored. Additionally, the s...

This study examined the effects of pillow talk (i.e., communication after sexual activity) on relationship satisfaction and physiological stress responses to difficult conversations. Fifty heterosexual couples were randomly assigned to either a pillow talk condition in which they doubled their pillow talk for three weeks or a control condition. Aft...

Research suggests that the capacity to be mindful is positively associated with constructive conflict strategy use and negatively associated with destructive conflict strategy use when individuals experience disagreement with a romantic partner. Conflict interactions are inherently dyadic however, signifying the importance of investigating whether...

Objective: The study investigated the role of mother-daughter communication and race in college women's decisions to pursue sexual health screening services. Participants: Participants were 301 college women who primarily identified as White and Asian American (M age ¼ 19 years). Methods: Participants completed an online survey that assessed mother...

Research suggests that the capacity to be mindful is positively associated with constructive conflict strategy use and negatively associated with destructive conflict strategy use when individuals experience disagreement with a romantic partner. Conflict interactions are inherently dyadic however, signifying the importance of investigating whether...

Objectives Scholars have increasingly recognized that an important avenue for future research is to examine why the relational characteristic of uncertainty incites reactivity for romantic partners during times of transition. Grounded within relational turbulence theory, this study examined whether testosterone, a social hormone that inspires appro...

In an attempt to better understand the nature and effects of listening well in relationships, participants (N = 137) in romantic relationships completed assessments of active-empathic listening (AEL), social-emotional skills, trait mindfulness, and relational quality (i.e., satisfaction and commitment). Based on previous research, we offered two mo...

Research on the mere presence hypothesis shows mixed findings for the effects of cell phone presence on various conversation outcomes. The current study performed a partial replication of Przybylski and Weinstein’s (2013) study, which showed that strangers were likely to report lower levels of relational quality and empathy (among other variables)...

This study investigated the longitudinal effects of written disclosure on physiological and communicative health outcomes for victims of severe relational transgressions in dating relationships. Participants were assigned to a two-step writing condition, a benefit-finding condition, or a control condition to write once a day for three consecutive d...

The present study extends previous work on communication after sexual activity by investigating the influence of “pillow talk” over time within relationships that have experienced a recent transgression. Thirty-six participants who had experienced a transgression committed by a current dating partner provided information about their levels of relat...

Prior research has supported the mere presence hypothesis, which suggests that cell phones act as an environmental nuisance that negatively impact the quality of face-to-face interactions. This study conducted an experiment to determine whether cell-phone presence negatively influences conversation satisfaction. Specifically, network member dyads (...

Support-marshaling represents the communicative activities individuals employ to either limit interference or enhance support from network members for the achievement of relational or instrumental goals. Early work in this area focused on the strategies individuals use to seek support and the types of strategies that produced satisfactory results....

Substantial research has identified the negative health outcomes associated with bullying for adolescent victims. Researchers have examined expressive writing as a possible method by which to decrease violence among adolescents. Results of these studies, however, suggest that expressive writing is associated with positive, negative, and neutral out...

This exploratory study sought to uncover whether trait mindfulness, an individual’s aptitude for focusing on the present moment while refraining from passing negative judgments or processing external cues in a habitual manner, is predictive of more constructive and less destructive approaches to relational conflict. In addition, we looked at its pr...

This study investigated whether relational goal pursuit theory (RGP) predicts post-breakup persistent unwanted pursuit of the partner. RGP posits that lower-order goals of seeking intimacy with a particular person become linked to higher-order goals, leading to a cascade of goal linking, rumination, face sensitivity, emotional flooding, and if unch...

Research has demonstrated that network support for a romantic relationship often plays a crucial role in the relationship's success. Despite this knowledge, it is not uncommon for romantic couples to encounter network opposition for their relationship, and little research has evaluated what the romantic partners do in this situation. Using “social...

The present study investigated whether the relationship between contempt and mental health outcomes differed by gender. Participants (N = 214) completed measures of happiness, general well-being, and contempt expression. The findings indicate a contrast in mental health outcomes associated with contempt expression for males and females. Specificall...

The present study examines the relationship between levels of trait contempt expression and several individual- and social-level characteristics. Participants (N = 216) completed questionnaires that measured mental, psychological, relational, and emotional attributes. The results suggest a paradox for highly contemptuously expressive people. On the...

Substantial personal relationship research has examined how network support affects romantic development and ignored the process by which romantic partners actively seek and attempt to enhance support from network members. Partners' accounts of their responses to network opposition were analyzed through constant comparative methods to identify stra...

This study examines the pharmaceutical websites of 44 leading direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertised drugs to determine the extent to which risk information was completely communicated. Three operational definitions of "completeness" were used: communication of the single highest incidence side effect, communication of top three highest incidence side...

Thesis (M.A.)-- San Diego State University, 2006. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 37-43).