David A. Sbarra’s research while affiliated with University of Arizona and other places

Women are widely assumed to be more talkative than men. Challenging this assumption, Mehl et al. (2007) provided empirical evidence that men and women do not differ significantly in their daily word use, speaking about 16,000 words per day (WPD) each. However, concerns were raised that their sample was too small to yield generalizable estimates and too age and context homogeneous to permit inferences beyond college students. This registered report replicated and extended the previous study of binary gender differences in daily word use to address these concerns. Across 2,197 participants (more than five-fold the original sample size), pooled over 22 samples (631,030 ambient audio recordings), men spoke on average 11,950 WPD and women 13,349 WPD, with very large individual differences (<100 to >120,000 WPD). The estimated gender difference (1,073 WPD; d = 0.13; 95% CrI [316, 1,824]) was about twice as large as in the original study. Smaller differences emerged among adolescent (513 WPD), emerging adult (841 WPD), and older adult (−788 WPD) participants, but a substantially larger difference emerged for participants in early and middle adulthood (3,275 WPD; d = 0.32). Despite the considerable sample size(s), all estimates carried large statistical uncertainty and, except for the gender difference in early and middle adulthood, provide inconclusive evidence regarding whether the two genders ultimately speak a practically equivalent number of WPD, based on the preregistered ±1,000 WPD regions of practical equivalence criterion. Experienced stress had no meaningful effect on the gender difference, and no clear pattern emerged as to whether the gender difference is accentuated for subjectively rated compared with objectively observed talkativeness.

Dyadic affective processes are key determinants of romantic relationship quality. One such process termed emotional synchrony (i.e., the coupling of partners’ emotions) has attracted growing attention in recent years. The present study focused on synchrony in partners’ smiles, a nonverbal signal with significant social functions. Specifically, smile synchrony in the interactions of nondistressed couples was compared to smile synchrony in therapy-seeking couples. The former were predicted to show higher levels of smile synchrony. Data from the interactions of 61 (30 nondistressed and 31 treatment-seeking) couples were collected during a laboratory session while they engaged in four 6-min interactions during which they discussed positive or negative aspects of their relationship. FaceReader software was used to continuously code each partner’s smile. Compared to treatment-seeking couples, nondistressed couples exhibited higher levels of smile synchrony, and such synchrony occurred in shorter time intervals. These results suggest that smile synchrony may be used as a behavioral signature of relationship quality.

Women are widely assumed to be more talkative than men. Challenging this assumption, Mehl et al. (2007) provided empirical evidence that men and women do not differ significantly in their daily word use, speaking about 16,000 words per day (WPD) each. However, concerns were raised that their sample was too small to yield generalizable estimates, and too age- and context-homogeneous to permit inferences beyond college students. This registered report replicated and extended the previous study of binary gender differences in daily word use to address these concerns. Across 2,197 participants (>5-fold the original sample size), pooled over 22 samples (631,030 ambient audio recordings), men spoke on average 11,950 WPD and women 13,349 WPD, with very large individual differences (<100 to >120,000 WPD). The estimated gender difference (1,073 WPD; d = 0.13; 95% CrI [316; 1,824]) was about twice as large as in the original study. Smaller differences emerged among adolescent (513 WPD), emerging adult (841 WPD), and older adult (-788 WPD) participants, but a substantially larger difference emerged for participants in early and middle adulthood (3,275 WPD; d = 0.32). Despite the considerable sample size(s), all estimates carried large statistical uncertainty and, except for the gender difference in early and middle adulthood, provide inconclusive evidence regarding whether the two genders ultimately speak a practically equivalent number of WPD, based on the preregistered ±1,000 WPD ROPE criterion. Experienced stress had no meaningful effect on the gender difference, and no clear pattern emerged whether the gender difference is accentuated for subjectively rated compared to objectively observed talkativeness.

Although interpersonal rejection and acceptance unfold in a social context by definition, such experiences are typically investigated from the perspective of individuals receiving, or observing, social information alone. Employing a novel dyadic task, we examined affective responses to shared (i.e., simultaneously received) social feedback among cohabiting romantic partners from the United States (Nparticipants = 168; data was collected between 2022-2023). Consistent with preregistered hypotheses, participants reporting closer relationships in a week-long daily diary affectively responded to their partner’s social feedback as if it was their own. This pattern emerged even when couples shared incongruent social feedback (e.g., receiving negative feedback while partner received positive feedback). These results support an interdependence model of shared fate in which people affectively experience their partner’s outcomes as a personal reward or loss. Moreover, stronger affective responses for your partner’s social feedback was associated with better relationship functioning. Taken together, findings suggest that relationship closeness as an indicator of perceived interdependence may allow people to overcome self-focused affect, respond sensitively to a partner’s challenging and rewarding outcomes, and, in turn, foster relationship functioning.

Although stress and adversity are largely universal experiences, people exposed to greater hardship are at increased risk for negative health consequences. Recent studies identify accelerated biological aging as a mechanism that could explain how trauma and adversity gives rise to poor health, and advances in this area of study coincide with technological innovations in the measurement of biological aging, particularly epigenetic profiles consistent with accelerated aging derived from DNA methylation. In this review, we provide an overview of the current literature examining how adversity might accelerate biological aging, with a specific focus on social and health behaviors. The most extensive evidence in this area suggests that health-compromising behaviors, particularly smoking, may partially explain the association between adversity and accelerated aging. Although there is relatively less published support for the role of social behaviors, emerging evidence points to the importance of social connection as a mechanism for future study. Our review highlights the need to determine the extent to which the associations from adversity to accelerated aging are consistent with causal processes. As we consider these questions, the review emphasizes methodological approaches from the causal inference literature that can help deepen our understanding of how stress and trauma might result in poor health. The use of these methodologies will help provide evidence as to which behavioral interventions might slow aging and improve health, particularly among populations that more often experience adversity and trauma.

Empathy is essential for social relationships and well-being, yet conventional studies often do not capture the self-regulatory demands inherent to everyday empathic responding in close relationships. We therefore developed a novel empathy paradigm (the CLOSE task) to mimic everyday demands to “overcome the self”, and used this paradigm to examine how the neural correlates of empathy relate to real-world prosocial behavior across 131 adults (from 71 romantic couples). The CLOSE task includes positive and negative social feedback directed at participants and their partners in separate and simultaneous conditions. When participants overcame self-directed feedback to empathize with their partner, they recruited regions critical for self-regulation (e.g., dorsolateral prefrontal cortex) beyond those typically associated with affective and cognitive empathy. Brain activity in several hypothesized regions related to variation in trait empathy and everyday supportive behavior. This study highlights the real-world significance of transcending self-focused feelings to engage in empathy and prosocial behavior.

In the context of mental health care, discussions concerning culture and social identities are important for providing inclusive and culturally responsive evidence-based treatments. The present study explores a teaching strategy aimed at actively changing behaviors that may hinder rapport and therapeutic efficacy for clients of historically marginalized backgrounds. Drawing upon an extensively researched intervention for anxiety and fear—exposure therapy—the study explored the feasibility and acceptability of an exposure-based teaching strategy that intervenes on anxiety and avoidance behavior around discussion of race. A two-arm randomized controlled pilot study assessing acceptability and feasibility was conducted with graduate trainees in clinical psychology or counseling to compare an interactive exposure-based workshop (IEB; n = 19) involving repeated simulated client interactions focused on discussions of race to a training-as-usual workshop (n = 15). Pre- and postintervention simulated client interactions and trainee feedback were used to assess the variables of interest. The IEB workshop successfully elicited anxiety and addressed likelihood and cost expectation biases leading to a significant decrease in anticipatory and peak anxiety. IEB workshop attendees rated the workshop as more useful and were more likely to recommend the workshop to peers compared to training-as-usual workshop attendees. Trainee feedback highlights the utility and desire for practice opportunities and constructive feedback. Findings provide initial support for the acceptability and feasibility of an exposure-based clinical training to challenge avoidance behaviors and increase engagement in discussions around social identities with clients.

The literature on the relationship between social interaction and executive functions (EF) in older age is mixed, perhaps stemming from differences in EF measures and the conceptualization/measurement of social interaction. We investigated the relationship between social interaction and EF in 102 cognitively unimpaired older adults (ages 65-90). Participants received an EF battery to measure working memory, inhibition, shifting, and global EF. We measured loneliness subjectively through survey and social isolation objectively through naturalistic observation. Loneliness was not significantly related to any EF measure (p-values = .13-.65), nor was social isolation (p-values = .11-.69). Bayes factors indicated moderate to extremely strong evidence (BF01 = 8.70 to BF01 = 119.49) in support of no relationship.. Overall, these findings suggest that, among cognitively healthy older adults, there may not be a robust cross-sectional relationship between EF and subjective loneliness or objective social isolation.

Major depression (MD) is a serious psychiatric illness afflicting nearly 5% of the world’s population. A large correlational literature suggests that loneliness is a prospective risk factor for MD; correlational assocations of this nature may be confounded for a variety of reasons. This report uses Mendelian Randomization (MR) to examine potentially causal associations between loneliness and MD. We report on analyses using summary statistics from three large genome wide association studies (GWAS). MR analyses were conducted using three independent sources of GWAS summary statistics. In the first set of analyses, we used available summary statistics from an extant GWAS of loneliness to predict MD risk. We used two sources of outcome data: the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (PGC) meta-analysis of MD (PGC-MD; N = 142,646) and the Million Veteran Program (MVP-MD; N = 250,215). Finally, we reversed analyses using data from the MVP and PGC samples to identify risk variants for MD and used loneliness outcome data from UK Biobank. We find robust evidence for a bidirectional causal relationship between loneliness and MD, including between loneliness, depression cases status, and a continuous measure of depressive symptoms. The estimates remained significant across several sensitivity analyses, including models that account for horizontal pleiotropy. This paper provides the first genetically-informed evidence that reducing loneliness may play a causal role in decreasing risk for depressive illness, and these findings support efforts to reduce loneliness in order to prevent or ameliorate MD. Discussion focuses on the public health significance of these findings, especially in light of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.