SITAR

Winter 2019 Newsletter

A Message from the SITAR President

Written by Mark Lukowitsky, Albany Medical College

Our society celebrated our 21st annual meeting this past summer in Montréal, Québec. I believe that our society has held more meetings in Montréal than any other city. With good reason, our meetings in Montréal are also typically our most well attended. Not only is the city lovely in the spring/summer but some of the most influential people in interpersonal theory come from Canada. This year, the Lifetime Achievement Award was given to Dr. Debbie Moskowitz for her many contributions to SITAR. Professor Moskowitz’s is a preeminent scholar in our field whose highly generative work has influenced the fields of personality, assessment, person-by-situation interactions, psychopathology, and quantitative methodology. Her work using ecological momentary assessment to measure stability and cross-situational generality of affect and of interpersonal behaviors using terms such as flux, pulse, and spin have inspired an entire generation of interpersonal scholars and have truly changed the way we understand and measure personality and psychopathology.  I know that many share my sentiment that recognizing Professor Moskowitz for her work was very well deserved. 

While we honored the pioneers of SITAR this year we also began thinking about our future and how to continue to grow and see our society evolve. This year we continued to have many important discussions about the sustainability of annual SITAR meetings and whether we should be shifting to a biennial schedule. As some of you may recall the results of our informal polling suggested that people largely had mixed feelings about this with many not wanting to see SITAR lose its momentum but also recognizing the need to shift to a model that would allow people to have more flexibility in attending multiple conferences each year.

With the help of our past-president, Aidan Wright, we have been able to come up with a solution that does not compromise the integrity of the society’s mission. For the first time SITAR will be partnering with the Association for Research in Personality (ARP) and will be held as a one-day pre-conference to their 6th Biennial Meeting. The conference will be held from Thursday, June 27, to Saturday, June 29, in Grand Rapids, Michigan.  The conference website is now up at: https://sitar2019.wordpress.com/ as is the portal for submitting poster and oral presentations: http://cmt3.research.microsoft.com/SITAR2019.  The deadline for submission is February 28th.  A block of rooms will be reserved at the Amway Grand Plaza (https://amwaygrand.com/), 187 Monroe Ave. NW, Grand Rapids, MI 49503 (room rates and registration link to be updated soon).For additional information on ARP please visit: http://www.personality-arp.org/conference/ We believe that this will be an excellent opportunity for the cross-pollination of ideas that will serve to benefit both societies alike while also honoring those with concerns about the sustainability of SITAR among competing demands to attend multiple conferences. 

This year we also had several new changes to our Executive Council. First, Patrick Markey will be stepping down as the Executive Officer of SITAR. Thank you Patrick for your many years of service! Alytia Levendosky has graciously stepped into this role. We also welcome Thane Erickson as the next Vice-President of the society, and Jenny Cundiff and Jeff Girard as the newest Members-at-Large. Jeff also takes over website duties from Johannes Zimmermann. Finally, congratulations to Leon Wendt for receiving the Wiggins Award for his talk, “The Latent Structure of Interpersonal Problems” and to William Woods for receiving the Poster Award for his presentation, “Approaches to Modelling Interpersonal Complementarity in Intensive Longitudinal Data”.

Once again, thanks to everyone for their service and contributions to our society. We look forward to seeing you all in Grand Rapids this summer.

Award Announcements

Written by Johannes Zimmermann, University of Kassel

It is my pleasure to announce the winners of SITAR’s two awards from the 21th annual meeting in Montréal, Québec.

The Jerry S. Wiggins Student Award for Outstanding Interpersonal Research is given annually in order to recognize and promote outstanding student research in interpersonal psychology. Eleven student members of SITAR chose to participate in the competition this year. The overall quality of students’ work in our society makes the job of the judges very difficult. Due to a tie among the judges, additional opinions were obtained from two former SITAR presidents. The winner of the Wiggins Student Award 2018 is Leon Wendt (University of Kassel) for his presentation entitled “The Latent Structure of Interpersonal Problems: Comparing Structural and Concurrent Validity of Dimensional and Categorical Models”. Congratulations Leon!

The Poster Award is given annually to the best poster presentation at the annual meeting. The poster award is open to all poster presenters (faculty and graduate students). Six poster presenters chose to participate in the competition this year. After careful consideration of multiple criteria, the judges have conferred a winner: William Woods (University of Pittsburgh) for his poster entitled “Approaches to Modeling Interpersonal Complementarity in Intensive Longitudinal Data”. Congratulations Will!

SITAR members can look forward to a presentation of the award winning research in our newsletter. In conclusion, I would like to say “Thank you” to everyone who took part in the competition this year.

The Clinical Angle

Agentic and Communal themes across psychology

Written by Michael Roche, Penn State Altoona

The Examination for Professional Practice in Psychology (EPPP) is a licensing examination that is meant to cover the foundational knowledge a clinical psychologist should have to know in order to work in the field of clinical psychology. Though some question the criterion and predictive validity of this exam (Sharpless & Barber, 2009; Sharpless & Barber, 2013), it remains an important step in the licensing process. Topics of study include clinical theory, diagnosis, ethics, and treatment, along with other domains of psychology (e.g. learning theory, developmental psychology, memory, research design and statistics, neuropsychology, social psychology, and industrial organizational psychology). Having recently passed this exam, I was struck by how many concepts in psychology can be fit into the agency and communion framework. To be sure, there are several excellent articles reviewing how agency and communion serve as meta-constructs to organize fields of study (e.g. Bakan, 1966; Hopwood, Wright, Ansell, & Pincus, 2013; Wiggins, 1991). This present article focuses on how agency and communion can apply to some of the clinical theories that are likely to appear on the EPPP exam.

Adler’s individual psychology (Adler, 1964) emphasized a “healthy style of life”, which was described through goals that value personal accomplishment (agency) and also the welfare of others (communion). A “mistaken style of life” over-emphasizes one of these themes at the expense of the other. Reality therapy (Glasser, 1998) contains five motivations which reflect agentic (power, freedom) and communal (love and belonging) themes, along with the motivations of survival and fun.

Communication theory distinguishes between different levels of communication. The report level is the verbal and literal meaning, while the command level is the non-verbal and implied component. They reference a “double-bind communication” where these levels mismatch. Interpersonal theorists may conceptualize this as a “complex interaction” using Lorna Smith Benjamin’s structural analysis of social behavior (see Benjamin, 1993). Communication theory also distinguishes between symmetrical interactions (based on equality, can lead to competition and conflict) and complementary interactions (based on inequality, and follows a pattern of agentic complementarity).

Bowen’s family therapy emphasizes the goal of family members becoming differentiated (agency) while remaining connected (communion) to other family members (Goldenberg & Goldenberg, 2013). A core concept of differentiation of self is used to describe an autonomous (vs. enmeshed) individual within a family unit (deficit of agency), and yet another pathological response is when a family member becomes emotionally cut off from the family (deficit of communion).

Structural family therapy (Minuchin & Nichols, 1998) also emphasizes repetitive patterns of social exchanges between family members. One aspect of this approach identifies boundaries that are too rigid or enmeshed. Another component is to understand how three people in a family unit interact. For instance, triangulation occurs when each parent asks the child to take their side, and a “stable coalition” is when this is successful and feels as if one parent and child team up against the other parent. Finally, detouring occurs when the child is used to distract from deeper marital problems by projecting the source of difficulty into the child. To disrupt these relational patterns, the therapist may use joining initially to mimic the family (complementarity) and then gradually disrupt this pattern using techniques such as boundary marking (establishing agency/autonomy) and unbalancing (therapist increases communion and taking the side of a “scapegoat” in the family to disrupt the usual pattern). Breaking with the usual relational patterns in order to promote growth is also a concept found in interpersonal approaches to psychotherapy (Hopwood et al., 2013).

Strategic family therapy (Haley, 1976) is predicated on the belief that therapy is a power struggle (agency), and that paradoxical interventions (e.g. prescribe the symptom, such as suggesting the family member deliberately engage in the problematic behavior) can motivate the client to change for the better in order to resist the therapist’s recommendation and regain control/power.

Feminist therapy (Corey, 2013) includes the motivation to understand power from a larger sociological lens. For instance, a feminist therapist may reformulate the patient’s symptoms as a natural reaction to unjust systems of oppression, and pursue an egalitarian therapy relationship (with low power distance) focused on developing agency (assertiveness training, power analysis). It also encourages a commitment to social change and an expanded awareness of oppression (a type of communion by broadening the focus beyond the individual and to the collective). The overarching goal is for empowerment (agency) and to create a society that is cooperative and mutually supportive (communion).

Multicultural concepts in psychology also follow agentic and communal themes. Theories of Acculturation (Berry, 1990) focus on the communion with the original culture only (separation), communion with the new culture only (assimilation), communion with both cultures (integration), or neither (marginalization).

The Racial/Cultural Identity Development Model (Atkinson, Morten, & Sue, 1998) also emphasizes communion with various groups. The initial stage is conforming to the dominant culture, and then in the second stage dissonance emerges. From there, the third stage includes rejecting (low communion) the dominant culture in favor of one’s own culture, stage 4 is a re-examination of rejecting the dominant culture, and stage 5 is integrating both one’s minority culture AND the majority culture. Helm’s (1984) white identity model includes a stage (pseudo-independence) where the white individual attempts to address racism through a presumption of dominance and the need to “speak for” minorities (agency). This may also include suggestions (from a monocultural viewpoint) of how the minority could change their behavior to better fit into the dominant culture.  Rather, a later stage emphasizes a more balanced approach that recognizes strengths and weaknesses of different cultures, and emphasizes empowerment over advice.

Culturally sensitive therapists are also encouraged to learn tendencies of certain cultures which can fit into themes of agency (e.g. how direct the therapist should be during the first session, setting specific goals, handshakes/eye contact as conveying dominance/ aggression) and communion (e.g. stigma towards illness, emphasis on family vs. individual welfare, shame and losing face, young adults with culturally normative dependence on parents).

In summary, many different disciplines of study can be understood within the framework of agency and communion. These two concepts can aide clinical psychologists in understanding various therapy approaches, can guide the here-and-now conversation between clinician and patient, and can also be a lens with which to view cultural nuances in therapy.

References

  • Adler, A. (1964). Problems of neurosis. Oxford, England: Harper Torchbooks.
  • Atkinson, D.R., Morten, G., & Sue, D.W. (1998). Counseling American minorities. Boston: McGraw-Hill.
  • Bakan, D. (1966). The duality of human existence: An essay on psychology and religion.
  • Benjamin, L. (1993). Every psychopathology is a gift of love. Psychotherapy Research, 3, 1-24.
  • Berry, J. (1990). Psychology and acculturation. In J. Berman (Ed.), Cross-Cultural Perspectives: Nebraska Symposium on Motivation (pp. 201-234). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
  • Corey, G. (2013). Theory and practice of counseling and psychotherapy (9th ed.). Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole.
  • Glasser, w. (1998). Choice theory: A new psychology of personal freedom. New York: Harper Collins.
  • Goldenberg, H., & Goldenberg, I. (2013). Family therapy: An overview. Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole.
  • Haley, J. (1976). Problem solving therapy: New strategies of effective family therapy. New York: Harper & Row.
  • Helms, J.E. (1984). Toward a theoretical explanation of the effects of race on counseling: A Black and White model. The Counseling Psychologist, 12, 153-165.
  • Hopwood, C. J., Wright, A. G., Ansell, E. B., & Pincus, A. L. (2013). The interpersonal core of personality pathology. Journal of Personality Disorders, 27, 270-295.
  • Minuchin, S., & Nichols, M. P. (1998). Structural family therapy. In F. M. Dattilio (Ed.), The Guilford family therapy series. Case studies in couple and family therapy: Systemic and cognitive perspectives (pp. 108-131). New York, NY, US: Guilford Press.
  • Sharpless, B. A., & Barber, J. P. (2009). The Examination for Professional Practice in Psychology (EPPP) in the era of evidence-based practice. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 40, 333-340.
  • Sharpless, B. A., & Barber, J. P. (2013). Predictors of program performance on the Examination for Professional Practice in Psychology (EPPP). Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 44, 208-217.
  • Wiggins, J. S. (1991). Agency and communion as conceptual coordinates for the understanding and measurement of interpersonal behavior. In D. Cicchetti & W. M. Grove (Eds.), Thinking clearly about psychology: Essays in honor of Paul E. Meehl, Vol. 1. Matters of public interest; Vol. 2. Personality and psychopathology (pp. 89-113). Minneapolis, MN, US: University of Minnesota Press.

Expanding the Circle

Mapping out the circumplex package

Written by Jeffrey Girard, Carnegie Mellon University

At SITAR 2018, the circumplex package for the R software environment (R Core Team, 2018) was announced, and I presented a tutorial on using it to analyze circumplex data with the SSM approach (Zimmermann & Wright, 2017). The package has seen several updates since then and (at the risk of indulging in navel-gazing) I wanted to take this opportunity to provide a brief history of the project, review its progress thus far, and provide a tentative roadmap for its future. I am also hoping to solicit feedback/ engagement from the community and attract additional collaborators to the project.

As a companion to Zimmermann & Wright (2017), an R package called ssm was uploaded to Aidan’s website. This package had functions for computing several types of SSM models and producing circumplex visualizations with confidence bands. However, it also had a stubborn graphical bug where the confidence bands sometimes appeared in the wrong places. My involvement in the project began with an attempt to fix this bug, and over time the idea to expand the project beyond SSM models began forming. What ultimately decided me was that the ssm package name was already taken on CRAN (the primary repository for R packages) by an unrelated project. Thus, the circumplex package was born.

The early versions of the package focused on generalizing the SSM approach and generating corresponding figures (sans bug) and, for the first time, formatted results tables that could be copied directly from R into a word processor. Several months after SITAR 2018, the package was stable and standardized enough to be accepted to CRAN, and a website was launched to provide package documentation and vignette articles walking users through the use of the SSM functions.

The first major update to the package (v0.2.0) came several months later and added detailed documentation for many of the most popular circumplex questionnaire instruments as well as functions for scoring and ipsatizing item-level data and for standardizing scale-level data. Compiling all this information and contacting the instrument authors and copyright-holders was a large undertaking, and I am grateful to Sindes Dawood for her help in this process. I am also grateful to the authors and copyright-holders who graciously agreed to include this information in the package and on the website, which is now an easily accessible resource for learning about available circumplex instruments. My hope is that the website will aid in the discovery and adoption of circumplex instruments, and the instrument-related functions will enhance the accuracy and consistency of their implementation.

I have many hopes and plans for the future of the circumplex package and will share three of them here. I can’t promise that all these things will happen (and even less-so when), but my goal in sharing them is to get the community thinking about what tools they would most like to see.

The first stop planned on the road ahead is to implement existing statistical techniques for assessing the fit of circumplex models to data. Some approaches already exist in R but many are deprecated (i.e., no longer supported) and it would be beneficial to collect them in a centralized location and standardize them (e.g., in terms of formatting, naming, defaults, and documentation). An important component of this will be to reimplement the now-deprecated CircE package so that estimates of the probability of correct confidence intervals can be added back into the SSM results.

The next planned stop is to build a fully featured extension to the ggplot2 package (Wickham, 2016) for plotting data in a circumplex coordinate system. SSM plots are currently created in ggplot2 using an expedient approach that limits the degree to which they can be customized. Developing a fully featured extension would be a huge undertaking but would enable exciting new visualization options in addition to improving customizability. If implemented and documented well, such an extension would have the potential to become the de facto approach to plotting circumplex data for years to come.

Finally, the third planned stop is to refine existing methods (e.g., SSM and CircE). Implementing an approach like the SSM involves choosing between many methodological options (e.g., which type of bootstrap to use, which type of confidence intervals to calculate, and how to handle missing data). Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of these options requires simulation studies and likely more statistical expertise than I currently have, so statistical collaboration is very much requested.

If you want to contribute to the circumplex package through programming, I’d be more than happy to facilitate this and can assign duties that are appropriate to whatever skill level you are at. Doing so would be a great way to learn more about R and an easy introduction to package development. However, I want to be clear that contributing to this package (or any other) does not require statistical or programming expertise. Open-source software developers always (and often desperately) need help from users to find and report bugs, copyedit and improve documentation, and provide feedback on which features have been and would be most useful. Everyone is welcome and will be respected.

Please feel free to contact me at jmgirard@cmu.edu with any questions or comments.

References

  • R Core Team. (2018). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. Vienna, Austria: R Foundation for Statistical Computing.
  • Wickham, H. (2016). ggplot2: Elegant graphics for data analysis (use R!) (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Springer.
  • ​Zimmermann, J., & Wright, A. G. C. (2017). Beyond description in interpersonal construct validation: Methodological advances in the circumplex Structural Summary Approach. Assessment, 24(1), 3–23.

Wiggins Award Winner (2018)

Approaches to modeling interpersonal complementarity in intensive longitudinal data​

Written by William Woods, University of Pittsburgh

Note: Authorship shared by William C. Woods, Blessy Bellamy, and Aidan G.C. Wright

A cornerstone of Interpersonal Theory’s conceptualization of social interaction is complementarity, described as a blend of interaction partners’ behaviors towards each other across two orthogonal dimensions: warmth and dominance.  Interpersonal Theory and related empirical work suggest that social interactions are most successful when individuals are matched (i.e., synchronous) in warmth and when interaction partners behave in a reciprocal manner in dominance, such that when one interaction partner is, for example, being assertive (i.e., dominant) the other should be accommodating (i.e., submissive).  Complementarity as defined in Interpersonal Theory is therefore the extent to which interaction partners are matched in warmth and reciprocal in dominance.

The ubiquity of smartphones has allowed researchers to capture social interactions that represent individuals’ typical, every day interactions in vivo using techniques such as ecological momentary assessment (EMA; Stone & Shiffman, 1994).  Nevertheless, an open question remains regarding how to most faithfully model the theoretical construct of interpersonal complementarity.  To date, many EMA studies of complementarity have modeled warmth synchronicity and dominance reciprocity separately, using the interaction term of self- and other-ratings on each dimension to represent the two components of complementarity.  Although this approach is supported by Interpersonal Theory’s hypothesis that warmth and dominance are orthogonal dimensions, there is some evidence to suggest that these dimensions may not be entirely independent (e.g., Roche et al., 2013; Wright et al., 2017).  Therefore, statistical approaches that model the dimensions separately may not fully capture the dynamic “dance” of interpersonal behaviors that represents complementarity. 

Our team’s investigation compared the traditional approach of modeling warmth synchronicity and dominance reciprocity separately with two statistical methods which incorporate the two dimensions together.  Three independent samples of undergraduates (total N = 890) were asked to report on their most recent social interaction several times per day over seven days.  Participants used an app on their personal smartphones to rate their own interpersonal behavior, their perceptions of their interaction partner’s behavior, as well as their own affect.  We compared the three different statistical methods using multilevel structural equation modeling, which decomposes individuals’ tendencies to report more or less warmth, dominance, and favorable affect (i.e., between-person effects) from deviations from their typical ratings in each respective social interaction (i.e., within-person effects).  Because we were primarily interested in complementarity as it pertains to social interactions, our analyses focused on the within-person effects.

We referred to our first approach as difference scoring.  Synchronicity in warmth was scored as the absolute value of the difference between self- and other-warmth ratings subtracted from the scale maximum.  Reciprocity was scored as the absolute value of the difference of self- and other-dominance ratings.  The product of these two difference scores was used as a single complementarity score. 

Our second approach relied on Euclidean distance to estimate complementarity.  Difference scores of self- and other-ratings of warmth and dominance were calculated separately for each dimension.  We used the inverse of other-dominance to account for the reciprocal nature of ideal interpersonal dominance.  Each difference score was then squared, and these two products were summed.  The square root of this is the Euclidean distance between the self-rating of warm and dominant behavior and the perception of the other’s behavior.  Because the resulting Euclidean distance reflect departures from perfect complementarity, we used the inverse of the Euclidean distance score so that higher scores reflect better complementarity.

Since better complementarity is hypothesized to pull for more favorable affect (Sadler, Ethier, & Woody, 2011), we used each approach’s complementarity scores to predict positive and negative affect across the three samples.  In the traditional approach, the interaction of self- and other-warmth did not predict positive affect but reciprocity in dominance (i.e., the interaction of self and other dominance) did.  In contrast, warmth predicted higher negative affect in two samples and dominance did so in one.  Surprisingly, in our difference scoring approach, higher complementarity predicted lower ratings of positive affect across all three samples as well as higher negative affect in two of the three samples.  Finally, using the Euclidean approach, higher complementarity predicted higher positive affect and lower negative affect across all three samples, as would be predicted by Interpersonal Theory.

Our analyses suggested that modeling complementarity using Euclidean distance scoring produces the most reliable associations with favorable affect, in line with Interpersonal Theory.  This approach is not only more parsimonious than traditional approaches that use separate estimates of warmth synchronicity and dominance reciprocity but is also a better match for the theoretical unitary construct of complementarity.  We were initially surprised by the failure of the difference scoring approach to show theoretically consistent associations with affect.  The problem with this approach lies in its treating any interaction ratings which do not have both reciprocity and synchronicity as poor interactions.  That is, under the difference score approach, any interaction ratings other than high complementarity are treated as anti-complementarity interactions (i.e., poor matches on both dimensions), resulting in associations with poorer affect, even if the actual interaction ratings showed a-complementarity (e.g., match on warmth, but not reciprocal in dominance).  In summary, our results across three samples support modeling complementarity using the Euclidean distance approach because it produced more reliable and theoretically consistent associations with affect and because the approach is a strong conceptual match with the theoretical construct.

The manuscript associated with this project is now under review.  The interested reader can read the full manuscript at https://psyarxiv.com/5xj7k/ and find project materials at https://osf.io/tc62e/.  The first author is grateful to the poster award judges and the SITAR community for their recognition.

References

  • Roche, M. J., Pincus, A. L., Hyde, A. L., Conroy, D. E., & Ram, N. (2013). Within-person covariation of agentic and communal perceptions: Implications for interpersonal theory and assessment. Journal of Research in Personality, 47, 445-452.
  • Sadler, P., Ethier, N., & Woody, E. (2011). Interpersonal complementarity. Handbook of interpersonal psychology: Theory, research, assessment, and therapeutic interventions, 123-142.
  • Stone, A. A., & Shiffman, S. (1994). Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) in behavorial medicine. Annals of Behavioral Medicine.
  • Wright, A. G., Stepp, S. D., Scott, L. N., Hallquist, M. N., Beeney, J. E., Lazarus, S. A., & Pilkonis, P. A. (2017). The effect of pathological narcissism on interpersonal and affective processes in social interactions. Journal of abnormal psychology, 126, 898-910.

Poster Award Winner (2018)

The latent structure of interpersonal problems

Written by Leon Wendt, University of Kassel

In the past, researchers have neglected the importance of operationalizing interpersonal problems according to their latent structure by adopting distinct scoring procedures, including dimensional (i.e., computing scores for severity, agency, and communion) and categorical approaches (i.e., classifying persons into subgroups according to their interpersonal profile). This is problematic because dimensional and categorical scores summarize the information at hand in diverging and incompatible ways, such that empiric findings cannot be integrated conceptually and statistically (i.e., meta-analytic integration). This hinders cumulative research on interpersonal problems. The way in which researchers conceptualize, operationalize (i.e., score measures), and statistically model interpersonal problems should match their underlying latent structure, namely, it should correspond to what exactly is being measured. Notably, a measurement can be considered valid when the empirical evidence supports that the test scores reflects the target construct adequately (Kane, 2013). Categorical and dimensional methods of scoring interpersonal problems are mutually exclusive in their implicit structural assumptions and therefore, cannot be equally valid. Failure in meeting these assumptions may affect the psychometric properties of the measurement and the quality of inferences, for instance, by losing statistical power or by being misled into false conclusions at worst (Markon, Chmielewski, & Miller, 2011). A comprehensive structural analysis of interpersonal problems is needed to resolve these issues and move the field forward.

Methods

We enlisted several large samples (N = 5400, 491, 656, 712) to estimate a set of candidate models including, but not limited to, dimensional (i.e., confirmatory factor analysis) and categorical approaches (latent class analysis). Latent variable models were compared with regard to their structural validity, as evaluated by model fit indices (corrected Akaike’s information criterion and the Bayesian information criterion), and their concurrent validity, as defined by the models’ ability to predict relevant external variables. We wanted to find out which statistical model would best explain the covariance between octants (i.e., model fit) and best detect the associations to other variables of interest (i.e., criterion-oriented validity).

Results

The three-dimensional solution based on the Interpersonal Circumplex performed best in terms of model fit, prediction, robustness and parsimony. The categorical solution had worse model fit, explained less variance in external variables, did not replicate across samples, and was heavily parameterized. These results indicate that the extracted classes in categorical models might be spurious (i.e., methodological artifacts).

Discussion

Our results indicate that interpersonal problems are best described by three interpersonal dimensions, including severity (i.e., general factor) and style (i.e., agency and communion). We argue that IPC-based scores offer a well-fitting approximation, such that they sufficiently explain the systematic covariation between the observed interpersonal octants. What are the implications of using categorical approaches, given that the latent structure of interpersonal problems was actually three-dimensional? To illustrate this, imagine a hypothetical finding that is based on the categorical approach (e.g., three latent classes representing distinct octant profiles within a sample of depressed patients). In this scenario, the latent classes simply captured blends of the dimensions, in other words, dimensional information on individual differences would have become confounded within classes. How could someone interpret the statistical association between class membership and another psychological construct under such circumstances? The answer is unclear, because it would be indistinguishable to what degree the association could be attributed to the influence of any one of the three dimensions, let alone additive or interactive effects. We argue that inferences on the basis of discrete interpersonal types are suboptimal and should be avoided. In future investigations researchers may simply use dimensional IPC-based scores: Such scores draw from a longstanding tradition (e.g., Wiggins, 1979), are conceptually rich (Dawood, Dowgwillo, Wu, & Pincus, 2018) and easy to interpret and to implement.

References

  • Dawood, S., Dowgwillo, E.A., Wu, L.Z., & Pincus, A.L. (2018). Contemporary Integrative Interpersonal Theory of Personality. In V. Zeigler-Hill and T. Shackleford (Eds.),     The SAGE handbook of personality and individual differences—Vol. 1: The science of personality and individual differences (pp. 171-202). Los Angeles, CA: Sage.
  • Kane, M. T. (2013). Validating the interpretations and uses of test scores. Journal ofEducational Measurement, 50, 1-73.
  • Markon, K. E., Chmielewski, M., & Miller, C. J. (2011). The reliability and validity of discrete and continuous measures of psychopathology: a quantitative review. Psychological Bulletin, 137, 856-879.
  • Wiggins, J. S. (1979). A psychological taxonomy of trait-descriptive terms: The interpersonal domain. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 395-412.

    Note that the full manuscript is currently under review: Wendt, L.P., Wright, A.G.C., Pilkonis, P.A., Nolte, T., Fonagy, P., Montague, P.R., Benecke, C., Krieger, T., & Zimmermann, J. (under review). The Latent Structure of Interpersonal Problems: Validity of Dimensional, Categorical and Hybrid Models.

Graduate Student Corner

Written by Chloe Bliton, The Pennsylvania State University

I was honored and excited to be invited by Sindes Dawood to share my reflections on SITAR in the Graduate Student Corner. As I began musing on what piece of my experience I wanted to share, I considered how I would characterize my involvement in SITAR as a graduate student. It is clear to all that SITAR represents rigorous scholarship housed within an intimate, communal setting, simply browse the GSC annals for other testaments to this. It follows that participating in SITAR and the annual conferences offers graduate students with both agentic and communal opportunities. Rather than just detail the professional opportunities I have been afforded as a student member, I felt compelled to also discuss the personal opportunities: opportunities of growth, gratitude, and empowerment. As Seneca, a Stoic philosopher, wrote, “you should invite some to your table because they are deserving, others because they may come to deserve it” (Seneca, Moral Letters, 47.15b). For me, this message captures the triad of growth, gratitude, and empowerment I have experienced within SITAR.

My recent experience presenting at the 2018 conference in Montreal captures each piece of this triad. I had the opportunity to present some of my work in my first conference talk to my SITAR peers and colleagues. A benefit of the intimate nature of SITAR is the fact that “peers and colleagues” equates to the “giants of interpersonal theory” and “leaders of the field.”  As is representative of all student presentations, my talk was met with meaningful critiques and questions, cultivation of new ideas, and encouragement. I feel as though Seneca’s message captures the duality of student involvement in SITAR conferences: we have a seat at the table among the leading researchers in the field which, in turn, cultivates our growth. How could one not feel grateful in this position? For me, the pairing of growth and gratitude results in empowerment to challenge myself to push further. 

I’d like to argue that each piece of this triad cannot be completely separated from the others. Through SITAR, I have been NO-ingly pushed to grow as a researcher. I have experienced, and continue to experience, sincere gratitude to be given such growth opportunities and to be treated as a colleague. I feel empowered by others’ perspectives, critiques, and excitement over my work. Within SITAR, all members have a seat at the table.

Announcement from the GSAC

Written by Gentiana Sadikaj, McGill University and Thane Erickson, Seattle Pacific University

Greetings once again, fellowship of the circle!

Looking ahead to the SITAR conference in Michigan this summer, the Graduate Student Advisory Committee (GSAC) of SITAR is now soliciting donations for the 2019 student travel grants program. This program defrays the conference travel costs of graduate students (who are rich in ideas, but poor in means). Its aim is to help them attend the conference, share their research, and form lasting ties with our society. SITAR’s members have supported young researchers from the US, Canada, and overseas, supporting the long-term health of SITAR.

As SITAR members, we can recall our first time attending the SITAR conference and being won over by the society’s “special sauce”—its unique combination of rigor and community. Members, please “pay it forward” and consider making a tax-deductible donation to help us reach our goal of $1500 USD in donations.

http://sitarsociety.weebly.com/student-travel-grant-program.html

To facilitate timely travel arrangements for recipients, please make donations at this link before April 15. Thank you for your generosity!

SITAR’s executive committee is looking for applicants for the next Graduate Student Representative!

The Graduate Student Advisory Committee (GSAC) of SITAR wishes to thank Sindes Dawood for her service to the society over the last two years in her role as the Graduate Student Representative (GSR). We’re grateful for her stellar work in contributing to the newsletter and organizing social events for grad students at our conferences.  It is now time for another SITAR student leader to step into this valuable learning opportunity (CV material!). The student who will be appointed to this position will be part of SITAR’s executive committee, serving as the voice of the society’s graduate student members. In addition, the GSR will also serve on the GSAC, which administers the travel grants program.

Below you will find a summary of the position. To be considered for the GSR, please send a statement of interest to Gentiana Sadikaj (gentiana.sadikaj@mail.mcgill.ca) and Thane Erickson (erickt@spu.edu). Statements should be no more than 200 words long and submitted no later than April 15, 2019.

We encourage all current graduate student members of SITAR to consider applying. We are lucky to have such an extraordinary student membership and we look forward to the opportunity to work with one of you more closely.

Summary of the Graduate Student Representative Position

The Role of the Graduate Student Representative 

The Graduate Student Representative (GSR) is embodied by someone who leads the way for SITAR students in terms of how to get the best training in interpersonal psychology, including grants, assistantships, cooperative research, etc. The GSR functions as a conduit of information between student members, the executive committee (EC), and the field of interpersonal psychology. Above all, the GSR represents the interests of the student members whenever he or she is involved in the planning, implementation, and evaluation of society activities. 

Appointment

The GSR is appointed by the EC for a two-year term

The GSR serves on two committees during the appointment. 

1. The GSR serves as an ex officio member of the Executive Committee of SITAR
2. The GSR serves as a member of the Graduate Student Advisory Committee (GSAC)

Duties 

Participate in discussions of the executive committee between annual meetings and attend executive committee meetings, which occur immediately prior to and following the annual meeting.

Disseminate information of interest to student members through the SITAR member listserv, website, newsletter, and at annual meetings. 

Contribute the content of the “Graduate Student Corner” section of the society’s newsletter in coordination with the newsletter editor. This can be a piece written by the GSR, or a piece written by another enlisted by the GSR. The piece is typically targeted towards topics that are of particular interest to students.

Plan and coordinate a “Graduate Student Social” at each annual meeting of the society. 

Collect information on the needs of the student members, transmit this information to the EC, and communicate solutions derived in response to the identified needs.    

Assist in the functions and activities of the EC and the GSAC except in activities where there is a conflict of interest (e.g., the GSR applies for a travel grant administered by the GSAC).  

The GSR, in collaboration with the GSAC, is responsible for creating an annual report summarizing the year’s activities of the GSAC. This report is to be presented by the GSR to the membership at the business meeting following the annual conference.

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