So happy together?

Ellenbogen’s research assistant Karine Paquin demonstrates the series of expressions study participants will have photographed (from top to bottom: happy, sad, angry and neutral). The photos are then shown to the participant’s significant other, whose reaction is registered and added to the study’s data. | Photo courtesy Karine Paquin.

A study at Concordia's Centre for Research in Human Development is investigating how a person’s ability to shift their focus away from the negative aspects of interpersonal relationships may reduce their susceptibility to depression.

“We know very often depression stems from having problems with the people around you,” says psychology professor Mark Ellenbogen, the study’s lead researcher. “We’re asking, ‘Can we predict who will have interpersonal problems in the future?’”

The study, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, is recruiting couples who have been in an intimate relationship for more than six months.

The researchers take pictures of one member of a couple expressing different emotions: happy, angry, sad or neutral. The partner’s reactions to the pictures are monitored. The participants’ relationship quality is then tracked over the next six months.

“The idea is that people who have problems shifting attention from expressions of negative emotion might be prone to interpersonal problems and, subsequently, to depression,” says Ellenbogen, an expert in the study of mood disorders (see Thursday Report, February 10, 2005).

Preliminary results show unexpected differences between men and women. Men who were slow to shift their attention away from the sad face of their female partner reported significantly more conflict in their relationships than men who were able to rapidly shift away. This association, however, was absent among women.

These data suggest, says Ellenbogen, that expressions of women’s emotions have more impact, perhaps because men are more frequently exposed to these facial cues than women.

He hopes the study will identify patterns that can lead to social isolation and conflicts with partners.

“What I’d like to show is that people engage in certain types of cognitive behaviours that actually create problems in social functioning, which could become a risk factor for mental health problems later on,” says Ellenbogen.

“We’re not there yet, but hopefully by the end of this study, we’ll have something to say about how to obtain or improve positive relationships, particularly intimate ones.”

Related links:
• Centre for Research in Human Development
• Thursday Report, February 10, 2005
• Health Canada – Depression