Faculty Bibliography

Military deployment can create significant relationship strain. Although most couples navigate the challenges of deployment successfully, this period may render some couples more vulnerable to adverse relationship outcomes such as infidelity due to a convergence of factors including geographic separation and reduced emotional and physical intimacy. Despite anecdotal reports of increased rates of infidelity during deployment, empirical findings are lacking. This study used a prospective design to examine the prevalence and risk factors of infidelity across the deployment cycle including a year-long deployment to Iraq. A total of 63 married male Airmen were assessed both pre- and 6-9 months postdeployment. The rate of sexual infidelity prior to deployment (21%) was commensurate with the lifetime rate of sexual involvement outside the marriage in representative community samples of men. Across the deployment period, the prevalence of sexual infidelity was strikingly high (22.6%) compared with annual community estimates (1.5-4%; Allen et al., 2005). Findings demonstrated that service members with a prior history of separation, steps toward divorce, and relationship distress prior to deployment had elevated risk for infidelity over the deployment cycle. Moreover, roughly 75% of Airmen who experienced infidelity over the deployment cycle divorced by 6-9 months postdeployment whereas only 5% of service members without infidelity divorced during this same time period. Considering well-documented adverse impacts of infidelity and divorce, the current findings may assist in identifying military couples at risk for infidelity and informing targeted prevention or early intervention strategies for these couples prior to or immediately following deployment. (PsycINFO Database Record

Research has garnered support for a systemic view of factors affecting child dental caries that accounts for the influence of social factors such as the family environment. Our previous work has demonstrated the association between mother-to-father emotional aggression and child caries. The present study builds on these results by evaluating pathways that might explain this relation. Families (n = 135) completed a multimethod assessment of mother-to-father emotional aggression, child caries, and several hypothesized mediators (i.e., child cariogenic snack and drink intake, child internalizing behaviors, child salivary cortisol and alpha-amylase reactivity, parental laxness, child oral hygiene maintenance, and parental socialization of child oral hygiene maintenance). Mediation analyses partially supported the role of the child's diet as a mechanism linking mother-to-father emotional aggression and child caries. However, children's neglect of oral hygiene, parental laxness, and child emotional and biological disturbances failed to stand as conduits for this association. Future investigations should expand upon these results to better establish the causal links that could only be suggested by the present cross-sectional findings.

Parents who are overwhelmed by the intensity and aversive nature of child negative affect - those who are experiencing flooding - may be less likely to react effectively and instead may focus on escaping the aversive situation, disciplining either overly permissively or punitively to escape quickly from child negative affect. However, there are no validated self-report measures of the degree to which parents experience flooding, impeding the exploration of these relations. Thus, we created and evaluated the Parent Flooding scale (PFS), assessing the extent to which parents believe their children's negative affect during parent-child conflicts is unexpected, overwhelming and distressing. We studied its factorial validity, reliability, and concurrent validity in a community sample of 453 couples with 3- to 7-year-old children (51.9 % girls) recruited via random digit dialing. Confirmatory factor analyses indicated a one-factor solution with excellent internal consistency. Test-retest stability over an average of 5.6 months was high. Concurrent validity was suggested by the associations of flooding with parents' aggression toward their children, overreactive and lax discipline, parenting satisfaction, and parents' anger, as well as with child externalizing behavior and negative affect. Incrementally concurrent validity analyses indicated that flooding was a unique predictor of mothers' and fathers' overreactive discipline and fathers' parent-child aggression and lax discipline, over and above the contributions of parents' anger and children's negative affect. The present results support the psychometric validity of the PFS.

In family psychology, the term flooding refers to the feeling of being overwhelmed by a family member's behavior in a manner that undermines an organized response. In the present investigation we first aimed to clarify the role of flooding in overreactive and lax discipline. The second study aim was to more fully establish the position of parental flooding in its nomological network given the relative paucity of research on parental flooding. Maternal discipline and physiological responses, as well as child behavior, were observed in laboratory discipline encounters with 97 mother-toddler dyads. Mothers then rated the extent to which they experienced flooding in response to their children's behavior and emotion displays during the immediately preceding discipline encounters. Mothers' experience of negative emotion was assessed via video-mediated recall. Flooding was positively associated with both overreactive and lax discipline; this association did not reflect confounding by mothers' experience of negative emotion. Flooding was further associated with mothers' experienced negative emotion and heart rate reactivity, as well as child misbehavior and negative emotion displays. The flooding-overreactive discipline association was concentrated in those mothers who exhibited greater increases in heart rate and greater vagal withdrawal, and whose children misbehaved more during the discipline encounter. The present results suggest the incremental validity of flooding in predicting discipline practices, as well as the strong fit of flooding in its nomological network. Parents' self-recognition of flooding may ultimately prove useful in parenting interventions as a signal to trigger compensatory techniques. (PsycINFO Database Record

Although a substantial proportion of service members returning from a combat deployment report individual emotional and behavioral disorders as well as intimate relationship difficulties, previous studies indicate that only a minority actually seek mental health services. Little is known about factors that predict help-seeking in this population. We first review key findings from the literature on help-seeking in military and veteran populations, including mixed findings regarding the role of perceived stigma and attitudes toward mental health treatment. We then present data from a longitudinal study of United States Air Force Security Forces following a year-long high-risk deployment to Iraq-including findings regarding who seeks help, for what problems, and from which providers. We also examine whether these findings differ for Airmen in a married or committed relationship versus nonpartnered Airmen and, for the former group, whether findings differ for those in a distressed versus nondistressed relationship. Finally, we discuss implications of these findings for extending couple-based interventions to service members and veterans, and describe a multitiered "stepped" approach for promoting relationship resiliency.

PURPOSE: The prevalence and correlates of dental fear have been studied in representative population studies, but not in patients presenting for dental treatment. We hypothesized that dental fear among patients presenting at a large, urban college of dentistry would be similar to that of the population (e.g. 11% high dental fear, 17% to 35% moderate or higher fear) and that fear would be associated with avoidance of routine dental care, increased use of urgent dental care and poor oral health. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Participants were 1070 consecutive patients at a large, urban dental care center. All patients completed a clinical interview, including demographics, medical history, dental history and presenting concerns, and behavioral health history. Patients were also asked to rate their dental anxiety/fear on a 1 (none) to 10 (high) scale. RESULTS: Over 20% of patients reported elevated anxiety/fear, of which 12.30% reported moderate and 8.75% high fear. Severity of dental anxiety/fear was strongly related to the likelihood of avoiding dental services in the past and related to myriad presenting problems. CONCLUSIONS: As hypothesized, the prevalence of moderate or higher fear in dental patients was considerable and closely matched that found in general population surveys. Thus, the 'dental home' is an ideal location to treat clinically significant dental anxiety/fear.