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Contact with an Ex-partner is Associated with Psychological Distress after Marital Separation.


ABSTRACT: This study examined the association between naturalistically-observed in-person contact with one's ex-partner and separation-related psychological distress (SRPD). 122 recently-separated adults were assessed using the Electronically Activated Recorder (Mehl, 2017) on three occasions across five months. The association between in-person contact with one's ex-partner, as a between-person variable, and concurrent SRPD was not reliably different from zero, nor was the time-varying effect of in-person contact. However, more frequent in-person contact with one's ex-partner predicted higher SRPD two months later, above and beyond the variance accounted for by concurrent in-person contact, demographic, relationship, and attachment factors. Follow-up analyses yielded that this effect was only present for people without children; a one standard deviation increase in in-person contact offset and slowed the predicted decline in SRPD over two months by 112%. Our discussion emphasizes new ways to think about the role of in-person contact in shaping adults' psychological adjustment to separation over time.

SUBMITTER: O'Hara KL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7709927 | biostudies-literature | 2020 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Contact with an Ex-partner is Associated with Psychological Distress after Marital Separation.

O'Hara Karey L KL   Grinberg Austin M AM   Tackman Allison M AM   Mehl Matthias R MR   Sbarra David A DA  

Clinical psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science 20200504 3


This study examined the association between naturalistically-observed in-person contact with one's ex-partner and separation-related psychological distress (SRPD). 122 recently-separated adults were assessed using the Electronically Activated Recorder (Mehl, 2017) on three occasions across five months. The association between in-person contact with one's ex-partner, as a between-person variable, and concurrent SRPD was not reliably different from zero, nor was the time-varying effect of in-perso  ...[more]

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