Avoidance goals heighten the salience of negative social experiences, and in intimate relationships such an orientation may contribute to communication difficulties and the perpetuation of avoidance. We therefore hypothesized that individuals with stronger avoidance goals would be particularly prone to engage in escalating levels of negative communication with their intimate partner, and we tested this prediction by conducting sequential analyses on videotaped observational data (28,470 observations) collected from 365 heterosexual couples engaging in a relationship-related conflict. While less avoidanceoriented spouses showed a decline in their likelihood of negative communication over the course of the 8-min conflict discussion, the likelihood that more avoidance-oriented spouses would display negative communication behaviors remained at a high level. The likelihood of negative communication even increased when avoidance-oriented spouses were confronted with negative communication behavior of their partners. The effects of avoidance orientation were independent of relationship satisfaction and neuroticism. These findings demonstrate that avoidance goals underlie individuals' heightened reactivity to the partner's negative behavior, while also clarifying 1 possible reason why some individuals engage in communication behaviors that may prove maladaptive to their relationship. (

The influence of dentinal fluid and of a number of stress procedures on the quality of the margins of class V restorations located in both enamel and dentin was quantitatively assessed in vitro with the aid of a scanning electron microscope. The materials tested were GLUMA 2000 experimental, Prisma Universal Bond 3, and Syntac, together with the fine hybrid composites supplied by the respective manufacturers (Pekafill, AP.H, and Tetric). All materials achieved over 95% of "continuous margin" in enamel before and after stressing. In dentin, the initial values, with as well as without dentinal fluid simulation, were situated between 93.2 and 98.2%. With GLUMA 2000 experimental after stressing, a "continuous margin" occurred in only 50.2%, but with Prisma Universal Bond 3 and Syntac, the value was 79.0%. The influence of dentinal fluid simulation was dependent on the dentinal adhesive used. The effects of the various stress procedures were not significantly different.

The present study hypothesized that unfulfilled basic needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness (SDT, Deci and Ryan, Psychol Inq 11:227 268, 2000) are associated with the impulse to eat and with binge eating. In addition, we assumed that individuals with a high achievement motive, who are characterized by high selfcontrol competences, have the same impulse to eat when confronted with unfulfilled basic needs, but are better able to control the impulse to binge eat than individuals with a low achievement motive. In accordance with these hypotheses, unfulfilled basic needs significantly positively predicted the impulse to eat as well as binge eating behavior. As also expected, the achievement motive did not moderate the effect of unfulfilled needs on the impulse to eat, but did influence the effect of unfulfilled needs on binge eating. The results are discussed in terms of a broader debate about the interaction between basic needs and implicit motives.

Growing evidence implicates stress as a reliable correlate of relationship satisfaction; yet, existing models fail to address why some relationships are more vulnerable than others to this effect. We draw from the literature on individual differences in self-regulation to predict that individuals who are more action oriented when confronted with aversive demands will buffer themselves and their partners against the detrimental effect of external stress. Using actor-partner interdependence modeling on self-report data from 368 couples, we show that the relationship satisfaction of highly stressed but actionoriented individuals and their partners is compromised less by external stress than that of state-oriented individuals and their partners. These results held after controlling for symptoms of depression and were not moderated by gender or by age, despite sampling couples varying widely in relationship duration. Results support the view that individual differences in self-regulation, and action orientation in particular, might benefit relationships confronted by stress, thus clarifying how dyads might be affected by demands outside their relationship.

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