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Predicting the Onset of Emotional Recovery Following Nonmarital Relationship Dissolution: Survival Analyses of Sadness and Anger

David A. SbarraView all authors and affiliations

Volume 32, Issue 3

https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167205280913

Abstract
References

Abstract

Event onset modeling was used to investigate the time course of breakup-related affective processes. Daily emotion data were collected for 4 weeks from 58 young adults who recently experienced the dissolution of a serious romantic relationship. Using baseline data obtained from individuals in intact dating relationships, sadness and anger recovery were defined as points in time and then modeled as a function of theoretically relevant predictors using Cox’s survival analysis. Acceptance of relationship termination mediated the association between attachment security and sadness recovery. Greater levels of love, anger, and attachment preoccupation were associated with a decreased probability of sadness recovery during the study period. Attachment security was associated with an increased probability of anger recovery, whereas ongoing sadness decreased the probability of this event. Discussion centers on the differential functioning of sadness and anger as well as the need to consider emotional change as a multicomponent process.

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1. To avoid item overlap between the love and sadness scales (which both included items tapping feelings of sadness) and artificially inflate the correlation between the two measures, the love scale was recomputed after removing two items mentioning the experience of sadness. All analyses were rerun with the shortened love scale, and none of the results differed from those reported here. The full nine-item love scale was therefore retained in the present analyses.

2. Censorship is a term commonly used in survival analysis. Censored cases are those that do not experience a specific event during a given period. In the present study, censored cases did not experience an emotional recovery event during the 28-day study period.

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