Category: Psychology

Previous research has linked poor relationship satisfaction with parenting a child with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Parents of children with ASD, however, also have higher levels of Broad Autism Phenotype (BAP) traits themselves—that is, they evidence subclinical levels of autism characteristics including communication difficulties, rigid personality traits, and emotional aloofness. Therefore, children’s ASD characteristics may not fully account for why these couples are at greater risk for marital discord. This study tested the extent to which BAP traits in parents of children with ASD, and discrepancy between partners in BAP, predicted their relationship satisfaction while controlling for their child’s ASD characteristics. Participants were 117 families with a child with ASD who were recruited to participate in a study about family dynamics. Couples completed questionnaires on their BAP traits, relationship satisfaction, and their child’s ASD characteristics. Husbands were higher in total BAP, aloofness, and pragmatic language. Husbands’ total BAP was associated with lower relationship satisfaction for husbands. Discrepancy between husbands and wives in total BAP and pragmatic language was associated with lower relationship satisfaction for husbands. These findings provide preliminary support for the relevance of partners’ discrepancy in BAP within romantic relationships.

An important feature of the memory system is the ability to forget, but aging is associated with declines in the ability to intentionally forget. Despite known cognitive deficits, sensitivity to affective manipulations are maintained in older age, for example, reward motivation can improve older adults' memory. Using a directed forgetting paradigm, we tested whether reward motivation could improve intentional forgetting in young and older adults. Participants were shown a sequence of words with instructions to remember (TBR) or forget (TBF) to earn a high ($.75) or low ($.01) reward. For older adults, there was no evidence that reward motivation improved cognitive control as high value reward anticipation did not improve directed forgetting. Instead, the findings are in line with hypotheses, that high value reward anticipation leads to better memory regardless of the TBR or TBF cue. Reward may bolster memory in an automatic fashion, overriding cognitive control of encoding processes.