Communal strength refers to a person’s degree of motivation to respond to a communal partner’s needs. The development and testing of a questionnaire measure of communal strength is described. Study 1 involved item selection. Studies 2 and 3 found that the 10-item communal strength measure taps a construct distinct from behavioral interdependence as measured by the Relationship Closeness Invento...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the relationship between changes in emulsion globule size distributions and container uptake of lipid emulsions in total nutrient admixtures. METHODS A total nutrient admixture was prepared from a commercial lipid emulsion, 20% ClinOleic®, separated into glass (borosilicate) and ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) plastic containers, and then stored at ambient conditions for ap...

Plastic containers, capable of being evacuated to 50 kPa, were investigated for maintaining quality of fruits and vegetables. Celery, lettuce, broccoli, grapes, green beans, melon, and strawberry were kept at 4°C, broccoli, okra and tomato were kept at 8°C in vacuum containers and in conventional, sealed, plastic food containers. For each produce item, similar concentrations of carbon dioxide a...

Di (2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP), a typical plasticizer used for polyvinyl chloride (PVC) blood containers, is eluted from the blood containers and exerts protective effects on red blood cells. However, a concern for detrimental effects of DEHP on human health has led to the development of potential DEHP substitutes. Here, we compared the red blood cell preservation ability of two types of no...

A case is made that a communal relationship context (or lack thereof) shapes people's emotional lives for three reasons. First, a person's communal partners assume some degree of non-contingent responsibility for the person's welfare. This allows the person, when with or, at times, when thinking about such partners, to drop some self-protective vigilance, appraise situations as less threatening...

Who benefits most from making sacrifices for others? The current study provides one answer to this question by demonstrating the intrinsic benefits of sacrifice for people who are highly motivated to respond to a specific romantic partner's needs noncontingently, a phenomenon termed communal strength. In a 14-day daily-experience study of 69 romantic couples, communal strength was positively as...

Many have suggested that complementary gender stereotypes of men as agentic (but not communal) and women as communal (but not agentic) serve to increase system justification, but direct experimental support has been lacking. The authors exposed people to specific types of gender-related beliefs and subsequently asked them to complete measures of gender-specific or diffuse system justification. ...