Do people realize how their partners make them feel? Relationship enhancement motives and stress determine the link between implicitly assessed partner attitudes and relationship satisfaction
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6206554 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Lindsey L Hicks (0000-0001-7451-3982, Ruhr University Bochum, corresponding author), James K Mcnulty (0000-0002-5476-7472, Florida State University), Ruddy Faure (0000-0002-9834-2783, Ruhr University Bochum), Andrea L Meltzer (0000-0002-4353-2889, Florida State University), Francesca Righetti (0000-0002-5126-1388, Institute of Experimental Physics of the Slovak Academy of Sciences), Wilhelm Hofmann (0000-0003-0295-4679, Ruhr University Bochum) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 120 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 335-369 |
| Publication date | 2021-02-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0022-3514 • E-ISSN: 1939-1315 |
| Publisher | American Psychological Association (APA) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1037/pspi0000247 |
| PMID | 32718166 |
| OpenAlex | W3045527441 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 10 |
| References cited | 97 |
Do people realize the evaluative feelings that are spontaneously activated by their partner? If so, do they use those evaluations when judging their romantic relationships? To answer these questions, we investigated the association between automatic partner attitudes and judgments of relationship satisfaction in 7 studies. Study 1 was a meta-analysis of 86 correlations that revealed a very weak association between implicitly and explicitly assessed relationship evaluations, and Studies 2a-2c revealed that people failed to accurately report their automatic partner attitudes even when specifically asked to do so. Consistent with the idea that such inaccuracy emerged in part because motivational factors led people to override their automatic attitudes, Studies 3 and 4 demonstrated that automatic partner attitudes better aligned with relationship judgments when people were incentivized with money (Study 3) and had dissolved their relationship (Study 4). Nevertheless, consistent with the idea that overriding automatic attitudes requires the opportunity to deliberate, Studies 4 and 5 demonstrated that automatic partner attitudes better aligned with relationship judgments when people experienced more stress at the daily level (Study 4) and yearly for two years (Study 5). In Study 5, the interaction between stress and automatic attitudes emerged controlling indicators of negativity and was further moderated by relationship enhancing motivations among wives. These studies (a) help explain why automatic partner attitudes predict self-reported relationship satisfaction over time and (b) provide support for theories of social cognition suggesting that people have access to implicitly assessed attitudes that is obscured by motivations and opportunities to deliberate. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)
Association (psychology) · Developmental psychology · Feeling · Impression formation · MEDLINE · Negativity effect · Perception · PsycINFO · Romance · Social perception · Stress (linguistics) · Attachment and Relationship Dynamics · Behavioral Health and Interventions · Psychology · Social and Intergroup Psychology · Social Psychology
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| Unique citing works | 10 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2 |
| Citation span | 2021 - 2026 (6) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 9 |