Differences between couples who end their marriage by fault or no-fault legal procedures.

Spouses from 53 couples who ended their marriage by dissolution (DS), a form of no-fault divorce, were compared with spouses from 59 couples who ended their marriage by fault-based divorce (DV). DV husbands were younger than DS husbands. DV couples were less likely to have pooled finances, and they had more sons than did DS couples. For growth curves over the first 4 years of marriage, relative to DS wives, DV wives had lower starting levels for liking of spouse, trust, and marital quality; higher starting levels for dysfunctional beliefs about relationships and psychological distress; weaker declines in extrinsic motives for being married; and stronger declines for love for spouse. Relative to DS husbands, DV husbands showed a stronger increase in dysfunctional beliefs about relationships. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Trust in close relationships.

Tested a theoretical model of interpersonal trust in close relationships with 47 dating, cohabiting, or married couples (mean ages were 31 yrs for males and 29 yrs for females). The validity of the model's 3 dimensions of trust—predictability, dependability, and faith—was examined. Ss completed scales designed to measure liking and loving, trust, and motivation for maintaining the relationship. An analysis of the instrument measuring trust was consistent with the notion that the predictability, dependability, and faith components represent distinct and coherent dimensions. The perception of intrinsic motives in a partner emerged as a dimension, as did instrumental and extrinsic motives. As expected, love and happiness were closely tied to feelings of faith and the attribution of intrinsic motivation to both self and partner. Women appeared to have more integrated, complex views of their relationships than men: All 3 forms of trust were strongly related, and attributions of instrumental motives in their partners seemed to be self-affirming. There was a tendency for Ss to view their own motives as less self-centered and more exclusively intrinsic than their partner's motives. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The modern face of prejudice and structural features that moderate the effect of cooperation on affect

Facial muscle activity and self-reports were examined for racial bias in 3 studies. In the first 2 experiments, While participants imagined cooperating with a Black or White partner. Experiment 1 manipulated reward structure in the context of cooperating with a deficient partner. Experiment 2 manipulated partner deficiency and willingness to expend compensatory effort. On both facial EMG and self-report measures, joint rewards produced more negative affect than independent rewards. However, all partners were liked more when they were willing to try to compensate for their deficits. In addition, more liking was reported for Black partners, but EMG activity indicated bias against Blacks. Experiment 3 investigated individual differences in prejudice. Again, a greater preference for Blacks than Whites occurred on self-report measures, but in their facial muscle activity, high-prejudiced participants exhibited bias against Blacks.     

Attraction and exchange in continuing and noncontinuing dating relationships.

Investigated measures enabling one to assess general feelings about a relationship, social exchange behaviors, and the particularism and symbolism of resources given to and received from another by examining, longitudinally, 38 dating couples. At least 1 member of each pair was an undergraduate student. These variables were first measured shortly after a couple began to date and again 4 mo later. Findings show that in contrast to what might be expected from prevailing theories of relationship development, the later status of couples (still dating or not) could be predicted with a high degree of accuracy from the initial measures. This finding corroborates and extends previous work dealing with same-sex friendships. Couples who were still dating 4 mo later demonstrated greater love, more relationship-maintaining behaviors, more favorable evaluations of the dating relationship, and greater amounts of self-disclosure at the time of initial contact than did couples who broke up. Over time, these differences between couples who did and who did not continue dating intensified. In terms of the types of resources Ss gave and received from their dating partner, more particularistic and more symbolic resources were exchanged in continuing couples only later. Although both continuing and noncontinuing couples showed a decrease in the correlation between the love that members reported, this was offset in continuing daters by increasingly similar reports of reward, equity, and liking. (48 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Emotional communication in close relationships.

Investigated emotional communication patterns characterizing interactions between partners in close relationships by asking 29 couples who were married or living together to engage in a videotaped discussion of a problem they were having in their relationship. In a later session, partners identified specific communications that they believed had an important influence on the discussion and then rated the communications in terms of the feelings the communicator intended to convey and the recipient's reaction. All Ss attempted to reciprocate both the positive and negative feelings that they perceived their partner to express toward them; however, only negative feelings were actually reciprocated. This was because Ss were sensitive to differences in the negative feelings their partners reported expressing and interpreted those feelings correctly, but they were inaccurate in perceiving their partners' expressions of positive feelings. Men interpreted their partners' failures to express love as an indication of hostility, whereas women interpreted their partners' lack of hostility as an indication of love. Results were conceptualized in terms of a general model of emotional communication. Parameters of the model pertaining to the hostility of partners' communications were often related to women's satisfaction with their relationship and their beliefs about relationships in general. However, they were unrelated to men's satisfaction and general beliefs, suggesting that women are generally more adversely affected by overt expressions of hostility than are men. (33 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationship quality of partners in heterosexual married, heterosexual cohabiting, and gay and lesbian relationships.

Studied the relationship quality of 44 married, 35 heterosexual cohabiting, 50 male homosexual, and 56 female homosexual monogamous couples. Each couple lived together and did not have children in the home. Relationship quality was dimensionalized as love for partner (LP), liking of partner, and relationship satisfaction (RS). Cohabiting partners had the lowest LP and RS scores on a questionnaire assessing relationship quality. Differences were found among partner types on barriers to leaving the relationship, alternatives to the relationship, a belief that mind reading is expected in the relationship, masculinity, femininity, androgyny, dyadic attachment, shared decision making, and perceived social support from family. The 4 groups did not differ in psychological adjustment. For each type of couple, LP was related to many barriers to leaving the relationship and high dyadic attachment; liking of partner was related to few alternatives to the relationship, high dyadic attachment, and high shared decision making; and RS was related to many attractions, few alternatives, few beliefs regarding the destructiveness of disagreement, high dyadic attachment, and high shared decision making. Results are discussed in the context of existing models of relationship quality. (57 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Brotherly love II: A developmental perspective on liking, love, and closeness in the fraternal dyad.

This research examined the nature of closeness, liking, and love among 59 dyads of full biological, nontwin adult brothers and the correlations of these variables with age. Five dimensions of relational development were measured and used in stepwise regressions to determine what predicted closeness, liking, and love in these fraternal dyads. It was expected that love would be predicted by expressive relational qualities, such as self-disclosure, whereas closeness and liking would be predicted by more instrumental qualities, such as commitment or interdependence. These predictions were generally supported. Moreover, liking and love were shown to remain relatively constant over time, whereas closeness decreased as brothers grew older. Comparisons with other male–male relationships were also made, and implications for the research and therapeutic setting are offered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Distinguishing Whether Dopamine Regulates Liking, Wanting, and/or Learning About Rewards.

To determine whether dopamine regulates liking, wanting, and/or learning about rewards during goal-directed behavior, the authors tested genetically engineered dopamine-deficient (DD) mice for acquisition of an appetitive T-maze task with and without endogenous dopamine signaling. Experiment 1 established that DD mice treated with L-dihydroxyphenylalanine (L-dopa [LD]) perform similarly to controls on a T-maze task designed to measure liking, wanting, and learning about rewards. Experiment 2, which tested saline-, caffeine-, and LD-treated DD mice on the T maze, separated performance factors from cognitive processes and revealed that dopamine is not necessary for mice to like or learn about rewards but is necessary for mice to seek (want) rewards during goal-directed behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Generalized and specific loneliness in early marriage.

38 husbands (mean age 26 yrs) and wives (mean age 23.8 yrs), married for an average of 35.8 mo and without children, independently completed a set of established measures of loneliness and of aspects of their marital relationship (e.g., UCLA Loneliness Scale). Significant levels of loneliness were reported by some Ss, and only modest correlations were found between the loneliness scores of husbands and wives. General and specific loneliness were related to marital attitudes, particularly less liking, less intimacy, and greater communication apprehension among husbands, and to less liking, less marital satisfaction, less love, and less self-disclosure among the wives. Scores of the spouses and spouse difference scores on several of these variables were also related to loneliness. Findings are discussed as pertaining to loneliness without social isolation and in relation to the quality of relationships. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Impact of couple patterns of problem solving on distress and nondistress in dating relationships.

Tested a theory of couple patterns of problem solving that involves the voice/loyalty/neglect typology of problem-solving responses advanced by the 1st author and I. M. Zembrodt (1983). 68 undergraduate dating couples were administered a questionnaire that included a measure of self-reported responses and perceptions of partner's responses, a liking and loving instrument, and the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale. Destructive problem-solving responses (exit and neglect) were more powerfully predictive of couple distress/nondistress than were constructive problem-solving behaviors (voice and loyalty). Tendencies to react with voice to mild relationship problems were also significantly predictive of couple functioning. Partner perceptions of one another's problem-solving styles were related to couple distress/nondistress: Distress was greater to the extent that Ss perceived that their partners exhibited greater tendencies to engage in exit and neglect while showing lower levels of voice and (perhaps) loyalty. Certain interdependent patterns of partner problem solving were effectively predictive of couple health: Couple distress was greater to the degree that Ss reacted destructively and failed to respond constructively when their partners engaged in destructive problem-solving responses. Thus it is the way in which partners react in response to destructive behaviors from their partners that is best predictive of relationship health. (41 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Satisfaction in interpersonal interactions as a function of similarity in level of dysphoria.

This study compared dysphoric and nondysphoric male and female undergraduates as they conversed with dysphoric or nondysphoric undergraduates of the same sex. Subjects rated their satisfaction with the conversation after each turn. The results showed that people in homogeneous dyads (i.e., both partners were dysphoric or both partners were nondysphoric) were most satisfied with the interaction, and their satisfaction increased as the conversation proceeded. People in mixed dyads were less satisfied, perceived each other as colder, and spoke about increasingly negative topics. Thus, in accord with other research showing that similarity leads to liking, the crucial determinant of interactional satisfaction was neither the mood of the subject nor the mood of the partner, but their similarity in mood. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of personal liking, perceived ability, and value of prize on choice of partners for a competition.

"Ss who were told… that they had high ability at… [a] task were strongly inclined to choose partners who also had high skill, even though such choices meant abandoning their original personal preferences and working with their originally less preferred classmates." Monetary remuneration was seen to affect choice by these Ss. "Ss who were told they themselves had low skill scores continued to choose partners according to their original liking preferences, even though the monetary payoff increased." From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4GE98W. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Influence of extrinsic and ego incentive value on persistence after failure and continuing motivation.

We examined the hypotheses that (a) extrinsic rewards avert attention from ego threat, enhancing persistence after failure; (b) performance impairment after failure is greater when tasks have high ego value; and (c) extrinsic rewards reduce ego concern and thereby enhance continuing motivation on high ego-involving tasks, but undermine continuing motivation on other tasks. 131 college students completed 15 solvable or unsolvable (failure) matching tasks followed by 15 anagrams. Students gave up more frequently after failure except when they received rewards or were told the anagram task was very difficult. The extrinsic rewards reduced continuing motivation in the low ego-value condition and enhanced it in the high ego-value condition. Findings suggest that extrinsic incentives reduced ego involvement and threat, thereby minimizing performance impairment and increasing continuing motivation after failure on ego-relevant tasks. More generally, it is argued that exogenous incentives may be used to negate maladaptive motivational states. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Male threat from female competence.

Male threat from female competence (MTFC), a hypothesized personality disposition in males who experience competence in females as psychologically threatening, was assessed via a sentence-completion measure and validated in an experimental study of 91 dating college couples. High- and low-MTFC males performed a verbal facility task either cooperatively or competitively with their current dating partners. High-MTFC males competing with their dating partners showed an elevation in performance and a greater desire to avoid future task interaction with their partners than did other males, but they did not report greater effort on the task or overestimate how well they did. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Elicited effects of approval and disapproval: An examination of parameters having implications for counseling couples in conflict.

Explored the elicited effects of changes in approval and disapproval behaviors on the behaviors and perceived satisfaction of dating partners. 80 dating couples role-played conflict situations, and their behaviors were observed by trained raters. The couples periodically reported their perceptions of their behaviors. Four of the 5 hypotheses were substantiated. Disapproval was found to elicit strong reciprocal behavior and dissatisfaction. Approval eliciting effects occurred but were weaker. Male elicitors, in particular, felt less satisfied and less powerful. The potential implications of these results for behavioral treatment of couples are discussed. (4 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Father involvement and self-report parenting of children with attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder.

This study examined the moderating effects of 4 variables on the relation between father involvement (FI) and self-reported parenting practices of 71 couples who have children with attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The variables were parents' love for their spouses, similarity in child-rearing views, traditional role identification, and paternal ADHD symptoms. These variables interacted with FI in predicting parenting practices. FI was associated with fathers' use of more effective discipline when fathers had ADHD symptoms and reported more love for their wives but was associated with fathers' use of less effective discipline when fathers reported having ADHD symptoms, when they reported less love for their wives, and when they identified highly with traditional roles. For mothers, FI was associated with less effective discipline practices when couples' child rearing views were dissimilar. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Couple communication and female problem drinking: A behavioral observation study.

Couples with alcohol and relationship problems often report poor communication, yet little is known about the communication of maritally distressed couples in which the woman abuses alcohol (MDWA couples). Compared with maritally distressed couples without alcohol problems (MDNA) and couples with neither problem (NDNA), MDWA couples showed a distinctive pattern of negative communication. Similar to MDNA men, MDWA men spoke negatively to their partners but listened positively to their partners much like NDNA men. MDWA women listened negatively, much as MDNA women did, but spoke positively, like NDNA women did. The interactions of MDWA couples can be characterized as a male-demand-female-withdraw pattern, which is a gender reversal of the female-demand-male-withdraw pattern often observed in MDNA couples. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Graduate student couples: Dyadic satisfaction in relation to type of partnership and demographic characteristics.

71 married and cohabiting graduate student couples (aged 21–61 yrs) responded individually to questionnaires that queried Ss on demographic characteristics, dyadic satisfaction (DS), and dyadic trust (DT). There were 26 symmetrical couples in which both partners were students and 45 asymmetrical couples in which only 1 partner was a student. No significant results were found for married couples with respect to symmetry on overall relationship satisfaction. Married partners, however, did show significantly greater DT compared with cohabiting couples. The finding that higher income men enjoy greater DS than lower income men suggests that financial security is an important factor for men to experience happiness in their intimate relationships. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Every time you go away: Changes in affect, behavior, and physiology associated with travel-related separations from romantic partners.

This study investigated changes in day-to-day affect, behavior, and physiology (hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical axis activity) associated with temporary physical separations from romantic partners (such as those brought about by work-related travel). Daily diaries and measures of salivary cortisol were collected from 42 couples over a 21-day period that was timed to coincide with a naturally occurring 4- to 7-day separation. There were significant changes from preseparation to separation and from separation to reunion in the quality of partners' interactions, their positive and negative affect, sleeping problems, subjective stress, physical symptoms, and cortisol levels. Separation and reunion effects were generally more pronounced in homebound partners, partners with high attachment anxiety, and partners who had less contact with each other during the separation. Separation and reunion effects were not moderated by relationship length, relationship satisfaction, how often couples underwent separations, or the presence of children in the home. The results are discussed with respect to the role of daily proximity and contact between partners for day-to-day affective and physiological regulation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Increased liking for a solution is not necessary for the attenuation of neophobia in rats.

Recent evidence suggests that liking and wanting of food rewards can be experimentally dissociated (e.g., Berridge, 1996); this dissociation extends to attenuated neophobia in the present study. Rats tend to eat less of a novel food than a familiar food, a phenomenon called neophobia. The present experiments evaluated whether attenuation of neophobia by prior exposure reflects enhanced liking of the flavor using the Taste Reactivity (TR) test. In Experiment 1, rats given five 10-s TR trials with water or various concentrations of saccharin solution (0.1%, 0.2%, 0.5%) did not show a change in the number of hedonic reactions displayed across trials. However, in a subsequent consumption test from a bottle containing 0.25% saccharin solution, rats with no prior saccharin exposure (group water) consumed less than rats with prior saccharin exposure; that is they displayed neophobia. In Experiment 2, whether rats received five 10-s TR trials with water or 0.5% saccharin solution, they did not display a difference in hedonic reactions to 0.25% saccharin solution in two 5-min TR test trials. These results suggest that the attenuation of neophobia is evidenced as an increase in the tendency to approach a bottle containing the flavored solution (wanting), but not as an enhanced liking of that solution. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)