Romantic relationships as shared reality defense

Home is Where the Heart is: Implications of Dyadic Acculturation for Migrant Couples' Personal and Relational Well-Being

Acculturation-the process through which people adopt the sociocultural values of their heritage and settlement cultures-is a complex experience, particularly within family structures. Although the consequences of acculturation gaps between parents and children have been studied extensively, the consequences for migrant couples are often overlooked. We propose that acculturation gaps in migrant couples are likely detrimental for personal and relational well-being. To test this, a study of 118 migrant couples with the same heritage culture and now living in the United Kingdom was conducted. Acculturation gaps in our studies were conceptualized as both within person and within couple, and their impact on personal well-being and relationship quality was tested using Actor-Partner Interdependence Model (APIM). Results suggest that although within-couple acculturation gaps negatively impacted personal well-being, they were not necessarily harmful to relationship quality. Interestingly, within-person acculturation gaps had dyadic consequences, with one person specifically contributing to their partner's personal well-being.

Emotional interdependence: the key to studying extrinsic emotion regulation

The literature on extrinsic emotion regulation or the intention to modify other people’s emotions has grown in recent years, accompanied by proposals in which its definition is made more precise, the way to understand it in relation to other related processes is delimited, and the consequences of its use in the quality of close relationships are evidenced. Conceptual reviews on this topic recognize the importance of examining the affect and dyadic dynamics that arise between those who regulate each other extrinsically. This dynamic refers to emotional interdependence, the potential of the members of a dyad to shape each other’s emotions reciprocally, particularly in those who share a close bond, such as that of a romantic couple. There is little theoretical development regarding the relevance of this characteristic in relation to EER. This article has two objectives: (1) to make a narrative synthesis of the characteristics that define EER and (2) to expand and complexify the existing model by including the emotional interdependence as a vital component in the understanding of the functioning of EER. Lastly, the role of emotional interdependence in the emergence, maintenance, and satisfaction concerning couple relationships is made explicit through phenomena such as shared reality.

Hand-in-hand in the golden years: Cognitive interdependence, partner involvement in retirement planning, and the transition into retirement

This research examined the influence of cognitive interdependence-a mental state reflecting a collective representation of the self-in-relationship-on the anticipation for and experiences with the transition into retirement. Among soon-to-be retirees (Study 1), greater cognitive interdependence was associated with seeing partners as more instrumental to one's goals both pre- and post-retirement, anticipating greater goal alignment post-retirement, and having directly involved partners in retirement planning to a greater extent than those relatively lower in cognitive interdependence. Among recent retirees (Study 2), retrospective cognitive interdependence was associated with post-retirement goal alignment and goal instrumentality, and the extent to which they believed they had directly involved their partners in retirement planning. However, it was post-retirement goal alignment that was associated with greater ease of retirement and subjective well-being. Finally, soon-to-be retirees relatively high in cognitive interdependence responded to concerns about their retirement (i.e., goal discordance and high retirement ambivalence) by wanting to involve their partners in their retirement plans to a greater extent (Study 3). These studies highlight the importance of romantic partners across the lifespan, and how partners might influence retirement planning, the transition to retirement, and well-being among recent retirees.

Interdependent transformations: Integrating insights from relationship science to advance post-traumatic growth and personality change research

People have a tremendous ability to grow and change for the better following adverse life events. This capacity for growth has captured the attention of psychologists interested in understanding the mechanisms underpinning both personality and well-being. This paper advocates for a greater integration of relationship science into this area of study as a means of advancing post-traumatic growth and personality change research. Relationships, both as an impetus for change and as evidence of growth, have featured consistently in the post-traumatic growth and adversity literatures. Drawing from interdependence theory in particular, this paper highlights how the unique structure of close relationships and relationship dynamics can be applied to address outstanding theoretical questions related to the advancement of post-traumatic growth research as well as offers a critique of the practice of using relationship outcomes (e.g., connection) as evidence of post-traumatic growth. Finally, this paper encourages psychologists across subdisciplines to share their unique skills and insights to help generate more robust psychological theories and methods.

Shared Reality: From Sharing-Is-Believing to Merging Minds

Humans are fundamentally motivated to create a sense of shared reality—the perceived commonality of inner states (feeling, beliefs, and concerns about the world) with other people. This shared reality establishes a sense of both social connection and understanding the world. Research on shared reality has burgeoned in recent decades. We first review evidence for a basic building block of shared-reality creation: sharing-is-believing, whereby communicators tune their descriptions to align with their communication partner’s attitude about something, which in turn shapes their recall. Next, we describe recent developments moving beyond this basic building block to explore generalized shared reality about the world at large, which promotes interpersonal closeness and epistemic certainty. Together, this body of work exemplifies the synergy between relational and epistemic motives. Finally, we discuss the potential for another form of shared reality—shared relevance—to bridge disparate realities.

Socially connected and COVID-19 prepared: The influence of sociorelational safety on perceived importance of COVID-19 precautions and trust in government responses

COVID-19 caused unprecedented social disruption the likes of which many people had not seen since the Second World War. In order to stop the spread of the virus, most nations were required to enforce strict social distancing precautions, including orders to shelter in place and national lockdowns. However, worries over whether citizens would become fatigued by precautions that constrain personal liberties made some governments hesitant to enact lockdown and social distancing measures early on in the pandemic. When people feel that their social worlds are responsive to their needs, they become more trusting and more willing to sacrifice on behalf of others. Thus, people may view COVID-19 precautions more positively and be more trusting in government responses to such an event if they are inclined to see their sociorelational world as supporting their connectedness needs. In the current study (N = 300), UK residents who were more satisfied that their close others fulfilled their connectedness needs at the start of the government-mandated lockdown, perceived COVID-19 precautions as more important and more effective than those who were relatively dissatisfied in how their connectedness needs were being met, and reported greater trust in the government’s management of the pandemic. These effects persisted in a follow-up one month later. Implications for how society and governments can benefit from the investment in social connectedness and satisfaction, and future directions are discussed.

The social-safety system: Fortifying relationships in the face of the unforeseeable

A model of the social-safety system is proposed to explain how people sustain a sense of safety in the relational world when they are not able to foresee the behavior of others. In this model, people can escape the acute anxiety posed by agents in their personal relational world behaving unexpectedly (e.g., spouse, child) by defensively imposing well-intentioned motivations on the agents controlling their sociopolitical relational world (e.g., President, Congress). Conversely, people can escape the acute anxiety posed by sociopolitical agents behaving unexpectedly by defensively imposing well-intentioned motivations on the agents controlling their personal relational world. Two daily diary studies, a longitudinal study of the 2018 midterm election, and a 3-year longitudinal study of newlyweds supported the hypotheses. On a daily basis, people who were less certain they could trust their romantic partner defended against acutely unforeseeable behavior in one relational world by affirming faith in the well-intentioned motivations of agents in the alternate world. Moreover, when people were more in the personal daily habit of finding safety in the alternate relational world in the face of the unexpected, those who were initially uncertain they could trust their romantic partner later evidenced greater comfort depending on their personal relationship partners. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Research on Marital Satisfaction and Stability in the 2010s: Challenging Conventional Wisdom

Although getting married is no longer a requirement for social acceptance, most people do marry in their lifetimes, and couples across the socioeconomic spectrum wish their marriages to be satisfying and long-lasting. This review evaluates the past decade of research on the determinants of satisfaction and stability in marriage, concluding that the scholarship of the past ten years has undermined three assumptions that were formerly accepted as conventional wisdom. First, research exploiting methods like latent class growth analyses reveal that, for most couples, marital satisfaction does not decline over time but in fact remains relatively stable for long periods. Second, contrary to predictions of behavioral models of marriage, negative communication between spouses can be difficult to change, does not necessarily lead to more satisfying relationships when it is changed, and does not always predict distress in the first place. Third, dyadic processes that are reliably adaptive for middle-class and more affluent couples may operate differently in lower-income couples, suggesting that influential models of marriage may not generalize to couples living in diverse environments. Thus, the accumulated research of the last ten years indicates that the tasks of understanding and promoting marital satisfaction and stability are more complex than we appreciated at the start of the decade, raising important questions that beg to be answered in the years ahead.