True Love
The Economics of Faking Ecstasy
Hugo Mialon
Economic Inquiry, January 2012, Pages 277-285
Abstract:
In this paper, we develop a signaling model of rational lovemaking. In the act of lovemaking, a man and a woman send each other possibly deceptive signals about their true state of ecstasy. For example, if one of the partners is not in ecstasy, then he or she may decide to fake it. The model predicts that (1) a higher cost of faking lowers the probability of faking; (2) middle-aged and old men are more likely to fake than young men; (3) young and old women are more likely to fake than middle-aged women; and (4) love, formally defined as a mixture of altruism and demand for togetherness, increases the likelihood of faking. The predictions are tested with data from the 2000 Orgasm Survey. Besides supporting the model's predictions, the data also reveal an interesting positive relationship between education and the tendency to fake in both men and women.
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Genetic moderation of sensitivity to positive and negative affect in marriage
Dominik Schoebi et al.
Emotion, forthcoming
Abstract:
Hypothesizing that genetic factors partially govern sensitivity to interpersonal cues, we examined whether a polymorphism (5-HTTLPR) in the serotonin transporter gene would moderate spouses' sensitivity to positive and negative partner affect. Before and after marital discussions, participants from 76 couples (total n = 150) reported their affective states. Spouses carrying the short allele of the 5-HTTLPR were more responsive to their partner's preinteraction positive affect and anxiety/nervousness, compared with spouses with two long alleles. These data support the contention that the serotonin system influences affective responses to social stimuli. In contrast to the view that the 5-HTTLPR primarily affects response to adverse experiences, these results suggest that this polymorphism moderates sensitivity to positive as well as negative affect.
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Too tired to take offense: When depletion promotes forgiveness
Sarah Stanton & Eli Finkel
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Although self-regulatory depletion has a broad range of adverse consequences, recent research has established that it can yield prosocial outcomes under certain circumstances. The present experiment examined the interaction between depletion and offense severity on forgiveness of romantic offenses. Consistent with prior research, results revealed that depleted (vs. non-depleted) individuals were less forgiving of severe offenses. In a counterintuitive reversal, however, depleted (vs. non-depleted) individuals were more forgiving of mild offenses. This crossover interaction effect was mediated by perception of offense severity, suggesting that depleted individuals may be especially forgiving of mild offenses because they are simply too tired to take offense at their partner's bad behavior. These findings identify one important instance in which depletion can promote salutary relationship processes.
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J.C. Barnes et al.
Justice Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Some theories contend that marriage leads to desistance from crime. Indeed, many studies have reported married persons are less involved in crime. Research has developed under the testable assumption that marriage affects criminal behavior but that criminal involvement does not affect marital propensity (i.e. no selection effect). The current study tests this assumption in two ways. First, we examine a cross-lagged path model where prior marital status is allowed to influence future crime and prior crime is allowed to influence future marital status. Second, we analyze a reciprocal effects model where the contemporaneous influence of marriage on criminal activity is examined while also estimating the influence of criminal behavior on marriage. The findings reveal mixed support for the effect of marriage on crime. The marriage effect is observed in one of the cross-lagged models but not in the reciprocal effects models. Implications for both theory and policy are considered.
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My Better Half: Partner Enhancement as Self-Enhancement
Jonathon Brown & Albert Han
Social Psychological and Personality Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
People define themselves in terms of their relationship partners and they incorporate their partners into their self-concepts. Consequently, partner enhancement - viewing one's partner in excessively positive terms - might constitute an indirect form of self-enhancement when feelings of self-worth are threatened. To test this hypothesis, the authors gave participants evaluative feedback (e.g., success and failure) and then asked them to appraise themselves, their current (or most recent) relationship partner and (in Study 2) most other people. The authors found that low self-esteem participants, but not high self-esteem participants, responded to failure by exaggerating the virtues of their romantic partners. These findings highlight the flexibility of self-enhancement strategies and provide further evidence that low self-esteem people pursue indirect forms of self-enhancement in their efforts to blunt the adverse impact of adverse feedback.
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The power of money in dual-earner couples: A comparative study
Wolfgang Ludwig-Mayerhofer et al.
Acta Sociologica, December 2011, Pages 367-383
Abstract:
Building on the notion of the ‘social nature' of money, this article investigates how dual-earner couples in Germany, Spain, Sweden and the US handle money in their everyday lives. We analysed in-depth, open-ended interviews conducted with 45 couples in these four countries to determine whether they define money as ‘joint' or ‘separate' and to investigate the consequences such definitions have for couple relationships. The concept of the convertibility of money helped us to spell out these consequences in detail. In addition, we explore whether the meaning of ‘joint' or ‘separate' money might relate to institutionalized cultural frameworks embodied in welfare policies that vary between countries. Couples in Spain and in Sweden seem to practise a low degree of convertibility of money into other resources, but they do so for different reasons: in Spain, money tends to be considered ‘joint money' from the outset, whereas in Sweden it is often kept ‘separate' and outside the relationship. In contrast, in the US and Germany, money, while often classified as ‘joint' by the couples, is more likely to be seen as each partner's individual contribution to the relationship. Thus it can be, and often is, converted into resources such as domestic work or recognition.
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Female Education and Marriage Dissolution: Is it a Selection Effect?
Fabrizio Bernardi & Juan-Ignacio Martínez-Pastor
European Sociological Review, December 2011, Pages 693-707
Abstract:
Various papers have shown that in countries and cohorts where the rate of divorce is low, women with higher education are more likely to get divorced. However, when divorce becomes more common, the relationship between female education and marriage dissolution changes from being positive to being negative. The first aim of this article is to investigate whether the reversal in the educational gradient in marital dissolution is observed in Spain, where the marriage dissolution was extremely low until the mid-1970s and has since risen notably. It is, however, also well known that highly educated women tend to marry less frequently. Highly educated women who do marry are possibly a self-selected group with unobserved characteristics, such as, for instance, their commitment to the institution of marriage; these unobserved characteristics might also make them less likely to divorce later on. The second aim of this article is to test whether the reverse in the educational gradient in marriage dissolution is caused by the stronger self-selection of highly educated women choosing to marry in recent years. We estimate two simultaneous event history models, a continuous-time model for the risk of divorce and a discrete-time model for selection into marriage, allowing for correlation between the error terms of the two models. The results of the event history models with sample selection show that the decline in the effect of education on marriage dissolution is a consistent finding, one that is not biased by the self-selection into marriage among highly educated women.
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Diana Sanchez et al.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
Previous findings suggest that women are more likely than men to take on the submissive role during sexual activities (e.g., waiting for their partner to initiate and orchestrate sexual activities), often to the detriment of their sexual satisfaction. Extending previous research on gender role motivation, the authors recruited 181 heterosexual couples to examine scripted sexual behavior, motivation for such behavior, and relationship outcomes (sexual satisfaction, perceptions of closeness, and relationship satisfaction) for both women and their partners. Using the actor-partner interdependence model, path analyses revealed that women's submissive behavior had negative links to personal sexual satisfaction and their partner's sexual satisfaction but only when their submission was inconsistent with their sexual preferences. Moreover, the authors show there are negative downstream consequences of diminished sexual satisfaction on perceptions of closeness and overall relationship satisfaction for both partners in the relationship.
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Robin Edelstein, Emily Kean & William Chopik
Hormones and Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
The current study examined neuroendocrine processes associated with emotional intimacy in humans. Despite the importance of this aspect of close relationships, emotional intimacy has received much less attention in neuroendocrine research compared to other aspects of close relationships. In this study, participants viewed movie clips depicting an emotionally intimate parent-child interaction or other, non-intimate themes, and we assessed whether depictions of emotional intimacy increased levels of estradiol, a steroid hormone associated with attachment and caregiving processes. We also examined whether estradiol responses were moderated by individual differences in attachment avoidance, or people's discomfort with closeness and intimacy. Our findings revealed that, among single participants, estradiol levels increased in response to the emotionally intimate clip, but this effect was not observed among currently partnered participants. Moreover, the effects of emotional intimacy were moderated by gender and attachment avoidance, such that highly avoidant women showed smaller increases in estradiol after watching the emotionally intimate clip. Women's avoidance was unrelated to estradiol responses in the non-intimate control conditions, however, suggesting that the effects of avoidance were specific to intimate contexts. Taken together, the current findings contribute to our understanding of the biological bases of attachment and caregiving processes. They also highlight the potential role of estradiol in avoidant individuals' regulation of closeness and intimacy.
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Cathy Cox & Jamie Arndt
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Drawing from terror management theory, the present research examined whether people turn to close relationships to manage the awareness of mortality because they serve as a source of perceived regard. Studies 1 and 2 demonstrated that mortality salience (MS) leads people to exaggerate how positively their romantic partners see them and demonstrated that people are more committed to their partners to the extent that their romantic partners serve as a source of perceived regard after MS (Study 3). Study 4 revealed that activating thoughts of perceived regard from a partner in response to MS reduced death-thought accessibility. Studies 5 and 6 demonstrated that MS led high relationship contingent self-esteem individuals to exaggerate perceived regard from a partner, and this heightened regard led to greater commitment to one's partner. Study 7 examined attachment style differences and found that after MS, anxious individuals exaggerated how positively their parents see them, whereas secure individuals exaggerated how positively their romantic partners see them. Together, the present results suggest that perceptions of regard play an important role in why people pursue close relationships in the face of existential concerns.
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Kelley Robinson & Jessica Cameron
Journal of Research in Personality, forthcoming
Abstract:
Though self-esteem is known to positively impact individuals' romantic relationship outcomes and those of their partners, the interactive nature of both partners' self-esteem levels has not been systematically investigated. Using Actor-Partner Interdependence Model analyses we estimated actor, partner, and four types of dyadic effects of self-esteem on relationship quality in a sample of over 500 heterosexual dating couples. Lower self-esteem individuals and their partners reported lower satisfaction and commitment to their relationships than did higher self-esteem individuals and their partners. An additive effect whereby both partners' self-esteem levels combine to predict relationship quality best described the dyadic effects. Results highlight the importance of considering the interactive nature of individual characteristics in dyadic research.
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Nickola Overall, Garth Fletcher & David Kenny
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
Heterosexual couples (N = 57) discussed features about each other they wanted to change. During a review of their recorded discussions, for each 30 s of interaction, perceivers provided judgments of their partner's regard, and partners reported their actual regard for the perceiver. The authors simultaneously assessed the extent to which perceivers' over- or underestimated their partner's regard (mean-level bias) and tracked their partner's changing regard across the discussion (tracking accuracy). Perceivers on average tended to underestimate their partner's regard (negative mean-level bias) but exhibited substantial tracking accuracy. Bias and accuracy were related; perceivers that were more negatively biased more accurately tracked changes in their partner's regard. Women who were more insecure about their partner's continued regard demonstrated more negative mean-level bias and greater tracking accuracy, whereas more secure women demonstrated more positive bias and lower accuracy. The results indicate that bias and accuracy are shaped by context-relevant goals and motives.