IMPLICIT PARTNER EVALUATIONS AND RELATIONSHIP OUTCOMES
Negative Speaks Louder than Positive: Negative Implicit Partner Evaluations
Forecast Destructive Daily Interaction and Relationship Decline
Ezgi Sakman1,2 and Vivian Zayas1
1Department of Psychology, Cornell University
2Department of Psychology, Bilkent University
Author Note
Ezgi Sakman http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5974-6566
Vivian Zayas https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9534-3721
The present research was conducted during Sakman’s post-doctoral research fellowship funded by Fulbright and the Scientific and Technological Research Council of
Turkey.
The present research was funded by a grant to Zayas from the Cornell Center for
Social Sciences (formerly known as the Institute for the Social Sciences (ISS)).
We have no known conflict of interest to disclose.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Vivian Zayas,
Cornell University, Department of Psychology, 238 Uris Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853-7601
Email: [email protected]
Word Count: 9186 IMPLICIT PARTNER EVALUATIONS AND RELATIONSHIP OUTCOMES 1
Abstract
Implicit partner evaluations (IPEs)—the evaluations triggered nonconsciously when thinking of one’s partner—have been shown to predict consequential outcomes. Despite the interest, there is a glaring paradox in current approaches. A defining feature of significant other mental representations is their affective complexity; but commonly-used methods assess positive relative to negative IPEs, which do not capture this complexity.
Using a longitudinal design, we examined the differential attunement of positive and negative IPEs in forecasting relationship behaviors and outcomes. Time 1 negative IPEs forecasted perceiving and enacting daily negative behaviors assessed in a 14-day daily diary, which, in turn, predicted deterioration in explicit partner and relationship evaluations three months later. Positive IPEs, as well as explicit attitudes, were weak and inconsistent predictors of relationship outcomes. These findings elucidate the differential functions of negative and positive IPEs and demonstrate the importance of independently assessing negative and positive IPEs.
Keywords: Implicit Partner Evaluations (IPEs), negative relationship behaviors, explicit partner perceptions, automatic processes, romantic relationships IMPLICIT PARTNER EVALUATIONS AND RELATIONSHIP OUTCOMES 2
Negative Speaks Louder than Positive: Negative Implicit Partner Evaluations
Forecast Destructive Daily Interaction and Relationship Decline
Poets, novelists, and musicians have long contemplated, and lamented, the bitter sweetness of love. Romantic relationships are a source of rewarding experiences (e.g., safety, joy, comfort). Yet, even the most satisfying relationships are a source of painful events (e.g., disappointment, rejection, frustration). For over a century, psychologists across diverse subfields have theorized that over time these affectively rich experiences slowly become etched in memory and stored as mental representations of significant others (e.g., Bowlby, 1973, 1980, 1982; Erikson, 1956; Fairbairn, 1952; Freud, 1911;
Klein, 1955; Mead, 1934; Sullivan, 1953; Winnicott, 1958, 1965; see also, Baldwin,
1992; Linehan, 1993; Pietromonaco & Barrett, 2000; Zayas et al., 2015). Once formed, these representations are expected to have profound and broad effects on social functioning (Happé et al., 2017), serving as a filter through which people perceive and interpret their world, and ultimately, shape their own behaviors in dyadic interactions.
Despite renewed interest in the last decade in understanding the structure and function of mental representations, especially aspects that operate at an implicit (nonconscious) level, there has been scant attention to one of their most defining features—their affective complexity. To address this gap, the present work offers the first investigation of the distinct roles of negative and positive implicit partner evaluations (IPEs) on perceiving and enacting negative relationship behaviors, and how IPEs via their persistent effects on daily interactions shape relationship outcomes over time.
IPEs are an aspect of mental representations that has received considerable attention in relationship science. In contrast to explicit evaluations, which are assessed IMPLICIT PARTNER EVALUATIONS AND RELATIONSHIP OUTCOMES 3 through direct methods wherein participants report on their feelings and thoughts, IPEs are assessed via indirect methods wherein partner evaluations are inferred, for example, from how quickly and accurately participants perform classification tasks that tap into how concepts are associated with one another (see Fazio & Olson, 2003 for a review).
Thus, IPEs are the evaluations that come to mind automatically, effortlessly, unintentionally, and nonconsciously when one thinks of a significant other (see Zayas &
Shoda, 2005, see also LeBel & Campbell, 2009).
Research has shown that IPEs predict important relationship outcomes. For example, people with stronger positive IPEs report greater emotional commitment, attachment security, and relationship satisfaction (e.g., LeBel & Campbell, 2013; Zayas
& Shoda, 2005; see Hicks & McNulty, 2019; Zayas et al., 2017 for reviews). In longitudinal work, stronger positive IPEs assessed at baseline predicted lower likelihood of breaking up 12-months later among those in dating relationships (Lee et al., 2010), and less relationship satisfaction decline two years later among newlyweds (McNulty et al.,
2013). In both studies, explicit measures of relationship functioning did not predict future relationship outcomes, attesting to the unique forecasting ability of IPEs.
Although this past work highlights the practical, real world importance of assessing IPEs, there is glaring paradox in current approaches. Theory and intuition have long acknowledged that a defining feature of significant other representations is their affective richness, reflecting the rewarding and aversive experiences that characterize close relationships (e.g., Gable & Reis, 2001; Gere et al., 2013; Murray et al., 2006). Still, research on IPEs has largely overlooked this affective complexity. The lack of attention to the affective richness of mental representations does not reflect a lack of appreciation IMPLICIT PARTNER EVALUATIONS AND RELATIONSHIP OUTCOMES 4 for the emotional complexities of relationships. Instead, it reflects common practices and assumptions in the social cognition literature that inform work on IPEs. Specifically, dominant theoretical models conceptualize evaluations on a single continuum, with good on one end, and bad on another. Such conceptualizations are also seen in models of interpersonal evaluation where individuals are judged as trustworthy versus untrustworthy, warm versus cold, and supportive versus rejecting (Abele & Wojciszke,
2007; Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991; Cuddy et al., 2007; Peeters & Czapinski, 1990).
Not surprisingly, then, widely used social cognitive methods for assessing implicit evaluations (e.g., Implicit Association Test, Greenwald et al., 1998) also assess evaluations on a single, unidimensional continuum, from good to bad (for exceptions, see de Liver et al., 2007; study 2; Petty et al., 2006; study 1). The widespread use of unidimensional measures has heavily affected how IPEs are operationalized in relationship science, such that most studies have assessed the extent to which a partner spontaneously activates positive relative to negative evaluations—or net implicit positivity (e.g., Banse, 1999; Faure et al., 2018; Hicks et al., 2016; LeBel & Campbell,
2013, 2013; McNulty et al., 2013, 2017; Murray et al., 2010, 2019; Scinta & Gable, 2007;
Zayas & Shoda, 2005).
Despite their validity, commonly used measures of IPEs do not assess the extent to which a partner spontaneously activates positive and negative distinctly. But, this methodological constraint has left a theoretical gap in the literature. Partners are a class of stimuli long known to be associated with both rewarding and aversive experiences. Even the most supportive partner is at times not available, and even the happiest of relationships have moments of disappointment and frustration. Yet, commonly used IMPLICIT PARTNER EVALUATIONS AND RELATIONSHIP OUTCOMES 5 unidimensional measures of IPE have not allowed researchers to understand how such affectively-rich experiences are represented at an implicit level, and how affectively complex implicit processes shape relationship functioning and outcomes.
The two studies, to date, that have assessed positive and negative IPEs separately have yielded important insights. Providing support for the longstanding idea that a defining characteristic of significant other representations is their affective complexity,
Zayas and Shoda (2015) demonstrated that representations of significant others consist of positive and negative implicit evaluations, whereas representations of liked attitude objects consist of only positive implicit evaluations (and inhibit negative implicit evaluations). Importantly, in longitudinal work, Lee and colleagues (2010) showed that weaker positive IPEs and stronger negative IPEs both uniquely predict future break up.
Given that most of the work on IPEs has focused on partner’s net implicit positivity, there has been scant attention to how positive and negative IPEs work to shape perception and guide behaviors within relationships, and to ultimately shape relationship outcomes. Here, we examine the proposition that negative IPEs may be particularly diagnostic of perceiving negative partner behaviors, as well as enacting negative behaviors within day-to-day interactions, and that such daily negative behaviors accumulate over time, ultimately eroding future relationship outcomes.
Our hypothesis about the functioning of positive and negative IPEs is informed by theories that posit that the human mind is highly attuned to both rewards and threats (e.g.,
Carver & White, 1994; Gable & Reis, 2001; Gray, 1987; Metcalfe & Mischel, 1999).
According to the evaluative space model (ESM; see Cacioppo & Berntson, 1994), positivity and negativity reflect two distinct and separable neural systems; people scan IMPLICIT PARTNER EVALUATIONS AND RELATIONSHIP OUTCOMES 6 the environment in terms of its appetitive (i.e., rewards) and aversive (i.e., threats) features. Early in the processing stream, these two evaluations are assumed to occur independently, in parallel, and simultaneously, and are eventually integrated into a mutually exclusive behavioral response that is confined to either approach or withdrawal
(Grabenhorst et al., 2007).
The operating characteristics of the positive and negative evaluative systems have implications for the structure and function of positive and negative IPEs. Given that IPEs are the long-term products of the evaluative systems operating within relationships, we reasoned that they should reflect the characteristics of the evaluative system from which they form. Thus, negative IPEs should track negative aspects of relationship experiences more so than positive, and positive IPEs should track positive aspects of relationship experiences more so than negative. But, the evaluative system is also characterized by a negativity bias; the negativity system is more sensitive to threats than the positivity system is sensitive to rewards (Baumeister et al., 2001; Fazio et al., 2004; Kahneman &
Tversky, 1984; Pratto & John, 1991), which simply means that less negative input is required to trigger negative processing, compared to the amount of positive input required to trigger positive processing (see Norris et al., 2010 for a review). Thus, we also reasoned that IPEs too should be characterized by a negativity bias. Specifically, negative
IPEs should track negative aspects of relationship experiences more so than positive IPEs are expected to track positive aspects of relationship experiences.
Furthermore, we reasoned that to the extent that negative IPEs are diagnostic of negative relationship experiences, negative IPEs should be particularly effective at forecasting the future health of the relationship. This hypothesis is based on research IMPLICIT PARTNER EVALUATIONS AND RELATIONSHIP OUTCOMES 7 showing that negative behaviors serve as a harbinger of decline in relationship satisfaction and escalation of problems (e.g., McCarthy, 1999). For example, in classic longitudinal work studying married couples over a range of 2-16 years, negative behaviors (e.g., yelling, criticizing, complaining) during conflict predicted decreased marital satisfaction and increased likelihood of divorce, whereas constructive behaviors
(e.g., calmly discussing the situation, humor-laughter, affectionate communication) did not (Birditt et al., 2010; Gottman & Krokoff, 1989; Gottman & Levenson, 2000; Huston et al., 2001; Huston & Vangelisti, 1991).
Our second hypothesis also informs the mechanisms by which IPEs exert their influence on relationship outcomes, a point that is still not well understood. IPEs are likely to affect outcomes because they serve as a filter for interpreting partners’ daily behaviors, as well as for guiding one’s own actions. Yet, no study has examined how positive and negative IPEs color perceptions of partner’s behavior, or shape one’s own behavior. A couple of studies have shown that stronger positive (relative to negative)
IPEs predict more positive (vs. negative) behaviors (Faure et al., 2018; LeBel &
Campbell, 2013). Most relevant, one study (Faure et al., 2018) has yielded results consistent with the idea that IPEs affect relationship outcomes via how they affect the behaviors enacted within the relationship. In a laboratory setting wherein couples discussed a topic of conflict, stronger positive (relative to negative) IPEs predicted more constructive nonverbal behavior (e.g., soft voice tone, smiling, relaxed posture) towards the partner, which in turn predicted higher relationship satisfaction in a following daily diary (Faure et al., 2018). Despite these promising findings, we still know little of how IMPLICIT PARTNER EVALUATIONS AND RELATIONSHIP OUTCOMES 8 positive and negative IPEs assessed separately affect perceptions of partners’ as well as one’s own behavior.
In the present study, we used a longitudinal design, and assessed, at time 1, positive and negative IPEs (along with explicit relationship and partner evaluations).
Participants then completed a 14-day daily diary wherein they reported the positive and negative behaviors enacted by themselves (own behaviors) and their partners (partner behaviors). Finally, three months after time 1, we assessed once again positive and negative IPEs separately (along with explicit relationship and partner evaluations).
Method
The present study is part of a larger project investigating explicit and implicit evaluations and relationship outcomes. Here, we present a brief description of the materials that are relevant to the current study hypotheses. We preregistered our data collection and analysis plan at https://osf.io/8vqda/? view_only=e8aad360ccc44c0db9bebb3b9fb6824a (where the data set is also available).
The study protocol was approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of a northeast university in the United States, where the study was conducted.
Participants
Participants from the aforementioned university were recruited for the study if they were in an exclusive heterosexual romantic relationship. We collected data at the start of the study (time 1), and again three months later (time 2). At time 1, the study consisted of three parts: the online session, the lab session, and the daily diary. Per our preregistration plan, we aimed to complete the data collection for all phases of the study during one academic semester. We thus recruited as many participants as possible within IMPLICIT PARTNER EVALUATIONS AND RELATIONSHIP OUTCOMES 9 the first four weeks of the start of the academic semester, aiming to have a final sample of at least 100 participants.
One hundred and forty-three participants (Mage = 21.19, 75.50% female, 55.90%
White, Mrelationship length = 21.25 months) took part in the online session at time 1. Of this initial sample, 131 individuals (Mage = 21.21, 77.10% female, 56.50% White, Mrelationship length = 21.79 months) completed the lab session and the daily diary. Three months later, at time 2, 106 participants (Mage = 21.25, 77.40% female, 57.50% White, Mrelationship length =
22.36 months), who were still in a romantic relationship with their partners completed a second online and lab session. As compensation for completing all parts of the study, participants received $40 and were entered in a raffle with the opportunity to win a $50 gift certificate. Participants who completed only some parts of the study received no compensation.
With regard to our first hypothesis examining the link between IPEs and daily behaviors, a power analysis revealed that, with an N = 131, we had approximately 95% statistical power, assuming a medium-sized correlation (r = .30), a two-tailed test, and alpha = .05. With regard to our second hypothesis examining the effect of IPEs on relationship outcomes via daily diary behaviors, our sample size (N = 106) allowed us to achieve approximately 75% statistical power (two-tailed, alpha = .05; Fritz &
MacKinnon, 2007).
Materials and Procedure
Figure S1 in the Supplemental Materials provides a visual illustration of the study procedures. At time 1, the study consisted of three parts: The first part was the online session, wherein we assessed the explicit evaluations about the relationship and the IMPLICIT PARTNER EVALUATIONS AND RELATIONSHIP OUTCOMES 10 partner, the second part was the lab session, wherein we measured participants’ IPEs, and the third part was the daily diary, wherein we assessed daily relationship behaviors via a
14-day daily diary. At time 2, approximately three months after time 1 (M = 11.79 weeks,
SD = .76, range = 10-14 weeks), participants completed an online and lab session again to assess explicit and implicit evaluations.
Assessment of Explicit Evaluations about the Relationship and the Partner
At both time 1 and time 2, participants first completed a set of questionnaires online. We assessed how many problems participants had in their relationship with a single item “How many problems do you have in your relationship?” on a 7-point Likert scale (1 = none, 7 = a lot). Also, we measured the thoughts participants had about their partners using items from the Perceived Relationship Quality Component Inventory
(Fletcher et al., 2000) and the Explicit Partner Attitudes Questionnaire (Banse &
Kowalick, 2007). Because these two scales had items that were highly redundant with one another, we did not include the entire scales. Ultimately, we selected two items that assess positive thoughts about the partner (“My partner has many good qualities,” “My partner is faithful”) and three items that assess negative thoughts about the partner (“My partner is not someone who will ever settle down,” “My partner should change a few things about himself/herself,” “My partner has some negative characteristics”).
Participants were asked to think about their partner and rate the extent to which they agreed with each statement using a 7-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree; see Study Materials “The Online Session” in Supplemental Materials for entire measure). The positive and negative partner-related thoughts were separately IMPLICIT PARTNER EVALUATIONS AND RELATIONSHIP OUTCOMES 11
averaged to create the explicit partner evaluation measures: positive partner thoughts (αT1
1 = .38, α T2= .63) and negative partner thoughts (α T1 = .62, α T2 = .59).
Assessment of Implicit Partner Evaluations (IPEs)
At both time 1 and time 2, after participants completed the online session, they were invited to the lab session. Upon arrival, participants were greeted by a research assistant and seated at a computer. All measures and instructions were administered on a
Windows computer running Inquisit psychological software (build 4.0.10). We employed the Partner-Focused Go/No Go Association Task (P-GNAT; Lee et al., 2010) to measure implicit partner evaluations. This task uses a word that participants associate with their partners as stimuli. Thus, at the start of the session, participants were asked to “enter the name you most associate with the partner (this could be the person’s first name or nickname).” Following procedures specified by Lee and colleagues (2010), participants were told that in the task they would be presented with three groups of words: partner- related word (i.e., name or nickname), good relational attributes (i.e., understanding, sharing, accepting), and bad relational attributes (i.e., attacking, nagging, criticizing).
Participants were told that a word stimulus (from one of the categories) would be presented in the middle of the computer screen. They were told that some stimuli were
“targets” and that they were to press the spacebar on the keyboard (i.e., make the “go” decision) whenever a target stimulus appeared on the screen. They were also told that other stimuli served as “distractors” and that they were to not press the spacebar (i.e., make the “no go” decision) whenever a distractor stimulus appeared on the screen. In the
1 When we derived one composite index by reverse coding the negative items, alphas increased to .57 for T1 and .65 for T2. Moreover, when we reanalyzed the data using this relative measure of explicit evaluation, the results remained unchanged. IMPLICIT PARTNER EVALUATIONS AND RELATIONSHIP OUTCOMES 12 compatible block, the partner stimuli and the good stimuli were identified as targets, whereas in the incompatible block, the partner stimuli and the bad stimuli were identified as targets (see Study Materials “The Lab Session” in Supplemental Materials). The order that the compatible and incompatible blocks were presented was counterbalanced across participants to account for possible order effects. Each stimulus to-be-classified was presented on the screen for 600 ms with an intertrial interval (ITI) of 400 ms. Participants first completed 16 practice trials that included items for both compatible and incompatible blocks that were counterbalanced. These trials were not used for data analyses. The participants then completed two 70-trial test blocks.
We followed the procedures of Lee and colleagues (2010) in data reduction. Per our preregistration plan, we did not exclude any trials.2 For calculating our key measure of implicit partner evaluations, we used the performance measure of d prime (d’) to control for inflated hit rates resulting from indiscriminant responding. The d’ scores were calculated by subtracting the false alarm rate from the hit rate after they were standardized with a probit function, separately for the compatible and incompatible test blocks (see Supplemental Materials for descriptive statistics on hit and false alarm rates and reaction times). The d’ scores for the compatible (partner and good attribute pairing) block were used as the measure of positive IPEs and the d’ scores for the incompatible
(partner and bad attribute pairing) block were used as the measure of negative IPEs (see
Table 1 for descriptive statistics on positive and negative IPEs).3
2 We checked for outliers whose scores deviated more than three standard deviations in either direction from the mean. We identified four outliers based on performance on either the compatible or the incompatible blocks. The results remained unchanged when we reanalyzed the data removing these outliers. 3 We also calculated a net positivity score by subtracting negative IPE scores from positive IPE scores. The results remained unchanged when we used this net positivity score in the models. IMPLICIT PARTNER EVALUATIONS AND RELATIONSHIP OUTCOMES 13
Assessment of Daily Relationship Behaviors
The daily diary part of the study began the day following the time 1 lab session.
Every day for two weeks (14 days), an e-mail containing the link to the daily diary survey was sent to participants at 7 pm. Participants had until midnight to complete the survey for that day. Overall, participants completed daily diaries for 13.44 days out of 14 days for a response rate of 96.29%. In each daily diary survey, participants were asked to report the frequency with which their partner engaged in eight specific behaviors, four of which were positive (“My partner told me that he/she loved me,” “My partner asked me how my day went,” “My partner complimented me,” “My partner initiated sexual activity with me”) and four of which were negative (“My partner said something that was hurtful to me,” “My partner put down what I did,” “My partner took a long time to respond to a text or call from me,” “My partner spent more time doing other things than with me”), on that day on a 7-point Likert scale (1 = not at all, 7 = a lot) (see Study Materials “The
Daily Diary” in Supplemental Materials for entire measure). These behaviors were selected based on the Relationship-Specific Optimism Questionnaire (Neff & Geers,
2013) and the Frequency and Acceptability of Partner Behavior Inventory (Doss &
Christensen, 2006). Participants also rated the same behavior assessment items thinking about themselves on that specific day (e.g., “I told my partner that I loved him/her,” “I said something that was hurtful to my partner”). Scores for the positive and negative items for the partner behaviors and own behaviors were averaged separately to create the composite scores for the daily positive and negative behaviors. IMPLICIT PARTNER EVALUATIONS AND RELATIONSHIP OUTCOMES 14
Results
Preliminary Analyses
Table 1 reports the descriptive statistics for all study variables, along with the bivariate correlations among them. At both time points, participants held stronger positive
IPEs than negative (ds > 4.10, ps < .001). None of the IPEs were related to any of the explicit relationship and partner evaluations measures at either time point (rs < .17, ps
> .148), but negative IPEs did predict daily negative behaviors (rs > .22, ps < .026).4
Moreover, in the daily diary, participants reported both perceiving, and enacting, more positive than negative behaviors (ds > 2.25, ps < .001), and enactment of own behaviors did not differ significantly from perceptions of partner behaviors (ds < .13, ps > .066).
The average within-person correlations among partner and own daily behaviors were strong for positive (M = .73, SD = .24) and negative behaviors (M = .54, SD = .31) (see
Supplemental Materials for statistical information pertaining to all preliminary analyses).
Do Negative IPEs at Time 1 Predict Daily Negative Behaviors Assessed via the Daily
Diary?
Because the daily diary responses were nested within each participant, we ran a series of Multilevel Linear Models (MLM) for each outcome of interest (i.e., partner daily negative behaviors, own daily negative behaviors, partner daily positive behaviors, own daily positive behaviors). In all models, we simultaneously entered time 1 positive and negative IPEs as the level 2 (participant-level) predictors.5 To assess the predictive ability of IPEs above and beyond explicit measures, we also entered time 1 explicit
4 Theoretically, one might expect that daily experiences shape time 2 IPEs. Although daily experiences correlated with time 2 negative IPEs, this correlation was no longer statistically significant when controlling for time 1 IPEs (see Supplemental Materials). 5 The conclusions remained unchanged when we reanalyzed the data entering positive and negative IPEs into separate models (see Supplemental Materials). IMPLICIT PARTNER EVALUATIONS AND RELATIONSHIP OUTCOMES 15 evaluations of the relationship and the partner as covariates. Finally, participants’ intercepts were allowed to vary and daily diary entry (e.g., 1st, 2nd) was entered as a random factor.
Consistent with our predictions, negative IPEs at time 1 uniquely forecasted partner and own negative behaviors in the daily diary, even when statistically controlling for the effects of explicit relationship and partner evaluations. As shown in Table 2, negative IPEs at time 1 predicted a higher frequency of partner daily negative behaviors
(B = .21, SE = .08, p = .008), and a higher frequency of own daily negative behaviors (B
= .16, SE = .07, p = .031).
Positive IPEs at time 1 also predicted fewer partner daily negative behaviors (B =
-.19, SE = .09, p = .038), but not own daily negative behaviors (B = -.10, SE = .09, p
= .253). Neither negative nor positive IPEs at time 1 significantly predicted partner or own daily positive behaviors (ps > .704).6
Are Daily Negative Behaviors a Pathway between Initial IPEs and Change in
Explicit Relationship and Partner Evaluations?
In line with past work showing that negative relationship behaviors serve as a harbinger of negative future relationship outcomes, we found that perceived and enacted daily negative behaviors predicted worse future relationship outcomes, more strongly than daily positive behaviors (see Supplemental Materials for the relevant analyses).
Building on this, we investigated whether the frequency of negative behaviors (partner’s and own) serve as a pathway by which initial IPEs exert their effect on explicit relationship and partner evaluations over time. To test this hypothesis, we ran a series of
6 Unlike Lee and colleagues (2010), we did not find a statistically significant interaction between positive and negative IPEs in any of our models (ps > .47). This might be attributable to the fact that tests of interactions among continuous variables are generally difficult to power (McClelland & Judd, 1993). IMPLICIT PARTNER EVALUATIONS AND RELATIONSHIP OUTCOMES 16 mediation models using PROCESS (Model 4; Hayes, 2017) to derive confidence intervals for the indirect effects with 5,000 bootstrap samples. To operationalize change in explicit evaluations over the three-month period, we calculated the difference between the time 2 and time 1 scores for relationship problems and repeated the process for partner thoughts. To operationalize daily behaviors, which served as the mediator, we computed the average score, for each participant, across the 14-day daily diary.
Consistent with our predictions, stronger negative IPEs at time 1 predicted increases in relationship problems over the three months via higher frequency in perceiving partner daily negative behaviors (b = .07, 95% CI [.01, .17], see Figure 1;
Panel A). Additionally, stronger negative IPEs at time 1 predicted increases in negative thoughts about the partner over the three months via higher frequency in perceiving partner daily negative behaviors (b = .05, 95% CI [.01, .13]), see Figure 1; Panel B). Own daily negative behaviors did not show evidence of mediating the relationship between negative IPEs at time 1 and increases in relationship problems or negative thoughts about the partner over three months (b = .06, 95% CI [-.02, .17] and b = .04, 95% CI [-.02, .12], respectively, see Figure S2 in Supplemental Materials).
Neither models examining the indirect effect of negative IPEs on the change in positive thoughts about the partner, nor mediation models with positive IPEs as the predictor were statistically significant (see Supplemental Materials). IMPLICIT PARTNER EVALUATIONS AND RELATIONSHIP OUTCOMES 17
Discussion
Scholars have long noted that key aspects of mental representations of others operate implicitly—automatically and nonconsciously—and are affectively complex. Yet, surprisingly little is known about how the affective complexity of the significant other representations color relationship experiences and shape behaviors. Addressing this gap, the present study highlights the distinct roles of negative and positive implicit partner evaluations (IPEs) on perceiving and enacting negative relationship behaviors, and how
IPEs via their persistent effects on daily interactions shape relationship outcomes over time.
In line with our first hypothesis, individuals who at time 1 had stronger negative
IPEs reported in the subsequent daily diary a higher frequency that their partner engaged in negative behaviors, and a higher frequency of enacting negative behaviors. Although not predicted from our reasoning, weaker positive IPEs at time 1 independently predicted reporting a higher frequency of negative partner behaviors (though not one’s own).
Highlighting that IPEs foretell the future of the relationship better than consciously held attitudes, explicit relationship and partner evaluations did not reliably predict partner or own daily negative behaviors, consistent with past work (Faure et al., 2018). Offering support for our second hypothesis, mediation analyses showed that negative IPEs (more so than positive) forecasted increases in relationship problems and negative thoughts about the partner over the three-month period, and did so via coloring perceptions of partners’ daily negative behaviors. These findings provide important insights about the social psychological mechanisms by which IPEs have been shown to predict crucial IMPLICIT PARTNER EVALUATIONS AND RELATIONSHIP OUTCOMES 18 relationship outcomes (e.g., LeBel & Campbell, 2013; Lee et al., 2010; McNulty et al.,
2013; Zayas & Shoda, 2005).
The present findings advance our understanding of the cognitive-affective architecture that helps individuals navigate the rewards and threats that define close relationships in significant ways. First, by measuring positive and negative IPEs separately, our work begins to examine how positive and negative IPEs function distinctly to shape perception and behavior in day-to-day interactions within relationships. To be sure, prior work has found that stronger positive (relative to negative)
IPEs predicted one’s own behavior towards one’s partner, such as being more constructive during a conflict discussion (Faure et al., 2018), and showing interest in partner’s day as reported in a daily diary (LeBel & Campbell, 2013). But, these studies used relative measures of IPE; hence, they do not disentangle the effects of positive evaluations from negative ones. Of note, the inability to separate the effects of positive
IPEs from negative IPEs on behavior is also true of research in social cognition more broadly (Agerström & Rooth, 2011; McConnell & Leibold, 2001; Rooth, 2010).
Importantly, disentangling positive and negative IPEs revealed insights about the functioning of IPEs. For one, the results show that negative IPEs are not simply the inverse of positive IPEs. Instead, negative IPEs more strongly forecasted daily relational threats, such as partner’s criticism, than daily relational rewards, such as partner’s attention. Negative IPEs also forecasted enacting negative day-to-day relationship behaviors. Importantly, negative IPEs did not predict positive daily behaviors. The attunement of negative IPEs to negative behaviors is consistent with a key assumption of IMPLICIT PARTNER EVALUATIONS AND RELATIONSHIP OUTCOMES 19
ESM, namely that people possess an evaluative system that is differentially attuned to threats (also see Gable & Reis, 2001; Gere et al., 2013; Murray et al., 2006).
Notably, whereas negative IPE forecasted daily relational threats, positive IPEs did not appreciably forecast daily relational rewards, and had weaker and less consistent effects on negative daily behaviors. A natural question then is: Why were positive IPEs less predictive of positive daily behaviors, than negative IPEs of negative daily behaviors? Based on assumptions of ESM, as well as other work, one explanation is that the negativity bias that characterizes the evaluative system is reflected in a negativity bias in the functioning of IPEs. Specifically, IPEs are the products of the evaluative systems processing threats and rewards encountered in interactions over time (Rydell et al., 2007;
Wilson et al., 2000). Given that the evaluative systems are characterized by a negativity bias wherein negative phenomena have stronger and broader effects than positive (see
Baumeister et al., 2001 for a review), we show here that negative IPEs have stronger and broader predictive ability of negative daily interactions, than positive IPEs have of positive interactions. Such findings are consistent with past work showing the heightened sensitivity to relational threats over relational rewards in diverse social contexts
(Chernyak & Zayas, 2010; Eisenberger, 2003; Williams & Zadro, 2006; Zayas et al.,
2009). An additional, not mutually exclusive, explanation that is also consistent with assumptions of ESM is that positive behaviors occur more frequently than negative behaviors in relationships (Finkenauer et al., 2010; Gottman & Levenson, 1999). Thus, positive IPEs may be less sensitive to rewards, than negative IPEs are sensitive to threats, in part, because rewards are more abundant and less diagnostic in daily interactions, compared to less prevalent threats. Still, future work is needed to understand the IMPLICIT PARTNER EVALUATIONS AND RELATIONSHIP OUTCOMES 20 implications of positive IPEs for relationship functioning as they operate at various stages of relationship development (Zayas et al., 2015), especially in light of past work demonstrating the importance of positive affective responses on relationship functioning
(Selcuk et al., 2012).
Our results provide empirical evidence that negative IPEs have implications for the future of the relationships over time. In this regard, our findings speak to issues about the association (or lack thereof) between implicit and explicit partner evaluations.
Negative IPEs may show weak or no correspondence with explicit evaluations in a given moment. Indeed, our findings show that implicit and explicit evaluations are not significantly correlated when assessed concurrently, a finding consistent with previous work (e.g., Faure et al., 2018; Hicks et al., 2016; McNulty et al., 2013). At the same time, implicit and explicit evaluations may be associated when they are studied over time. The present work shows that negative IPEs shape perceptions of partner’s negative behaviors, and to the extent that perceptions of negative partner behaviors accumulate over time, they negatively color explicit views of the partner and their relationship. Thus, frequently perceiving one’s partner enacting negative behaviors, as well as one’s self, serves as the basis for inferences about the partner and the relationship (e.g., Niedenthal, 2007). In this manner, implicit evaluations exert their influence on later explicit evaluations.
Importantly, our results both converge with and diverge from previous work.
Most relevant, Faure and colleagues (2018) showed that IPEs assessed with a relative measure predicted enacting more positive (vs. negative) nonverbal behaviors in a conflict discussion. Our study differs in that we assessed positive and negative IPEs separately, as well as assessing the perception and enactment of positive and negative daily behaviors IMPLICIT PARTNER EVALUATIONS AND RELATIONSHIP OUTCOMES 21 separately. We speculate that the unique functions of negative and positive IPEs may have been obscured in previous work because IPEs were measured using a relative measure that taps into net positivity. Indeed, when we calculate a net implicit positivity score by subtracting negative IPE scores from positive IPE scores, net implicit positivity also predicts daily partner and own behaviors, and subsequent deterioration in explicit evaluations. Yet, relative measures fail to appreciate how positive and negative IPEs differentially function to affect perception and behavior. Another important difference is that we measured day-to-day negative behaviors over the span of two weeks, whereas
Faure and colleagues (2018) examined behaviors in a lab setting. We speculate that daily diary assessments over 14-days may provider a “wider net” for capturing negative behaviors; in daily diary methods, individuals reflect on numerous interactions that naturally transpired over an entire day, and across two-weeks, as compared to a lab setting that provides a single snapshot of the relationship taking place in a controlled setting.
Importantly, a methodological novelty of the present study was examining perceptions of partner’s behaviors, separately from one’s own behavior. Reflecting the dyadic nature of interactions in close relationships (Zayas et al., 2002), self and partner behaviors were highly correlated (see Table 1). Still, in the present study, negative IPEs more strongly and consistently predicted perceptions of partner’s behavior, rather than perceptions of one’s own behavior. One reason for why negative IPEs were more strongly linked to perceptions of partner’s negative behavior, than to one’s own behaviors, may be because the link between implicit evaluations and perceptions is more direct than the link between implicit evaluations and behavior, which is dependent on IMPLICIT PARTNER EVALUATIONS AND RELATIONSHIP OUTCOMES 22 motivation and opportunity (Fazio, 1990; Fazio & Olson, 2014). Indeed, people do not always act on their perceptions. For example, Ayduk and colleagues (2000) have shown that individuals high on rejection sensitivity are by default more likely to perceive others as rejecting them, but whether this perception colors their behaviors depends on the individual’s regulatory abilities. In our studies, an individual may perceive the partner as being critical, but may decide, albeit not necessarily consciously, to turn the other cheek.
Another explanation for why IPEs were more strongly linked to perceptions of partner’s behaviors than one’s own behaviors is a self-presentational account. Self-reports of partner’s negative behaviors are likely less susceptible to self-presentational concerns as compared to one’s own negative behaviors (Krumpal, 2013). Thus, participants may have been more willing to report on their partner’s negative behaviors, resulting in higher concordance between their implicit evaluations and reports of behaviors. Finally, another possibility for the stronger effects between IPEs and perception of partner’s behavior, than one’s own behaviors, may be because the measure of IPE required that participants associate their partner with adjectives describing behaviors (e.g., nagging, criticizing).
Hence, the implicit measure may have mapped better onto perceptions of partner’s behaviors, rather than own behaviors.
Its contributions notwithstanding, given the passive nature of the longitudinal and mediation design, cause-effect conclusions cannot be drawn from the data. Third variable explanations could account for the findings. For example, negative relationship experiences not measured here could have shaped negative IPEs as well as enactment and perception of negative behaviors in the daily diary. Moreover, although daily diary methodology offers an ecologically valid way of measuring daily relationship behaviors, IMPLICIT PARTNER EVALUATIONS AND RELATIONSHIP OUTCOMES 23 it relied on self-reports of only one of the partners. Hence, the data cannot speak to the extent to which partner behaviors were perceived as positive/negative by the participants as opposed to how positive/negative they actually were.
Still, the present study provides a systematic analysis of the implicit processes that underlie how people perceive relational rewards and threats, and thus provides important insight about the basic structure and function of mental representations of others—long appreciated as the cognitive building blocks of human behavior. Moreover, the findings also inform the broader investigation of automatic processes, as the separability of positive and negative implicit evaluations is likely to be relevant to other affectively- charged social contexts (e.g., addiction). IMPLICIT PARTNER EVALUATIONS AND RELATIONSHIP OUTCOMES 24
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Table 1
Descriptive Statistics (Means, Standard Deviations) and Bivariate Correlations
Time 1 Measures Daily Diary Measures Time 2 Measures
Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
Time 1 Measures
1. Relationship Problems T1 2.60 1.08
2. Negative Partner Thoughts T1 2.97 1.21 .50***
3. Positive Partner Thoughts T1 6.77 .50 -.16 -.17
4. Negative IPEs T1 2.29 .83 .10 -.02 .03
5. Positive IPEs T1 2.53 .65 .11 .14 -.12 .35***
Daily Diary Measures
6. Partner Daily Negative Behaviors 2.36 .64 .09 .03 -.12 .22* -.04
7. Partner Daily Positive Behaviors 4.51 1.23 -.12 -.24* .18 -.02 -.11 -.11
8. Own Daily Negative Behaviors 2.28 .62 -.10 -.02 -.10 .14 -.03 .76*** -.09
9. Own Daily Positive Behaviors 4.46 1.22 -.15 -.24* .19* -.03 -.10 -.10 .96*** -.08
Time 2 Measures IMPLICIT PARTNER EVALUATIONS AND RELATIONSHIP OUTCOMES 37
10. Relationship Problems T2 2.86 1.39 .58*** .49*** -.33*** .12 .09 .27** -.13 .18 -.11
11. Negative Partner Thoughts T2 2.99 1.11 .37*** .72*** -.35*** -.01 .10 .21* -.29** .21* -.26** .56***
12. Positive Partner Thoughts T2 6.68 .59 -.31** -.27** .62*** -.14 -.05 -.25** .19* -.21 .17 -.43*** -.42***
13. Negative IPEs T2 2.59 .75 .02 .08 -.10 .35*** .34*** .24* -.14 .24* -.11 .12 .20* -.17
14. Positive IPEs T2 2.75 .69 .02 -.02 .00 .22* .40*** .06 -.05 -.05 .00 .06 -.01 -.02 .64***
N = 106, *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001
Note. T1 = Time 1; T2 = Time 2; IPE = Implicit Partner Evaluation; Relationship Problems were measured on 7-point Likert scale (1 = none, 7 = a lot); Positive and Negative Partner Thoughts were measured on 7-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree); Daily Behaviors were measured on 7-point Likert scale (1 = not at all, 7 = a lot); Daily Behaviors were aggregated across the daily diary responses. Table 2
Estimates from Multilevel Linear Models (MLM) Predicting Partner and Own Daily Behaviors from Implicit Partner Evaluations
(IPEs) and Explicit Relationship and Partner Evaluations at Time 1
Partner Behaviors
Daily Negative Behaviors Daily Positive Behaviors
Variables Estimate SE t p 95% CI Estimate SE t p 95% CI
Intercept 2.75 .73 3.79 < .001 [1.32, 4.19] 2.92 1.30 2.25 .026 [.35, 5.48]
Negative IPEs T1 .21 .08 2.69 .008 [.06, .36] .05 .14 .38 .704 [-.22, .32]
Positive IPEs T1 -.19 .09 -2.10 .038 [-.38, -.01] -.01 .17 -.08 .939 [-.34, .32] IMPLICIT PARTNER EVALUATIONS AND RELATIONSHIP OUTCOMES 38
Relationship Problems T1 .08 .05 1.51 .135 [-.03, .19] -.13 .10 -1.34 .181 [-.32, .06]
Negative Partner Thoughts T1 .02 .06 .27 .786 [-.10, .13] -.20 .10 -1.96 .053 [-.40, .00]
Positive Partner Thoughts T1 -.08 .10 -.85 .397 [-.28, .11] .35 .18 1.94 .055 [-.01, .70]
Own Behaviors
Daily Negative Behaviors Daily Positive Behaviors
Variables Estimate SE t p 95% CI Estimate SE t p 95% CI
Intercept 3.09 .69 4.46 < .001 [1.72, 4.46] 2.83 1.29 2.19 .030 [.27, 5.39]
Negative IPEs T1 .16 .07 2.18 .031 [.02, .31] .02 .14 .17 .868 [-.25, .29]
Positive IPEs T1 -.10 .09 -1.15 .253 [-.28, .07] -.01 .17 -.03 .977 [-.33, .32]
Relationship Problems T1 -.01 .05 -.21 .834 [-.11, .09] -.16 .10 -1.61 .111 [-.35, .04]
Negative Partner Thoughts T1 .03 .05 .59 .556 [-.07, .14] -.17 .10 -1.74 .085 [-.37, .02]
Positive Partner Thoughts T1 -.14 .10 -1.44 .151 [-.33, .05] .36 .18 2.02 .046 [.01, .71]
N = 131
Note. CI= Confidence Interval; T1 = Time 1; T2 = Time 2; IPE = Implicit Partner Evaluation; Relationship Problems were measured on 7-point Likert scale (1 = none, 7 = a lot); Positive and Negative Partner Thoughts were measured on 7-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree), Partner and Own Negative and Positive Behaviors were measured on a 7-point Likert scale (1 = not at all, 7 = a lot). IMPLICIT PARTNER EVALUATIONS AND RELATIONSHIP OUTCOMES 39
Figure 1
Partner Daily Behaviors Mediating the Link between Initial Implicit Partner Evaluations
(IPEs) and Change in Explicit Relationship and Partner Evaluations
Panel A. Partner Daily Negative Behaviors Mediating the Effect of Negative IPEs at
Time 1 on Increase in Relationship Problems
Partner Daily .17* Negative Behaviors .42* (Aggregated)
Negative Implicit Increase in Partner Evaluations at Relationship Problems Time 1 .01 (.08)
Indirect Effect: b = .07, 95% CI [.01, .17]
Panel B. Partner Daily Negative Behaviors Mediating the Effect of Negative IPEs at
Time 1 on Increase in Negative Partner Thoughts
Partner Daily .17* Negative Behaviors .32* (Aggregated)
Negative Implicit Increase in Negative Partner Evaluations at Partner Thoughts Time 1 -.03 (.02)
Indirect Effect: b = .05, 95% CI [.01, .13]
*p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001 Note. Values represent unstandardized regression coefficients