How do implicit and explicit partner evaluations update in daily life? Evidence from the lab and the field.

Abstract

Evidence suggesting that implicit partner evaluations (IPEs), but not explicit evaluations (EPEs), can predict later changes in satisfaction and relationship status has led researchers to postulate that IPEs must be especially sensitive to relational reward and costs. However, supporting evidence for this assumption remains scarce, and very little is known regarding how IPEs versus EPEs actually update in everyday life. Two studies (one in-lab dyadic interaction study, N = 255, and one 14-day dyadic diary study, N = 348) investigated updating in IPEs and EPEs in the context of real-life relationship experiences. Study 1 revealed that the level of positive and negative experiences that a couple encountered while discussing a divergence of interests in their relationship predicted pre-to-post changes in EPEs, but not in IPEs. Study 2 revealed that IPEs showed less sensitivity to everyday relationship experiences across multiple metrics over the course of 14 days. Specifically, compared with EPEs, IPEs fluctuated less at the within- (vs. between-) person level, showed less-abrupt changes from day-to-day, and had a substantially weaker relationship with same-day positive and negative experiences. Rather than covarying with same-day experiences, IPEs appeared sensitive to relationship experiences aggregated across multiple prior days as well as to highly diagnostic relationship experiences, such as breakup. Consistent with recent advances in social-cognitive research, these findings support a modified account of IPE sensitivity, according to which IPEs show only gradual shifts under everyday circumstances, but more-dramatic shifts under highly diagnostic circumstances. Implications of these findings for close relationships and implicit social cognition research are discussed.

Automatic partner attitudes: Sources, implications, and future directions

“…In close relationship contexts, for instance, experiencing a breach of trust from the partner (e.g., transgression, infidelity) may suddenly disrupt one's fundamental sense of security and considerably alter the pattern of relationship experiences accumulated thus far, resulting in drastic changes in automatic partner attitudes—such as those observed after break‐up in the previously described work by Larson et al. (2022).…”

“…Indeed, recent work outside relationship science shows that implicitly measured attitudes can be highly context-dependent (e.g., Gawronski et al, 2017) and rapidly revised (e.g., Van Dessel et al, 2019), especially when certain conditions are met-when new information is diagnostic, believable, or sufficient to reinterpret previously learned information (see Ferguson et al, 2019). In close relationship contexts, for instance, experiencing a breach of trust from the partner (e.g., transgression, infidelity) may suddenly disrupt one's fundamental sense of security and considerably alter the pattern of relationship experiences accumulated thus far, resulting in drastic changes in automatic partner attitudes-such as those observed after break-up in the previously described work by Larson et al (2022).…”

“…More recently, Larson et al. (2022) examined the dynamics of change in automatic and self‐reported partner attitudes in everyday life. Using a daily diary study, the authors found that automatic partner attitudes remained relatively stable over 2 weeks, and more so than self‐reported ones.…”

Pursuing safety in social connection regulates the risk-regulation, social-safety, and behavioral-immune systems.

“…That would be a limitation of the design if the effects of evaluative conditioning were quick and ephemeral. However, automatic partner attitudes appear to update rather slowly (Larson et al, 2022), and the effects of evaluative conditioning on such attitudes are known to be gradual and cumulative (McNulty et al, 2017). Therefore, we designed the protocol as we did because we expected prior exposure to the evaluative conditioning intervention to continue to affect participants on subsequent days.…”

“…Prior research utilizing the evaluative conditioning intervention (McNulty et al, 2017) and prior research examining change in automatic partner attitudes (Larson et al, 2022) suggest that change in such attitudes is gradual and cumulative, but nevertheless, still responsive to abrupt shifts in circumstance. Therefore, for both outcomes, we estimated multilevel models that tested for the potential for consistent increases (or decreases) in positivity over time (i.e., linear change) and inconsistent increases (or decreases) in positivity over time (i.e., quadratic change, such as initially rapid increases in positivity coupled with slower subsequent increases).…”