Trust and communicated attributions in close relationships.

The attributional statements intimate partners communicate to one another were examined as a function of trust. In discussions by 35 married couples, 850 attributions and corresponding events were coded on dimensions of valence, globality, and locus. Results of regression and contingency analyses indicate that attributional statements expressed in high-trust relationships emphasized positive aspects of the relationship. Medium-trust couples actively engaged issues but focused more on negative events and explanations. Low-trust couples expressed more specific, less affectively extreme attributional statements that minimized the potential for increased conflict. Results could not be accounted for by relationship satisfaction. These findings also highlight the importance of focusing on features of the events for which attributions are expressed.

Compensatory conviction in the face of personal uncertainty: going to extremes and being oneself.

Study 1 participants' self-integrity (C. M. Steele. 1988) was threatened by deliberative mind-set (S. E. Taylor & P. M. Gollwitzer, 1995) induced uncertainty. They masked the uncertainty with more extreme conviction about social issues. An integrity-repair exercise after the threat, however, eliminated uncertainty and the conviction response. In Study 2, the same threat caused clarified values and more self-consistent personal goals. Two other uncertainty-related threats, mortality salience and temporal discontinuity, caused similar responses: more extreme intergroup bias in Study 3, and more self-consistent personal goals and identifications in Study 4. Going to extremes and being oneself are seen as 2 modes of compensatory conviction used to defend against personal uncertainty. Relevance to cognitive dissonance and authoritarianism theories is discussed, and a new perspective on terror managenment theory (J. Greenberg, S. Solomom, & T. Pyszczynski, 1997) is proposed.

Self-esteem and the quest for felt security: how perceived regard regulates attachment processes.

The authors proposed that personal feelings of self-esteem foster the level of confidence in a partner's regard critical for satisfying attachments. Dating and married couples described themselves, their partners, how they thought their partners saw them, and how they wanted their partners to see them on a variety of interpersonal qualities. The results revealed that low self-esteem individuals dramatically underestimated how positively their partners saw them. Such unwarranted and unwanted insecurities were associated with less generous perceptions of partners and lower relationship well-being. The converse was true for high self-esteem individuals. A longitudinal examination of the dating couples revealed that the vulnerabilities of lows were only exacerbated over time. A dependency regulation model is proposed, wherein felt security in a partner's perceived regard is suggested as a prime mechanism linking self-esteem to relational well-being.

Through the looking glass darkly? When self-doubts turn into relationship insecurities.

The authors argue that individuals regulate perceptions of their relationships in a self-protective way, finding virtue in their partners only when they feel confident that their partners also see virtues in them. In 4 experiments, the authors posed an acute threat to low and high self-esteem individuals' feelings of self-worth (e.g., guilt about a transgression, fears of being inconsiderate or intellectually inept). They then collected measures of confidence in the partner's positive regard and acceptance (i.e., reflected appraisals) and perceptions of the partner. The results revealed that low self-esteem individuals reacted to self-doubt with heightened doubts about their partners' regard, which then tarnished impressions of their partners. In contrast, high self-esteem individuals reacted to self-doubts by becoming more convinced of their partners' continued acceptance, using their relationships as a resource for self-affirmation.

The meaning of social interactions in the transition from acquaintanceship to friendship.

The transition from acquaintanceship (nonunit) to friendship (unit) was conceptualized in terms of a preunit relationship. The authors theorized that in transitional relationships, discrete interactions are imbued with surplus meaning. Using a mental simulation procedure in 3 studies, participants randomly assigned to focus their attention on an exemplar from their social worlds representing unit, preunit, or nonunit same-sex relationships responded to social exchange scenarios. Preunits intended to act like a friend and not an acquaintance, yet they experienced more discomfort following a communal script than those in a unit relation. Content analyses of open-ended responses revealed that preunits were more likely than units or nonunits to see a nice gesture by the other person as having some social meaning. Failure to reciprocate a favor by either party was deemed more important to preunit than unit or nonunit relations. In Study 4, in which actual interaction records were used, the quality of individual discrete interactions was more highly correlated with momentary, on-line perceptions of relationship closeness for preunit interactions than unit or nonunit interactions.

The self-fulfilling nature of positive illusions in romantic relationships: love is not blind, but prescient.

It is proposed that satisfying, stable relationships reflect intimates' ability to see imperfect partners in idealized ways. In this study of the long-term benefits (or possible costs) of positive illusions, both members of dating couples completed measures of idealization and well-being 3 times in a year. Path analyses revealed that idealization had a variety of self-fulfilling effects. Relationships were most likely to persist-even in the face of conflicts and doubts-when intimates idealized one another the most. Intimates who idealized one another more initially also reported relatively greater increases in satisfaction and decreases in conflicts and doubts over the year. Finally, individuals even came to share their partners' idealized images of them. In summary, intimates who idealized one another appeared more prescient than blind, actually creating the relationships they wished for as romances progressed.