The Role of Regulatory Focus Motivation in Experiencing Relationship Success

Successful close relationships lie at the heart of people’s health and happiness. Relationship science has argued for several critical relationship qualities that are essential for the maintenance and well-being of romantic relationships. However, this research has largely adopted a “one size fits all” approach, and has mostly ignored the potential for variability in the relationship qualities that people value. This dissertation adopts insights from motivation science to unveil systematic variability in the extent to which two critical relationship qualities —security and growth—enrich relationship well-being. The current research adopted Regulatory Focus Theory (Higgins, 1997) to examine the hypothesis that growth-related relationship qualities are essential for the experience of relationship success for promotion-focused individuals (those who value nurturance, the pursuit of ideals, and employ eager strategies), but not prevention-focused individuals (those who value safety, the pursuit of obligations, and employ vigilant strategies), and that security-related relationship qualities are essential for the experience of relationship success for prevention-focused individuals, but not promotion-focused individuals. Across 5 studies, I found that individuals in a promotion focus, whether chronic (Studies 1-3, 5) or temporarily induced (Study 4), rated and prioritized the importance of relationship growth versus security qualities (Studies 1-3), and rated their own relationship well-being higher when growth (but not security) qualities were more (versus less) present (Study 4). Promotion-focused people also reported higher relationship well-being when induced to experience their relationship as being represented by growth qualities than when induced to experience their relationship as being represented by security qualities (Study 5). In contrast, prevention-focused individuals showed a preference for security-related relationship qualities under more nuanced circumstances—when examining the relative weighting of security versus growth (Studies 1, 4), when security was pitted directly against growth (Studies 2, 3), and when in a vigilant-framed context (Study 3). Although prevention focus did not predict relationship well-being when assessing or manipulating the absolute value of security presence (Study 4, 5), it did when the presence of security was examined in relation to growth (Study 4). This research contributes to relationship science by providing a theoretical framework that integrates rich insights from motivation science to systematically understand how relationship qualities contribute to experiencing relationship success

Our adventures make me feel secure: Novel activities boost relationship satisfaction through felt security

Past research has established the relational benefits of engaging in novel tasks with a romantic partner. However, little empirical evidence exists for the mechanisms responsible. The current research examined growth experiences—the proposed and tested mechanism in past work—as well as security experiences, a previously unexplored mechanism. Using a recall paradigm, Study 1 found that people reported high feelings of security (e.g., reliance, trust), in addition to growth (e.g., fun, excitement), when pursuing novel activities with a romantic partner. In Study 2, romantic couples engaged in a novel or control task. We assessed feelings of growth and security, and examined couples’ post-task relationship satisfaction. Results revealed that while growth feelings mediated the link between task condition and relationship satisfaction, consistent with past work, so too did feelings of security. When growth and security were included as simultaneous mediators in the model, feelings of security emerged as a stronger mediator.This research was supported by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) research grant to Abigail A. Scholer

Self-regulating the effortful “social dos”.

© American Psychological Association, 2014. This paper is not the copy of record and may not exactly replicate the authoritative document published in the APA journal. Please do not copy or cite without author's permission. The final article is available, upon publication, at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0035188In the current research, we explored differences in the self-regulation of the personal dos (i.e., engaging in active and effortful behaviors that benefit the self) and in the self-regulation of the social dos (engaging in those same effortful behaviors to benefit someone else). In 6 studies, we examined whether the same trait self-control abilities that predict task persistence on personal dos would also predict task persistence on social dos. That is, would the same behavior, such as persisting through a tedious and attentionally demanding task, show different associations with trait self-control when it is framed as benefitting the self versus someone else? In Studies 1–3, we directly compared the personal and social dos and found that trait self-control predicted self-reported and behavioral personal dos but not social dos, even when the behaviors were identical and when the incentives were matched. Instead, trait agreeableness—a trait linked to successful self-regulation within the social domain—predicted the social dos. Trait self-control did not predict the social dos even when task difficulty increased (Study 4), but it did predict the social don’ts, consistent with past research (Studies 5–6). The current studies provide support for the importance of distinguishing different domains of self-regulated behaviors and suggest that social dos can be successfully performed through routes other than traditional self-control abilities.Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) master’s scholarship to Kassandra CortesSSHRC research grant to Lara K. Kammrath and Abigail A. Schole

Self-regulating the effortful “social dos”.

© American Psychological Association, 2014. This paper is not the copy of record and may not exactly replicate the authoritative document published in the APA journal. Please do not copy or cite without author's permission. The final article is available, upon publication, at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0035188In the current research, we explored differences in the self-regulation of the personal dos (i.e., engaging in active and effortful behaviors that benefit the self) and in the self-regulation of the social dos (engaging in those same effortful behaviors to benefit someone else). In 6 studies, we examined whether the same trait self-control abilities that predict task persistence on personal dos would also predict task persistence on social dos. That is, would the same behavior, such as persisting through a tedious and attentionally demanding task, show different associations with trait self-control when it is framed as benefitting the self versus someone else? In Studies 1–3, we directly compared the personal and social dos and found that trait self-control predicted self-reported and behavioral personal dos but not social dos, even when the behaviors were identical and when the incentives were matched. Instead, trait agreeableness—a trait linked to successful self-regulation within the social domain—predicted the social dos. Trait self-control did not predict the social dos even when task difficulty increased (Study 4), but it did predict the social don’ts, consistent with past research (Studies 5–6). The current studies provide support for the importance of distinguishing different domains of self-regulated behaviors and suggest that social dos can be successfully performed through routes other than traditional self-control abilities.Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) master’s scholarship to Kassandra CortesSSHRC research grant to Lara K. Kammrath and Abigail A. Schole