Attachment Avoidance and Amends-Making: A Case Advocating the Need for Attempting to Replicate One’s Own Work

Attachment avoidance is typically associated with negative behaviors in romantic relationships; however, recent research has begun to uncover circumstances (e.g., being in high-quality relationships) that promote pro-relationship behaviors for more avoidantly attached individuals. One possible explanation for why more avoidant individuals behave negatively sometimes but positively at other times is that their impulses regarding relationship events vary depending on relationship context (e.g., relationship satisfaction level). An initial unregistered study found support for this hypothesis in an amends-making context. We then conducted three confirmatory high-powered preregistered replication attempts that failed to replicate our initial findings. In our discussion of these four studies we highlight the importance of attempting to replicate one’s own work and sharing the results regardless of the outcome

Development and validation of the Companion Animals Self-Expansion Scale

Abstract Although many people experience a close and complex relationship with their companion animals, our understanding and measurement of this relationship has lagged far behind that of human-human relationships. Important advances in human-human relationship concepts and measurement have yet to be applied in the context of human-companion animal relationships, including the critically relevant concept of self-expansion (i.e. the process through which positive content is added to the self). The aim of this research was to develop and validate a new full and short-form measure of self-expansion within the human-companion animal relationship, the Companion Animals Self-Expansion Scale (CASES). The sample included in the exploratory factor analysis (EFA) phase consisted of 366 adult English-speaking companion animal owners, while the sample included in the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) phase consisted of 368 adult English-speaking companion animal owners. All participants completed demographic questions and the CASES. Analyses revealed the full version of the CASES to be 15 items, six of which were retained for the short form of the scale based on their consistently high-factor loadings and theoretically relevant content. The CASES, as well as its short form, the CASES-SF, are both reliable and valid in measuring self-expansion within the human-companion animal relationship

Perceived partner phubbing predicts lower relationship quality but partners’ enacted phubbing does not

Perceptions of partner phubbing can be detrimental for romantic relationship functioning. However, research does not typically focus on couple members' reports of their own phubbing behavior and how this relates to relationship functioning. Our aim was to examine both perceptions of partner phubbing and reports of one's own enacted phubbing behavior in a dyadic diary dataset to better specify their effects on relationship functioning at the daily level and two months later. The role of attachment was also examined. Daily perceived phubbing was associated with lower relationship quality; however, these effects did not hold two months later. Importantly, actors' and partners' enacted phubbing was unrelated to relationship quality both daily and two months later. Attachment anxiety and avoidance moderated the above results, although the directions of these effects were not always consistent across models or with previous findings or theorizing. Future research is needed to untangle if and how attachment orientations are reliably linked to phubbing. Together our results suggest that perceptions about partner's phubbing are more important than partners' actual phubbing behavior. Future research should appraise the potential of targeting phubbing perceptions to improve relationship functioning