Let’s Talk About Money: The Role of Attachment Styles in Couples’ Financial Communication, Financial Management, and Financial Conflict

There are many households with financial problems, but most research on financial management is restricted to individual effects, not taking into account the relationship these individuals are in. The current investigation tests whether a person’s attachment style predicts how comfortable they are talking about financial issues with their partner and how that relates to different financial outcome variables. Two cross-sectional survey studies in the Netherlands and the US, each with more than 100 participants show that a higher score on anxious attachment is related to less communication about money with one’s partner. Less financial communication is related to worse financial management within the couple, which in turn predicts conflicts about money. A third survey with 770 participants shows that less financial communication is related to more financial problems. These findings highlight the need to take relationship variables into account to understand financial processes in couples

Brief Report: Examining the Link Between Autistic Traits and Compulsive Internet Use in a Non-Clinical Sample

Individuals with autism spectrum disorders or autistic traits may profit from Internet and computer-mediated interactions, but there is concern about their Internet use becoming compulsive. This study investigated the link between autistic traits and Internet use in a 2-wave longitudinal study with a non-clinical community sample (n = 390). As compared to people with less autistic traits, people with more autistic traits did not report a higher frequency of Internet use, but they were more prone to compulsive Internet use. For women, more autistic traits predicted an increase in compulsive Internet use over time. These results suggest that, despite its appeal for people with autistic traits, the Internet carries the risk of compulsive use

Empathic forecasting: How do we predict other people's feelings?

When making affective forecasts, people commit the impact bias. They overestimate the impact an emotional event has on their affective experience. In three studies we show that people also commit the impact bias when making empathic forecasts, affective forecasts for someone else. They overestimate the impact an emotional event has on someone else's affective experience (Study 1), they do so for friends and strangers (Study 2), and they do so when other sources of information are available (Study 3). Empathic forecasting accuracy, the correlation between one person's empathic forecast and another person's actual affective experience, was lower than between-person forecasting correspondence, the correlation between one person's empathic forecast and another person's affective forecast. Empathic forecasts do not capture other people's actual experience very well but are similar to what other people forecast for themselves. This may enhance understanding between people

Investigating the role of two types of understanding in relationship well-being: Understanding is more important than knowledge

Understanding is at the heart of intimate relationships. It is unclear, however, whether understanding-partners' subjective feeling that they understand each other-or knowledge-partners' accurate knowledge of each other-is more important for relationship well-being. The present article pits these two types of understanding against each other and investigates their effects on relationship well-being. In a prospective study among 199 newlywed couples, partners' self-reported and perceived understanding and their knowledge in different domains were assessed. Understanding was independent of knowledge. Self-reported and perceived understanding predicted relationship well-being but neither type of knowledge did. Thus, subjectively feeling that one understands and is understood by one's partner appears to be more important to relationship well-being than actually knowing and being known by one's partner. © 2009 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc

Mediators of the Link Between Autistic Traits and Relationship Satisfaction in a Non-Clinical Sample

People with ASD have deficits in their social skills and may therefore experience lower relationship satisfaction. This study investigated possible mechanisms to explain whether and how autistic traits, measured with the AQ, influence relationship satisfaction in a non-clinical sample of 195 married couples. More autistic traits were associated with lower relationship satisfaction for husbands but not for wives. Multiple mediation analyses revealed that husbands’ responsiveness towards their wives, trust, and intimacy mediated this link between autistic traits and relationship satisfaction. These findings suggest that autistic traits may hamper men’s relationship satisfaction because they impede relationship-specific feelings and behavior. There was no partner-effect of autistic traits, indicating that more autistic traits do not necessarily influence the partner’s perceptions of relationship satisfaction

Many Labs 2: Investigating Variation in Replicability Across Samples and Settings

We conducted preregistered replications of 28 classic and contemporary published findings, with protocols that were peer reviewed in advance, to examine variation in effect magnitudes across samples and settings. Each protocol was administered to approximately half of 125 samples that comprised 15,305 participants from 36 countries and territories. Using the conventional criterion of statistical significance (p < .05), we found that 15 (54%) of the replications provided evidence of a statistically significant effect in the same direction as the original finding. With a strict significance criterion (p < .0001), 14 (50%) of the replications still provided such evidence, a reflection of the extremely highpowered design. Seven (25%) of the replications yielded effect sizes larger than the original ones, and 21 (75%) yielded effect sizes smaller than the original ones. The median comparable Cohen’s ds were 0.60 for the original findings and 0.15 for the replications. The effect sizes were small (< 0.20) in 16 of the replications (57%), and 9 effects (32%) were in the direction opposite the direction of the original effect. Across settings, the Q statistic indicated significant heterogeneity in 11 (39%) of the replication effects, and most of those were among the findings with the largest overall effect sizes; only 1 effect that was near zero in the aggregate showed significant heterogeneity according to this measure. Only 1 effect had a tau value greater than .20, an indication of moderate heterogeneity. Eight others had tau values near or slightly above .10, an indication of slight heterogeneity. Moderation tests indicated that very little heterogeneity was attributable to the order in which the tasks were performed or whether the tasks were administered in lab versus online. Exploratory comparisons revealed little heterogeneity between Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) cultures and less WEIRD cultures (i.e., cultures with relatively high and low WEIRDness scores, respectively). Cumulatively, variability in the observed effect sizes was attributable more to the effect being studied than to the sample or setting in which it was studied.UCR::Vicerrectoría de Investigación::Unidades de Investigación::Ciencias Sociales::Instituto de Investigaciones Psicológicas (IIP

An information theory account of preference prediction accuracy

Knowledge about other people's preferences is essential for successful social interactions, but what exactly are the driving factors that determine how well we can predict the likes and dislikes of people around us? To investigate the accuracy of couples' preference predictions we outline and empirically test three hypotheses: The positive valence hypothesis predicts that predictions for likes are more accurate than for dislikes. The negative valence hypothesis predicts the opposite, namely that dislikes are predicted more accurately than dislikes. The base rate hypothesis predicts that preference knowledge critically depends on the base rates of likes and dislikes within a given domain. In a series of studies we show that predicting likes over dislikes has relatively little effect compared with base rates. That is, accuracy is greater for relatively rare events regardless of whether they are liked or disliked. Our findings further suggest that when predicting preferences, people seem to rely on a combination of general, stereotypical knowledge of common preferences on the one hand and specific, idiosyncratic knowledge of rare preferences on the other

How Do Friends and Strangers Play the Game Taboo? A Study of Accuracy, Efficiency, Motivation, and the Use of Shared Knowledge

According to common belief, friends communicate more accurately and efficiently than strangers, because they can use uniquely shared knowledge and common knowledge to explain things to each other, while strangers are restricted to common knowledge. To test this belief, we asked friends and strangers to play, via e-mail and face-to-face, the word-description game Taboo, in which objects need to be described without using certain “taboo” words. When descriptions were sent via e-mail, there was no difference in accuracy (number of correct answers) nor in efficiency (number of words per correct answer) between friends and strangers. When descriptions were given face-to-face, friends were more accurate than strangers, but not more efficient (number of seconds and words per correct answer). Shared knowledge did not predict accuracy or efficiency. Hence, our findings do not support the idea that friends only need a few words to understand each other