Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T07:32:56.071Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - The Structure of Interdependence Shapes Social Cognition in Relationships

from Part I - Interdependence, Situations, and Context

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 June 2020

By
John G. Holmes
Edited by
Laura V. Machia ,
Christopher R. Agnew  and
Ximena B. Arriaga
Laura V. Machia
Affiliation:
Syracuse University, New York
Christopher R. Agnew
Affiliation:
Purdue University, Indiana
Ximena B. Arriaga
Affiliation:
Purdue University, Indiana
Get access

Summary

Mutual responsiveness is necessary to sustain a close relationship and, to achieve it, people must protect their overall motivation to act in a caring way against the costs naturally arising from the challenges of maintaining interdependence. These challenges are universal and require solutions that constitute relatively automatic habit structures. The solutions allow people to “keep their eyes on the prize” and sustain their overall rewards without being distracted by the localized costs that occur along the way. For instance, one important challenge involves partners’ behavior that will on occasion interfere with one’s personal goals, by either pursuing their own interests first or failing to coordinate dyadic goals. In a case of motivation cognition, the automatic response to such experiences is to rationalize the negative, costly behavior by exaggerating the partners’ positive features and compensating cognitively for it. However, consistent with the MODE model, if people have the cognitive resources for deliberation, those whose broader goals are more self-protective rather than connective will overturn the pro-relationship impulses, to their ultimate detriment. Research exploring three different automatic procedural rules that illustrate this process of motivated cognition will be described.

Keywords

Trustself-esteemsituations of riskconnectionself-protectionautomatic responsesdual processequilibrium model
Type
Chapter
Information
Interdependence, Interaction, and Close Relationships , pp. 37 - 49
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Baumeister, R. F., Bratslavsky, E., Muraven, M., & Tice, D. M. (1998). Ego-depletion: Is the active self a limited resource? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 1252–1265.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cavallo, J., Holmes, J. G., Fitzsimons, G., Murray, S. L., & Wood, J. V. (2012). Managing motivational conflict: How self-esteem and executive resources influence self-regulatory responses to risk. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 103, 430–451.Google Scholar
Fazio, R. H. (1990). Multiple processes by which attitudes guide behavior: The MODE model as an integrative framework. In Zanna, M. P. (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Vol. 23, pp. 75–109). New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Higgins, E. T. (1997). Beyond pleasure and pain. American Psychologist, 52, 1280–1300.Google Scholar
Kelley, H. H., Holmes, J. G., Kerr, N. L., Reis, H. T., Rusbult, C. E., & Van Lange, P. A. M. (2003). An Atlas of Interpersonal Situations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kruglanski, A. W., Shah, J. Y., Fishbach, A., Friedman, R., Chun, W. Y., & Sleeth-Keppler, D. (2002). A theory of goal systems. In Zanna, M. P. (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Vol. 34, pp. 331–378). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Murray, S. L., Aloni, M., Holmes, J. G., Derrick, J., Anthony, D., & Leder, S. (2009). Fostering partner dependence as trust insurance: The implicit contingencies of exchange in close relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96, 324–348.Google Scholar
Murray, S. L., Derrick, J., Leder, S., & Holmes, J. G. (2008). Balancing connectedness and self-protection goals in close relationships: A levels of processing perspective on risk regulation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94, 429–459.Google Scholar
Murray, S. L. & Holmes, J. G. (2000). Seeing the self through a partner’s eyes: Why self-doubts turn into relationship insecurities. In Tesser, A., Felson, R. B., & Suls, J. M. (Eds.), Psychological Perspectives on Self and Identity (pp. 173–198). Washington: APA Press.Google Scholar
Murray, S. L. & Holmes, J. G. (2009). The architecture of interdependent minds: A motivation-management theory of mutual responsiveness. Psychological Review, 116, 908–928.Google Scholar
Murray, S. L., Holmes, J. G., Aloni, M., Pinkus, R. T., Derrick, J. L., & Leder, S. (2009). Commitment-insurance: Compensating for the autonomy costs of interdependence in close relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 97, 256–279.Google Scholar
Murray, S. L., Holmes, J. G., & Collins, N. L. (2006). Optimizing assurance: The risk regulation system in relationships. Psychological Bulletin, 132, 641–666.Google Scholar
Murray, S. L, Holmes, J. G., Griffin, D., & Derrick, J. (2015). The equilibrium model of relationship maintenance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 108, 93–113.Google Scholar
Murray, S. L., Holmes, J. G., & Pinkus, R. (2010). A smart unconscious? Procedural origins of automatic partner attitudes in marriage. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 46, 650–656.Google Scholar
Murray, S. L., Leder, S., McClellan, J., Holmes, J. G., Pinkus, R., & Harris, B. (2009). Becoming irreplaceable: How comparisons to the partner’s alternatives differentially affects low and high self-esteem people. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45, 1180–1191.Google Scholar
Murray, S. L., Rose, P., Holmes, J. G., Podchaski, E., Derrick, J., Bellavia, G., & Griffin, D. W. (2005). Putting the partner within reach: A dyadic perspective on felt security. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 327–347.Google Scholar
Reis, H., Clark, M., & Holmes, J.G. (2004). Perceived partner responsiveness as an organizing construct in the study of intimacy and closeness. In Mashek, D. J. & Aron, A. (Eds.), Handbook of Intimacy and Closeness (pp. 201–225). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Thibaut, J. W. & Kelley, H. H. (1959). The Social Psychology of Groups. Oxford: John Wiley.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×