Department of Psychology, McGill University, Montréal, Québec, Canada, H3A 1B1.
J Pers Soc Psychol. 2011 Oct;101(4):737-53. doi: 10.1037/a0023647.
Attractive alternative partners pose a relational threat to people in romantic relationships. Given that people are often limited in their time and energy, having the capacity to effortlessly respond to such relational threats is extremely useful. In 4 studies, we explored how people's identity in terms of their romantic relationship--their relationship-specific identity--affects their relationship-protective behaviors. We predicted that once a relationship becomes a part of one's sense of self, relationship maintenance responses are exhibited in a relatively fluid, spontaneous manner. In Study 1, we assessed the convergent and divergent validity of relationship-specific identification, demonstrating how it is associated with other relationship constructs. In Study 2, we found that less identified participants mentioned their relationship less than those high in relationship-specific identification, but only when interacting with an attractive member of their preferred sex. In Study 3, using a dot-probe visual cuing task, we found that when primed with an attractive member of their preferred sex, those low in relationship-specific identification gazed longer at attractive preferred-sex others compared to those high in relationship-specific identification. In Study 4, we found that relationship-specific identification was associated with relationship survival 1-3 years after the initial assessment. The present results demonstrate that relationship-specific identification predicts relatively spontaneous, pro-relationship responses in the face of relational threat.
有吸引力的替代伴侣对恋爱关系中的人构成了关系威胁。考虑到人们的时间和精力往往有限，能够毫不费力地应对这种关系威胁是非常有用的。在 4 项研究中，我们探讨了人们在恋爱关系中的身份认同——他们的关系特定身份——如何影响他们的关系保护行为。我们预测，一旦关系成为一个人自我意识的一部分，关系维护反应就会以相对流畅、自发的方式表现出来。在研究 1 中，我们评估了关系特定认同的收敛和发散效度，展示了它与其他关系结构的关联。在研究 2 中，我们发现，与关系特定认同高的参与者相比，认同度低的参与者在与自己喜欢的性别的有吸引力的成员互动时，较少提及自己的关系。在研究 3 中，我们使用点探测视觉提示任务发现，当被自己喜欢的性别的有吸引力的成员刺激时，那些关系特定认同度低的人比关系特定认同度高的人更久地注视着有吸引力的喜欢的性别成员。在研究 4 中，我们发现关系特定认同与初始评估后 1-3 年的关系存续有关。本研究结果表明，在面临关系威胁时，关系特定认同预测了相对自发的、支持关系的反应。
