1 Department of Psychology, Florida State University.
2 Department of Psychology, University of Tennessee.
Psychol Sci. 2017 Aug;28(8):1031-1040. doi: 10.1177/0956797617702014. Epub 2017 May 31.
The current study examined whether directly altering affective associations involving a relationship partner through evaluative conditioning can lead to changes in relationship satisfaction. Married couples ( N = 144) were asked to view a brief stream of images once every 3 days for 6 weeks. Embedded in this stream were pictures of the partner, which, according to random assignment of couples to experimental group, were paired with either positive or neutral stimuli. Couples also completed measures of automatic partner attitudes and explicit marital satisfaction at baseline and once every 2 weeks for 8 weeks. Spouses who viewed their partners paired with positive stimuli demonstrated more-positive automatic partner attitudes than did control spouses, and these attitudes predicted increased self-reported marital satisfaction over time. These results provide novel evidence for a mechanism of change in relationship satisfaction, represent a step toward documenting how strong attitudes can evolve through passive exposure to information, and suggest novel avenues for relationship interventions.
本研究旨在探讨通过评价条件作用直接改变与伴侣相关的情感联想是否能够导致关系满意度的变化。已婚夫妇（N=144）被要求在 6 周内每隔 3 天观看一次简短的图像流。根据夫妇被随机分配到实验组的情况，在这个图像流中嵌入了伴侣的照片，这些照片与积极或中性的刺激物配对。夫妇还在基线和 8 周内每隔 2 周完成自动伴侣态度和明确婚姻满意度的测量。与控制配偶相比，观看伴侣与积极刺激配对的配偶表现出更积极的自动伴侣态度，并且这些态度随着时间的推移预测自我报告的婚姻满意度的增加。这些结果为关系满意度变化的机制提供了新的证据，代表着朝着记录强烈态度如何通过被动接触信息而演变的方向迈出了一步，并为关系干预提供了新的途径。
