Abstract Ghosting, or ignoring someone to end a relationship, is often considered a harmful aspect of growing digital connectivity. However, research on ghosting has focused on the experiences of European/European Americans in romantic contexts. Thus, we broadly explored experiences of being ghosted among 29 undergraduates primarily from underrepresented populations (75.9% Latinx, 6.9% Asian, 6.9% Black) in the United States. We conducted face-to-face semi-structured interviews regarding general experiences with being ghosted, a memorable experience of being ghosted, and attitudes toward ghost ..read more

Abstract This study examined longitudinal dyadic and within-partner associations among self-esteem, subjective happiness, and marital conflict in married couples, with a possible moderating role of wives' employment status. Data were analyzed from the Panel Study on Korean Children, nationwide longitudinal data. The study sample included 1668 married couples (N = 3336 participants) where both partners provided separate data annually across three waves. Husbands' and wives' mean ages at T1 were 39.3 and 36.8 years, respectively. For both partners, self-esteem and subjective happiness were relat ..read more

Abstract Serious conflicts in close personal relationships can be highly distressing and tempting to ignore, but avoidance of conflict is maladaptive. In the present research, we tested the effectiveness of short conflict-reflection interventions to promote constructive engagement with conflicts. In Study 1 (N = 358), a relatively unstructured, conflicted-reflection intervention significantly reduced distress and bolstered confidence in partners' ability to resolve their relationship conflicts. Study 2 (N = 411) further revealed that this intervention was as, or nearly as effective as more ela ..read more

Abstract Two studies examined how financial values held by romantic partners were linked with relationship satisfaction. Across a sample of married individuals (N = 628), and a dyadic sample (N = 236), results suggest that holding or perceiving a romantic partner to hold integrated money motives—wanting to earn money to feel pride, establish one's worth, facilitate freedom, and enrich leisure activities—was linked with better relationship satisfaction. Holding or perceiving a romantic partner to hold nonintegrated money motives—wanting to earn money to enable impulse spending, to feel better t ..read more

Personal Relationships, Volume 31, Issue 1, Page 1-3, March 2024 ..read more

Abstract Family support was an important coping mechanism for older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, not all older adults had access to traditional family ties amid the pandemic. Thus, this study sought to investigate if and how fictive kin ties were developed as a result of pandemic-related isolation. Older adults (n = 8) who were identified as lacking access to traditional family ties were interviewed five times across 2 years of the pandemic, and their transcripts were analyzed to detect shifts in their fictive kin relationships over time. The majority (n = 5) of participants d ..read more

Abstract Friendships are beneficial to a person's growth and well-being. People in close relationships may experience four types of self-change: self-expansion, self-pruning, self-contraction, and self-adulteration. The current cross-sectional research sought to investigate whether these relational self-change processes explain the links between friendship quality and well-being in same-sex best friendships. Study 1A (N = 187) adapted the Turkish Relational Self-Change Scale to the friendship context and confirmed its psychometric adequacy in addressing friendship-based self-changes in Türkiye ..read more

Abstract Communicating personal experiences is crucial for fostering close relationships, but people can be reluctant to self-disclose. The current research assessed the extent to which relationship-specific (RS) and global attachment avoidance limit self-disclosure of personal events in close relationships. Critically, we also identified the types of personal events that people will selectively share in relationships characterized by higher attachment avoidance. Participants (N = 609 in the aggregated sample) reported whether they shared up to four positive and four negative events that happe ..read more

Abstract The current study tested the honing framework, which posits that people in same-, versus different-, sex couples may reduce their social networks to primarily include members perceived as supportive, facilitating more satisfying social interactions and enjoying more positive affect. The honing framework also predicts similarities among people in same- and different-sex couples, including quantity of social interactions, and social interaction links to well-being. Seventy-eight couples participated: 25 women with women, 19 men with men, and 34 different-sex couples. Over two weekends ..read more

Abstract Self-compassion means being supportive and kind to oneself when experiencing failure or inadequacies. It is associated with adaptive intrapersonal and relational outcomes for individuals. This evidence was extended by using an Actor-Partner Interdependence framework. Other-sex couples (N = 209) completed measures of self-compassion, relationship-specific self-compassion, and relationship satisfaction. Both self-compassion measures were related to global relationship satisfaction and facets thereof (e.g., sexuality, engagement, trust) for actors. Relationship-specific self-compassion w ..read more