Maintaining sexual desire in intimate relationships: the importance of approach goals

Three studies tested whether adopting strong (relative to weak) approach goals in relationships (i.e., goals focused on the pursuit of positive experiences in one's relationship such as fun, growth, and development) predict greater sexual desire. Study 1 was a 6-month longitudinal study with biweekly assessments of sexual desire. Studies 2 and 3 were 2-week daily experience studies with daily assessments of sexual desire. Results showed that approach relationship goals buffered against declines in sexual desire over time and predicted elevated sexual desire during daily sexual interactions. Approach sexual goals mediated the association between approach relationship goals and daily sexual desire. Individuals with strong approach goals experienced even greater desire on days with positive relationship events and experienced less of a decrease in desire on days with negative relationships events than individuals who were low in approach goals. In two of the three studies, the association between approach relationship goals and sexual desire was stronger for women than for men. Implications of these findings for maintaining sexual desire in long-term relationships are discussed.     

The limits of love: Predicting immediate versus sustained caring behaviors in close relationships

Do the same kinds of processes predict spontaneous acts of kindness and long-term caring behavior in relationships? Three studies examined predictors of immediate behaviors versus delayed, sustained behaviors. Positive feelings toward the relationship partner predicted pro-relational behaviors when the behaviors could be completed in an immediate and fairly short timespan, but not when the behaviors required performance after several days delay (Study 1) or when the behavior required continued self-regulation over a period of a week (Studies 2 and 3). Sustained behavior regulation was better predicted by factors related to self-regulation strength, such as trait conscientiousness, than it was by positive relationship feelings. However, when feelings were primed daily, the feelings-behavior link remained strong for sustained behaviors (Study 3). Together, these studies suggest that immediate pro-relational behaviors are more likely to be acts of the heart, whereas delayed, sustained pro-relational behaviors are more likely to be acts of will.     

Romantic love conceptualized as an attachment process

This article explores the possibility that romantic love is an attachment process--a biosocial process by which affectional bonds are formed between adult lovers, just as affectional bonds are formed earlier in life between human infants and their parents. Key components of attachment theory, developed by Bowlby, Ainsworth, and others to explain the development of affectional bonds in infancy, were translated into terms appropriate to adult romantic love. The translation centered on the three major styles of attachment in infancy--secure, avoidant, and anxious/ambivalent--and on the notion that continuity of relationship style is due in part to mental models (Bowlby's "inner working models") of self and social life. These models, and hence a person's attachment style, are seen as determined in part by childhood relationships with parents. Two questionnaire studies indicated that relative prevalence of the three attachment styles is roughly the same in adulthood as in infancy, the three kinds of adults differ predictably in the way they experience romantic love, and attachment style is related in theoretically meaningful ways to mental models of self and social relationships and to relationship experiences with parents. Implications for theories of romantic love are discussed, as are measurement problems and other issues related to future tests of the attachment perspective.     

Self-monitoring and close relationships

Three types of close relationships have received attention from theorists and researchers interested in self-monitoring: friendships, romantic relationships, and marriage. Our review of this literature was organized around three phases of relationships: initiation, maintenance, and dissolution. Across the three types of relationships, consistent differences between high self-monitors and low self-monitors emerged concerning the structure of their social relationships (segmented vs. integrated), the basis for choosing friends and romantic partners (activity-based vs. person-based), and the orientation taken to romantic and marital partners (uncommitted vs. committed). Across all three types of relationships, however, little is known about the processes and consequences involved in the dissolution of close relationships for high self-monitors and low self-monitors. Relatively little is also known about the processes used by high self-monitors and low self-monitors to maintain their friendships and marriages. In addition to addressing these deficiencies in the literature, theorists and researchers interested in self-monitoring and close relationships need to develop sophisticated, causal models that can account for (a) interaction exchanges in the relationships, (b) dyadic as well as individual levels of analysis, and (c) temporal and situational changes in the course of close relationships.     

Effects of emotional state on sexual desire and sexual dysfunction

The present study explored effects of emotional states on sexual desire and dysfunction. Three basic emotion dimensions, pleasure-displeasure, arousal-nonarousal, and dominance-submissiveness, served as the independent factors. Factor analysis of a sexual desire and problems questionnaire yielded a single factor with sexual desire as one pole and sexual problems as the opposite pole. The resulting sexual desire scale had a KR-20 reliability coefficient of .98 and constituted a highly homogeneous dependent measure. Sexual desire was greater when subjects felt pleasure rather than displeasure, unaroused rather than aroused, and dominant rather than submissive. Desire increased with increasing arousal in pleasant states and decreased with increasing arousal in unpleasant states (Pleasure × Arousal interaction). Desire increased with increasing dominance in pleasant states and decreased with increasing dominance in unpleasant states (Pleasure × Dominance interaction). In unaroused states, submissiveness attenuated the polarization of sexual desire as a function of pleasure-displeasure (Pleasure × Arousal × Dominance interaction). The highest levels of sexual desire and freedom from sexual problems were associated with pleasant and dominant feelings (e.g., admired and vigorous or relaxed and leisurely); the lowest levels were reported for unpleasant and aroused feelings (e.g., hostile and hateful or pained and embarrassed). Except for the uniformly greater sexual desire of males than of females across all conditions, all findings were applicable equally to the two sexes.     

Emotional communication in close relationships

Emotional communication patterns characterizing interactions between partners in close relationships were investigated by asking 29 couples who were married or living together to engage in a videotaped discussion of a problem they were having in their relationship. In a later experimental session, partners identified specific communications that they believed had an important influence on the discussion and then rated the communications in terms of the feelings the communicator intended to convey and the recipient's reactions. Partners attempted to reciprocate both the positive and negative feelings that they perceived their partner to express toward them. However, only negative feelings were actually reciprocated. This was because subjects were sensitive to differences in the negative feelings their partners reported expressing and interpreted those feelings correctly, but they were inaccurate in perceiving their partners' expressions of positive feelings. Men (but not women) interpreted their partners' failures to express love as an indication of hostility, whereas women (but not men) interpreted their partners' lack of hostility as an indication of love. These and other results were conceptualized in terms of a general model of emotional communication. Parameters of the model pertaining to the hostility of partners' communications were often related to women's satisfaction with their relationship and their beliefs about relationships in general. However, they were unrelated to men's satisfaction and general beliefs. This suggested that women are generally more adversely affected by overt expression of hostility than are men.     

Attitude alignment in close relationships

On the basis of principles of balance theory and interdependence theory, this research examined a phenomenon termed attitude alignment, or the tendency of interacting partners to modify their attitudes in such a manner as to achieve attitudinal congruence. The results of three experiments generally were consistent with the proposed model. First, tendencies toward attitude alignment were greater to the extent that attitudinal discrepancies were salient. Second, alignment tendencies were greater to the extent that an issue was central to the partner; there was also evidence that the degree to which an issue was peripheral to the self affected alignment processes (e.g., for changes in centrality of issue, with regard to persuasion methods). Third, degree of alignment tended to be greater in dating-partner interactions than in stranger interactions and tended to be greater among couples with high adjustment than among those with low adjustment.     

Therapeutic approaches to inhibited sexual desire in lesbians

Traditional approaches to inhibited sexual hire (ISD)—which may be exclusively heterosexist, erotophobic, sexist, and homophobic—fail to adequately address ISD within the lesbian population, in which incest and substance abuse occur commonly. Successful treatment of ISD among lesbians requires awareness of sexual minority customs, lesbian psychologies, and recovery agendas.     

The components of love: Romantic attraction and sex role orientation

Hypotheses derived from both Erich Fromm and the feminist literature linking sex role orientation to type of love experienced were tested in a sample of 123 heterosexual dating couples Five components of love were identified through factor analysis romantic dependency, communicative intimacy, physical arousal, respect, and romantic compatibility Type of love was related to sex role orientation (p 01), with traditionals characterized by romantic dependency and romantic compatibility, while nontraditionals emphasized communicative intimacy Sex differences showed females being more emotionally expressive in then love than males and scoring higher on communicative intimacy (p's < 01)     

Trust and communicated attributions in close relationships

The attributional statements intimate partners communicate to one another were examined as a function of trust. In discussions by 35 married couples, 850 attributions and corresponding events were coded on dimensions of valence, globality, and locus. Results of regression and contingency analyses indicate that attributional statements expressed in high-trust relationships emphasized positive aspects of the relationship. Medium-trust couples actively engaged issues but focused more on negative events and explanations. Low-trust couples expressed more specific, less affectively extreme attributional statements that minimized the potential for increased conflict. Results could not be accounted for by relationship satisfaction. These findings also highlight the importance of focusing on features of the events for which attributions are expressed.     

Trust and partner-enhancing attributions in close relationships

A cross-lagged panel design was used to examine the links between trust and attributional processes in a sample of 75 married couples throughout a period of 2 years. During the first phase of the study, participants completed a measure of marital trust, engaged in a laboratory problem-solving discussion of a recurrent conflict-related issue, and then rated their partner's behavior and motives. Approximately 2 years later, 54 couples were again contacted and measures of trust were obtained. Forty of these couples also viewed a videotape of their laboratory problem-solving discussion from 2 years previously and rated their partner's behavior and motives. Results suggested a reciprocal causal pattern by which partner-enhancing attributions predict changes in trust and trust predicts changes in partner-enhancing attributions.     

Daily supportive equity in close relationships

Receiving support in committed relationships has frequently been associated with negative psychological outcomes in the recipient, such as increased distress. The authors hypothesized that these negative effects could be offset by support recipients' reciprocation of support, that is, by creating a sense of supportive equity. To investigate this hypothesis, the authors obtained daily reports of mood and of received and given emotional support from both partners in 85 couples throughout a 4-week period. Reciprocity in support transactions was associated with higher levels of positive mood and lower levels of negative mood. In line with previous research, receiving support without reciprocation was associated with increases in negative mood. Giving support, regardless of receipt, was associated with a decrease in negative mood.     

Transactive memory in close relationships.

Memory performance of 118 individuals who had been in close dating relationships for at least 3 months was studied. For a memory task ostensibly to be performed by pairs, some Ss were paired with their partners and some were paired with an opposite-sex partner from another couple. For some pairs a memory structure was assigned (e.g., 1 partner should remember food items, another should remember history items, etc.), whereas for others no structure was mentioned. Pairs studied together without communication, and recall was tested in individuals. Memory performance of the natural pairs was better than that of impromptu pairs without assigned structure, whereas the performance of natural pairs was inferior to that of impromptu pairs when structure was assigned.     

Strategies of influence in close relationships

In this study, we examined how close relationship partners spontaneously influence each other while they discussed an existing problem in their relationship. According to theories of social influence, people in important, self-defining relationships should experience the relationship itself as a potent source of influence. Thus, they are likely to rely on the relationship as a source of power and to use influence strategies that reference relationship norms and values. Consistent with this reasoning, dating partners who were subjectively closer to their partners/relationships were more likely to reference the relationship in their influence attempts than those who were less subjectively close. Furthermore, referencing the relationship was an effective influence strategy. Greater referencing was associated with opinion shifts during discussions for both agents and targets of influence, with each compromising toward the other's position. In contrast, greater use of negative coercion as an influence strategy (e.g., derogation of the partner or punishment) was associated with less compromise.     

Intra- and interindividual relationships between elation-depression and desire for excitement

This study examined the relationship between elation-depression and desire for excitement on both intra- and interindividual levels. It was hypothesized that there would be a positive linear relationship between elation and desire for tranquillity These intraindividual hypotheses received strong support. This support would suggest that radical incongruities between activity demands and mood preparedness are often painful and would imply that in order for mood alteration to be successful it must take place gradually It was also hypothesized that characteristic level of elation-depression would be positively related to mean ratings of desire for excitement, positively related to score on a desire for excitement test, and negatively related to mean ratings of desire for tranquillity These interindividual hypotheses were not supported. Although it is probably most reasonable to accept the lack of correspondence between intra- and interindividual results, the operation of social comparison effects and social desirability bias may have obscured the predicted interindividual relationships     

Low sexual desire: sex therapy results and prognostic factors

In a prospective study of 60 couples who entered sex therapy because of the female partners' low sexual desire, 38 (63.3%) completed treatment and 34 (56.7%) had a positive outcome. The principal predictor of completion of treatment was the male partners' apparent motivation at the outset. Poorer outcome was associated with younger age of the couple (especially the male partner) and a shorter duration of the sexual problem. Surprisingly, few aspects of the couples' general relationships prior to treatment were related to outcome, except for poorer outcome being associated with a history of previous separations. The apparent lack of significant contribution of general relationship factors and psychopathology to outcome probably reflects the stringency of the initial selection process. Eventual outcome was also related to couples' progress by the third treatment session. The modest outcome of treatment for low sexual desire in this and other studies emphasises the need for further understanding of factors which contribute to this problem and for the development of novel treatment strategies.