The influence of personal,relational, and contextual factors on forgiveness communication following transgressions

The way that individuals adapt to stress in their romantic relationships plays a major role in determining relational satisfaction. This study used the Vulnerability‐Stress‐Adaptation Model as a framework to examine how individuals adapt to a relational transgression in their romantic relationships. This study examined individuals' attachment dimensions and perceived relational equity as factors that influenced how they used forgiveness strategies following a relational transgression. The results revealed that both attachment dimensions and perceptions of relational equity inform our understanding of the strategies that individuals use to communicate forgiveness to a romantic relationship partner. Furthermore, the results suggest that the communication of forgiveness has important implications for relational satisfaction.     

Looking deeper: Extradyadic behaviors,jealousy, and perceived unfaithfulness in hypothetical dating relationships

This report expands on past research dealing with extradyadic (ED) relations in dating relationships by examining behaviors beyond those of a strictly sexual or romantic nature that college-age men and women consider to be unfaithful. Undergraduates (N= 219) from a U.S. university rated a hypothetical partner's ED sexual behavior, sexual fantasies, romantic attachments, flirting, group, and dyadic social activities including a member of the other gender outside the primary dating relationship as a function of relationship stage. Men and women rated all the ED behaviors as jealousy provoking except group social activities, and rated all the behaviors as unfaithful except dyadic and group social activities. Women reported greater jealousy than did men in response to a hypothetical partner's sexual fantasies, romantic attachments, and flirting behavior. Women also reported a hypothetical partner's romantic attachments and flirting behavior as more unfaithful than did men. Results are discussed in terms of support for evolutionary theory and the need to acknowledge environmental factors in examining gender differences.     

A Multi-Method Investigation of Two Family Constructs

Two family constructs—prominence and interpersonal distance—are examined. Their origins are traced in the experimental and theoretical literature. The validity of each construct is investigated using data obtained from 15 families with a symptom-bearing child. Validity is supported in both cases through the occurrence of significant correlations among different measures of the same construct. It is suggested that the current distress of the families being studied may have increased the clarity of the prominence hierarchies and dyadic distances that emerged.