Individuals differ in both their motivation to obtain incentives in their relationships (approach goals) and their motivation to dampen the threats in their relationships (avoidance goals). When evaluating relationship satisfaction, individuals with strong approach goals should weigh positive features in their relationships more heavily than do individuals low in approach goals, and individuals with strong avoidance social goals should weigh negative features more than do individuals with weaker avoidance social goals. In a study testing this idea, participants were randomly signaled several times a day to report their positive (passion) and negative (insecurity) thoughts about their current romantic partner. At the end of the day, they reported their overall relationship satisfaction. The results confirmed the hypotheses: Algorithms used to assess relationship satisfaction differ as a function of goal strength. We discuss the results not in terms of biases in subjective evaluation, but rather in terms of variations in the very definition of satisfaction.
Regret and anticipated regret enhance decision quality by helping people avoid making and repeating mistakes. Some of people's most intense regrets concern sexual decisions. We hypothesized evolved sex differences in women's and men's experiences of sexual regret. Because of women's higher obligatory costs of reproduction throughout evolutionary history, we hypothesized that sexual actions, particularly those involving casual sex, would be regretted more intensely by women than by men. In contrast, because missed sexual opportunities historically carried higher reproductive fitness costs for men than for women, we hypothesized that poorly chosen sexual inactions would be regretted more by men than by women. Across three studies (Ns = 200, 395, and 24,230), we tested these hypotheses using free responses, written scenarios, detailed checklists, and Internet sampling to achieve participant diversity, including diversity in sexual orientation. Across all data sources, results supported predicted psychological sex differences and these differences were localized in casual sex contexts. These findings are consistent with the notion that the psychology of sexual regret was shaped by recurrent sex differences in selection pressures operating over deep time.
Across human societies, people form long-term romantic bonds that can last a lifetime. Many theorists have proposed that the emotion love plays a causal role in maintaining these bonds, but no work to date has tested this hypothesis directly. In this study, we predicted that feeling love for a romantic partner would facilitate suppressing thoughts of attractive alternative mates. We used a relived emotion task to induce love or sexual desire for a romantic partner and asked participants to suppress thoughts of an attractive alternative. After suppression, participants in the love condition reported fewer thoughts of the attractive alternative and accurately recalled fewer attractiveness-related details about the alternative than those in the desire condition. Reports of love, but not sexual desire, predicted greater commitment to the current partner during the study. These results suggest that love serves a function distinct from desire and that love can operate as a commitment device.
The current study examined how specific neurological systems contribute to the expression of multiple personality dimensions. We used individuals with traumatic brain injuries to examine the contribution of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC)--a region important for executive function and attention-to the expression of neuroticism and conscientiousness factors and facets. Results from Voxel-Based Lesion-Symptom Mapping analyses revealed that focal damage to the left DLPFC (Brodmann's area 9) was associated with high neuroticism and low conscientious factor and facet scores (anxiety and self-discipline, respectively). Compared with lesioned and normal controls, veterans with damage in left DLPFC also reported higher neuroticism and lower conscientiousness facet scores, slower reaction times on the California Computerized Assessment Package assessment, and lower scores on the Delis-Kaplan executive function battery. Findings suggest that while neuroticism and conscientiousness remain psychometrically independent personality dimensions, their component facets may rely on a common neurocognitive infrastructure and executive function resources in general.
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