Avoidance goals heighten the salience of negative social experiences, and in intimate relationships such an orientation may contribute to communication difficulties and the perpetuation of avoidance. We therefore hypothesized that individuals with stronger avoidance goals would be particularly prone to engage in escalating levels of negative communication with their intimate partner, and we tested this prediction by conducting sequential analyses on videotaped observational data (28,470 observations) collected from 365 heterosexual couples engaging in a relationship-related conflict. While less avoidanceoriented spouses showed a decline in their likelihood of negative communication over the course of the 8-min conflict discussion, the likelihood that more avoidance-oriented spouses would display negative communication behaviors remained at a high level. The likelihood of negative communication even increased when avoidance-oriented spouses were confronted with negative communication behavior of their partners. The effects of avoidance orientation were independent of relationship satisfaction and neuroticism. These findings demonstrate that avoidance goals underlie individuals' heightened reactivity to the partner's negative behavior, while also clarifying 1 possible reason why some individuals engage in communication behaviors that may prove maladaptive to their relationship. (

Stress and coping in couples have received increased research attention during the past two decades, particularly with regard to how couples cope with stress. Dyadic coping has emerged as a strong predictor of relationship satisfaction. Less research has focused on the effects of dyadic coping on other outcomes or family members. In the present study, the authors addressed this gap by examining parents' dyadic coping as a predictor of children's internalizing symptoms, externalizing symptoms, and prosocial behavior in three independent studies. In Studies 1 and 2 self-report data were used to assess parents' dyadic coping through the parents' and the children's perspective, and Study 3 included observational data on dyadic coping. Parental dyadic coping was related to children's externalizing symptoms, internalizing symptoms, and prosocial behavior, although results for the latter two outcomes were not consistent across the three studies. The findings suggest that parents' dyadic coping deserves greater consideration within the context of child development.

Research on age differences in implicit motives is rare and has shown contradictory results. We investigated age and gender differences in implicit motives (achievement, power, affiliation and intimacy), measured by the Picture Story Exercise (PSE), in an extensive, heterogeneous dyadic sample of 736 adults aged 20 to 80 years. Data were analyzed with a multilevel approach.Results indicate lower motive scores in all four measured motives in aged as compared to young adults but higher scores in activity inhibition. Further, women scored higher in affiliation and intimacy motives than men, while men scored higher in achievement and power motives and in activity inhibition than women. Possible underlying affective and neuroendocrinological processes of age dependent change in implicit motives are discussed.

Background: Previous research focused on relationship commitment as the outcome of high satisfaction, poor alternatives, and high investments. We propose that commitment is a prerequisite in highly satisfied couples, fostering relationship maintenance behavior such as positive dyadic coping. Method: Structural equation models identified the relationship between commitment, relationship satisfaction, and dyadic coping with data from 201 heterosexual couples with an average relationship length of 34 years. Results: The common fate model confirmed that relationship satisfaction mediated the effects between commitment and dyadic coping on a latent dyadic level. Additional analyses revealed that women's satisfaction was mainly responsible for mediating effects between both partners' commitment and dyadic coping. Conclusions: Findings support the essentiality of commitment for couples' maintenance strategies and for consistency in long-term relationships.

Growing evidence implicates stress as a reliable correlate of relationship satisfaction; yet, existing models fail to address why some relationships are more vulnerable than others to this effect. We draw from the literature on individual differences in self-regulation to predict that individuals who are more action oriented when confronted with aversive demands will buffer themselves and their partners against the detrimental effect of external stress. Using actor-partner interdependence modeling on self-report data from 368 couples, we show that the relationship satisfaction of highly stressed but actionoriented individuals and their partners is compromised less by external stress than that of state-oriented individuals and their partners. These results held after controlling for symptoms of depression and were not moderated by gender or by age, despite sampling couples varying widely in relationship duration. Results support the view that individual differences in self-regulation, and action orientation in particular, might benefit relationships confronted by stress, thus clarifying how dyads might be affected by demands outside their relationship.