Patterns of perceived partner responsiveness and well-being in Japan and the United States.

Abstract

Quality of marital relationships is consistently linked to personal well-being. However, almost all of the studies linking marital processes to well-being have been conducted in Western (particularly North American) countries. Growing evidence shows that perceived partner responsiveness is a central relationship process predicting well-being in Western contexts but little is known about whether this association generalizes to other countries. The present work investigated whether the predictive role of perceived partner responsiveness in well-being differs across the United States and Japan-2 contexts with contrasting views on how the self is conceptualized in relation to the social group. A large life span sample of married or long-term cohabiting adults (n = 3,079, age range = 33-83 in the United States and n = 861, age range = 30-79 in Japan) completed measures of perceived partner responsiveness, hedonic and eudaimonic well-being, and demographic (age, gender, education) and personality (extraversion and neuroticism) covariates known to predict well-being. Perceived partner responsiveness positively predicted hedonic and eudaimonic well-being both in the U.S. and in Japan. However, perceived partner responsiveness more strongly predicted both types of well-being in the United States as compared with Japan. The difference in slopes across the 2 countries was greater for eudaimonic as compared with hedonic well-being. The interaction between perceived partner responsiveness and country held even after controlling for demographic factors and personality traits. By showing that the role of perceived partner responsiveness in well-being may be influenced by cultural context, our findings contribute to achieving a more nuanced picture of the role of relationships in personal well-being. (PsycINFO Database Record

Untangling the effects of partner responsiveness on health and well-being: The role of perceived control

“…Strong social ties are predictive of health and well-being (Holt-Lunstad, Smith, & Layton, 2010) and satisfy affiliation and relatedness needs that are essential to having a happy life (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). There is strong prior evidence that PPR has a positive effect on adult health, well-being, and mortality (Selcuk et al, 2016; Slatcher et al, 2015; Stanton et al, 2019; Tasfiliz et al, 2018). However, identifying the cognitive mechanisms underlying these associations has been elusive (Slatcher & Schoebi, 2017).…”

“…Among the positive aspects of close relationships, perceived partner responsiveness (PPR)—that is, the extent to which people believe that others (e.g., their romantic partners) understand, validate, and care for them—has been identified as an important relational strength that imparts personal benefits (Reis, 2012; Slatcher & Selcuk, 2017). For example, a few studies, using data from a sample of adults in the Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS) study, have found links between PPR and higher eudaimonic well-being (Selcuk, Gunaydin, Ong, & Almeida, 2016; Tasfiliz et al, 2018), steeper (i.e., “healthier”) daily cortisol activity (Slatcher, Selcuk, & Ong, 2015), better subjective sleep quality (Selcuk, Stanton, Slatcher, & Ong, 2017), and a lower risk of mortality (Stanton, Selcuk, Farrell, Slatcher, & Ong, 2019).…”

Smartphones and Close Relationships: The Case for an Evolutionary Mismatch

“…Responsive interactions foster intimacy in couples (Debrot, Cook, Perrez, & Horn, 2012) as well as improved interactions between leaders and subordinates (Kluger & Zaidel, 2013) and between physicians and patients (Reis et al, 2008). Responsiveness is also linked to greater personal well-being, including greater emotional well-being among cancer patients (Otto, Laurenceau, Siegel, & Belcher, 2015), improved ability to integrate negative life experiences into the self-concept (Weeks & Pasupathi, 2011), and greater hedonic and eudaimonic well-being in both the United States and Japan, but especially the United States (Tasfiliz et al, 2018). Because responsiveness shares common elements with several important relationship constructs—facilitating core validation of the self and fostering feelings of warmth, acceptance, belonging, and trust—it has been deemed an organizing principle in the study of relationships (Reis, 2012), including in the study of relationships and health (Slatcher & Schoebi, 2017).…”

Close Relationships and Happiness across Cultures

“…Based on this reasoning, we have recently compared the link between partner responsiveness and well-being across the United States (where the self is seen more as an independent entity, relationships are seen as a product of the voluntary actions and choices of the agentic self, and self-disclosure is a critical factor mediating relationship development) and Japan (where the self is seen more as an interdependent entity embedded in social relationships and a less powerful agent in determining relationship formation or dissolution, and self-disclosure is a less defining characteristic of social relationships). Indeed, although partner responsiveness predicted hedonic and eudaimonic well-being with small-to-medium effect sizes (Cohen, 1988) in both cultures, the slopes were smaller in Japan than in the United States (Tasfiliz, Selcuk, Gunaydin, Slatcher, Corriero, & Ong, 2018). Overall, these findings support the theoretical argument that partner responsiveness is more strongly linked with happiness in contexts where relationship formation is based on personal volition and effort, self-disclosure is a defining feature of relationships, and high residential mobility is likely to limit the functions of other existing social ties.…”