Relationship Connection: A Redux on the Role of Minding and the Quality of Feeling Special in the Enhancement of Closeness
Achieving constructive relationship connections is an important step as an objective of positive psychology. In the context of a culture of dissolution in close relationships, minding serves as an antidote to the demise of feelings of closeness overtime. In this paper, we argue that minding the close relationship is a powerful pathway to developing and enhancing closeness. Minding is a combination of thought and behavior patterns that interact to create stability and feelings of closeness. Minding is formally defined as a reciprocal knowing process that occurs nonstop throughout the history of the relationship and that involves a complex package of interrelated thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. The components of minding are knowing and being known, achieved through reciprocal self-disclosure; attribution that is realistic about causality, but that also gives one's partner the benefit of doubt in questionable circumstances; acceptance of what one discovers in the knowing process and respect for one's partner revealed in this process; and reciprocity and continuity. The final component emphasizes the fact that minding must be done by both partners and that it is a never-ending process. The paper also describes other contemporary conceptions to which minding is closely related and addresses future direction for research on the minding process.