Fear of Rejecting Others: An Overlooked Construct in Dating Anxiety

2021 ◽  
pp. 106648072110219
Author(s):  
Myles S. Rizvi ◽  
Jane M. Tram ◽  
Björn Bergström

Dating anxiety may significantly impair the formation of romantic relationships. Given the clinical importance of dating anxiety, understanding underlying cognitive features is imperative to determine appropriate treatment. Research on romantic relationship termination and partner choice suggests individuals with dating anxiety, in addition to fearing rejection, may fear rejecting potential romantic partners. This study examined the relation between dating-specific fear of negative evaluation (DFNE), fear of positive evaluation (FPE), and fear of rejecting others (FRO) to identify potentially relevant cognitive factors to dating anxiety. We found that FRO and FPE were significantly and positively related to DFNE. We also found that FRO had a significant relation to DFNE after accounting for FPE. Implications of our findings are discussed.

2021 ◽  
pp. 088626052199458
Author(s):  
Elle P. Johnson ◽  
Jennifer A. Samp

Impelled by a desire to control, suppress, and deny emotional response, stoic individuals may act out their pent-up emotions on relational partners by provoking conflict and/or engaging in partner-directed violent and aggressive behaviors. However, little is known regarding what factors can push stoics over the edge from remaining quiet or avoiding revealing frustrations to initiating aggressive behavior. This relationship between stoicism and aggression is important to consider in serial arguments, where the repetitive nature of a conflict may become increasingly difficult for stoics to manage internally. Here, we examined the influence of stoicism on verbal aggression in serial arguments between romantic partners. We additionally considered the effects of power, perceived resolvability, and argument frequency on the relationship between stoicism and verbal aggression. Using a survey design with a sample of 281 individuals involved in a romantic relationship, we observed that stoicism is positively associated with verbal aggression in serial arguments. While perceived power and resolvability did not moderate the relationship between stoicism and verbal aggression, argument frequency about a serial argument topic was a significant moderator. The results of this study imply that stoicism plays an important role in explaining aggressive tactics in conflict. A high argument frequency about a conflict topic may lead to a buildup of unexpressed emotions, particularly anger, in stoic individuals, resulting in an explosive release of violence and aggression toward a romantic partner. Unique results on the relationship between stoicism and power and directions for future research are discussed.


2021 ◽  
pp. 026540752110354
Author(s):  
Sarah E. Killoren ◽  
J. Kale Monk ◽  
Avelina Rivero ◽  
Dawson Quinn ◽  
Gabrielle C. Kline

Negative interactions between romantic partners, such as when one partner criticizes another about their weight, are associated with poor relationship outcomes. The purpose of the study was to examine associations between romantic partner weight criticism, romantic relationship quality, gender, and Latinx young adults’ romantic relationship instability. Participants were recruited from a Qualtrics panel and completed 30-minute surveys online. The sample included 475 Latinx young adults (60% women; M age = 24.80 years, SD = 3.22; 66% Mexican) who reported on their experiences of romantic partner weight criticism, positive romantic relationship quality (e.g., intimacy, affection, nurturance), negative romantic relationship quality (e.g., conflict, antagonism), and relationship instability. Hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to test the study goals. Overall, weight-related criticism was more strongly associated with romantic relationship instability for men than for women. Further, for men, associations between weight criticism and romantic relationship instability were also particularly strong in the context of low levels of negative romantic relationship quality compared to high levels of negative romantic relationship quality.


2020 ◽  
pp. 073112142097844
Author(s):  
Amy Lucas ◽  
Jessica Halliday Hardie ◽  
Sejung Sage Yim

Previous research indicates that romantic partners’ relationship quality is associated with poverty and material hardship. Few studies have used longitudinal data to incorporate changing economic circumstances over time, included a range of economic factors, or investigated the role of social support in this association, however. Using five waves of data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, we extend prior work by evaluating the association between multiple economic stressors and romantic relationship quality over time, and whether social support explains or alters this association. Changes in economic stressors are associated with changes in romantic relationship quality over time, particularly nonstandard work and material hardship. Social support neither explains nor moderates this association in most cases. This study confirms the stress process perspective, showing how economic and work-related stress can proliferate into family life, but does not support the contention that social support buffers families against stress proliferation.


2018 ◽  
Vol 36 (10) ◽  
pp. 3293-3312
Author(s):  
Rachel B. Venaglia ◽  
Edward P. Lemay

The present study examined both accuracy and bias in perceptions of romantic partners’ destructive behavior during relationship conflicts, as well as implications of accuracy and bias for emotional experience. Perceptions of partners’ destructive behavior during relationship conflicts were associated with indicators’ of partners’ behavior (i.e., target self-reports and objective coder ratings), suggesting that people were somewhat accurate in perceiving their partner’s destructive behavior. Independently of this accuracy effect, the more participants valued their relationship with their partner, the less destructive they interpreted their partner’s behavior to be during the conflict discussion, suggesting biases in perceptions of destructive behavior. These perceptions of destructive behavior, in turn, predicted emotional experience during the conflict. Results suggest that emotional experience during romantic relationship conflicts is dependent on both accurate and biased perceptions of partners’ behavior.


2018 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 977-999 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica L. Borelli ◽  
David A. Sbarra ◽  
Matthias Mehl

Using a Brunswik lens framework, this study examined whether lay observers could accurately detect participants’ attachment to a former partner following romantic breakup or divorce. We predicted that the ratings of post-breakup attachment (completed after reading participants’ transcribed stream-of-consciousness discussions of the recent separation) would be associated with participants’ self-reported ratings of attachment to a former partner and that participants’ natural language use in their narratives would act as the behavioral residue explaining these associations. To enhance the generalizability of our findings, we explored our hypotheses in two samples of adults who had recently undergone romantic relationship dissolutions—people experiencing non-marital breakups ( N = 161) and divorce ( N = 132). Consistent with hypotheses, in both samples, naïve judges generated assessments of participant attachment that were (a) reliable, (b) strongly associated with participants’ own attachment ratings, and (c) associated with participant breakup-related distress. Of the linguistic cues we examined as behavioral residue, only we-talk (first person plural pronoun use) operated indirectly to link rater and participant attachment scores. We discuss the implications of this work for a deeper understanding of attachment to former romantic partners and for using person-perception paradigms to study attachment relationships.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 87
Author(s):  
Natalia Sabelnikova ◽  
Dmitry Kashirsky ◽  
Olga Garvard

The study investigated young adults’ perceptions of their parents and romantic partners with respect to the quality of attachment to the loved ones. The sample consisted of 78 young Russian men and women aged 19–25 involved in a romantic relationship for at least for 12 months. The employed instruments were the Attachment to Close People Questionnaire (ACOQ), based on the Experiences in Close Relationships (ECR) questionnaire, the Adolescents’ Report of Parental Behavior Inventory, and Leary’s Interpersonal Behavior Measure. Regression analysis was used to analyze the data. The results indicated that the attachment to the mother contributed to attachment to the romantic partner more than the attachment to the father. The attachment security with the partner was associated with the image of the partner.


1978 ◽  
Vol 53 (11) ◽  
pp. 882-889 ◽  
Author(s):  
A J Barson ◽  
A Ahmed ◽  
A A Gibson ◽  
A M MacDonald

Four cases of a locally invasive sarcoma of the chest wall are described in children aged between 8 and 14 years. Although its morphology resembles a Ewing's sarcoma of bone there are light and electron microscopical features that are distinctive. The sarcoma is thought to represent an entity which has not previously been defined. Its clinical importance lies in the fact that the prognosis with appropriate treatment appears to be good. One child died after 2 1/2 years, but the others are alive 6, 8, and 16 years after presentation.


2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (8) ◽  
pp. 1195-1225
Author(s):  
Emily L. Loeb ◽  
Jessica Kansky ◽  
Rachel K. Narr ◽  
Caroline Fowler ◽  
Joseph P. Allen

This study examined early adolescent romantic “churning,” defined here as having a large number of boyfriends/girlfriends by age 13, as a problematic marker likely to predict hostility, abuse, and avoidance during conflict in later relationships. A sample of 184 adolescents was followed through age 24 to assess predictions of hostility, abuse, and avoidance during conflict from early romantic churning. Controlling for gender and family income, romantic churning at age 13 predicted relative decreases in peer preference and relative increases in conflict and betrayal in close friendships from ages 13 to 16, as well as higher observable hostility and self- and partner-reported abuse in romantic relationships by age 18 and greater avoidance during conflict with romantic partners by age 24. Findings remained after accounting for attachment security, social competence, and friendship quality in early adolescence, suggesting that early romantic churning may uniquely predict a problematic developmental pathway.


2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 538-558
Author(s):  
Xiancai Cao ◽  
Dahua Wang ◽  
Yan Wang

Attachment theory indicates that romantic partners’ availability and responsiveness provide individuals with a sense of security and the repeated experience of which could have enduring effects on individuals’ subjective well-being and relationship outcomes. We proposed that retrieving episodic memory and episodic simulation related to secure-base support could also help individuals obtain information about partners’ responsiveness, which in turn would promote long-term subjective well-being and relationship satisfaction. To provide the evidence of this notion, the current study investigated the relationship between partner’s responsiveness in episodic memory/simulation of secure-base support and relationship satisfaction as well as subjective well-being. We recruited 136 young adults ( M age = 21.89, SD = 2.57) who were currently involved in a romantic relationship for at least 6 months. Participants completed measures of relationship satisfaction and subjective well-being; then, they provided specific episodic memory and simulations related to secure-base support as well as rated partners’ responsiveness in each event. Results indicated that partners’ responsiveness in both episodic memory and simulations was significantly positively related to participants’ relationship satisfaction and subjective well-being. These results provide novel implications for the function of episodic memory and episodic simulation of secure-base support in the attachment system.


2016 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 136-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tomo Umemura ◽  
Lenka Lacinová ◽  
Petr Macek ◽  
E. Saskia Kunnen

Only a few studies have longitudinally explored to whom emerging adults prefer to turn to seek closeness, comfort, and security (called “attachment preferences”), and previous studies on attachment preferences in emerging adults have focused only on the beginning of romantic relationships but not on the end of relationships. Czech emerging adults ( M = 21.47; SD = 1.48) completed the questionnaire of attachment preferences at two time points, Wave 1 (Summer 2013) and Wave 2 (Summer 2014). Latent difference score analyses revealed that emerging adults who were not in a romantic relationship in Wave 1 but started a romantic relationship between the two waves ( n = 97) and those who had a romantic partner in both waves ( n = 379) were both more likely to increase their attachment preference for the romantic partner and decrease their preference for friends, whereas those who did not start a relationship ( n = 185) were not. Emerging adults who were in a romantic relationship in Wave 1 but were not in Wave 2 ( n = 69) decreased their preference for the partner and increased their preference for friends. In all the groups, attachment preferences for the mother, for the father, or for the family did not change. Multiple regression analyses further revealed that for those who had a romantic partner in both waves, their length of romantic relationship was associated with changes in attachment preferences for romantic partners and for friends.


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