Me or Us? Self-Control Promotes a Healthy Balance Between Personal and Relationship Concerns

Although romantic partners strive to achieve an optimal balance in fulfilling both personal and relational concerns, they are inevitably challenged by how much time and effort they can dedicate to both concerns. In the present work, we examined the role of self-control in successfully maintaining personal–relational balance through promoting balance and preventing personal and relational imbalance (overdedication to personal or relational concerns, respectively). We conducted two studies among romantic couples (total N = 555), using questionnaires and diary procedures to assess everyday experiences of personal-relational balance and imbalance. Both studies consistently showed that self-control promotes personal–relational balance. Moreover, findings partly supported our hypothesis that self-control prevents personal and relational imbalance (Study 2). Finally, findings also revealed that maintaining personal–relational balance is one of the mechanisms by which self-control can promote personal and relationship well-being. Implications of the present findings and avenues for future research are discussed.

Complex hybridity in Isotoma petraea. IV. Heterosis in interpopulational hybrids

Discriminant analysis of four structurally homozygous populations of Isotoma petraea showed that they are significantly different with respect to phenotypes produced in a standardized environment and hence they are genetically different. These populations are relatively homozygous for different arrays of genes and their interpopulational hybrids exhibit a euheterotic increase in aerial dry weight. The individual natural populations may be considered as depressed inbred lineages of the relationally balanced base population of I. Petraea. The degree of heterosis observed in their interpopulational hybrids is mainly influenced by the degree of inbreeding that is characteristic of of each population. Negative heterosis was observed in interpopulational crosses among complex heterozygotes. The complex heterozygotes are genetically heterozygous, and a precise relational balance exists between the complexes associated in the native complex heterozygotes; this coadaptation does not extend from population to population.