Automatic partner attitudes: Sources, implications, and future directions

Abstract

Satisfying romantic relationships offer numerous social and health benefits, making it critical to understand the trajectory of relationship satisfaction. In recent years, research has begun to examine the role of automatic processes in relationship contexts. In particular, a growing number of studies have incorporated indirect (implicit) measures developed by socio‐cognitive researchers to capture people's automatic partner attitudes—the spontaneous affective reactions toward their partner that people may at times be unable to access or unwilling to self‐report in more direct (explicit) measures like questionnaires. In this paper, we review work illustrating how automatic partner attitudes can help explain, predict, and promote both the functioning and the well‐being of romantic couples. That is, we integrate theoretical perspectives on interdependence, attachment, and attitudes to discuss empirical evidence relative to why automatic partner attitudes differ from self‐reported judgments of relationship satisfaction, how such attitudes form in the context of real‐world relationship experiences, and under which conditions they affect dyadic interactions in everyday life. Further, we identify important questions that remain unanswered and provide recommendations that may benefit future work on couples and beyond.