Increasing Love Feelings, Marital Satisfaction, and Motivated Attention to the Spouse

Abstract. Love typically decreases over time, sometimes leading to divorces. We tested whether positively reappraising the spouse and/or up-regulating positive emotions unrelated to the spouse increases infatuation with and attachment to the spouse, marital satisfaction, and motivated attention to the spouse as measured by the late positive potential (LPP). Married individuals completed a regulation task in which they viewed spouse, pleasant, and neutral pictures without regulation prompt as well as spouse and pleasant pictures that were preceded by regulation prompts. Event-related potentials were recorded, and self-reported infatuation, attachment, and marital satisfaction were assessed. Viewing spouse pictures increased infatuation, attachment, and marital satisfaction compared to viewing pleasant or neutral pictures in the no regulation condition. Thinking about positive aspects of the spouse and increasing positive emotions unrelated to the spouse did not increase infatuation, attachment, and marital satisfaction any further. Motivated attention, measured by the LPP amplitude, was greatest to spouse pictures, intermediate to pleasant pictures, and minimal to neutral pictures. Although the typical up-regulation effect on the LPP amplitude was observed for pleasant pictures, positively reappraising the spouse did not increase the LPP amplitude and hence motivated attention to the spouse any further. This study indicates that looking at spouse pictures increases love and marital satisfaction, which is not due to increased positive emotions unrelated to the spouse. Looking at spouse pictures is an easy strategy that could be used to stabilize marriages in which the main problem is the decline of love feelings over time.