Estranged and Unhappy? Examining the Dynamics of Personal and Relationship Well-Being Surrounding Infidelity.

Although relationship theories often describe infidelity as a damaging event in a couple's life, it remains unclear whether relationship problems actually follow infidelity, precede it, or both. The analyses of dyadic panel data of adults in Germany including about 1,000 infidelity events showed that infidelity was preceded (but not followed) by a gradual decrease in relationship functioning in perpetrators and victims. There was little evidence of rebound effects in the aftermath of infidelity, with the exception of unfaithful women and individuals with lower initial relationship commitment who returned to the pre-event level of well-being or even exceeded it, providing support to the expectancy violation theory (vs.

The Online Coalition Game: A tool for online interactive coalition formation research.

In this paper, we present the Online Coalition Game (OCG): an open-source tool written for the open-access research platform oTree that enables high-powered interactive coalition formation experiments. Besides containing a tutorial on conducting and configuring studies using the OCG, we discuss two previous implementations. With these examples, we demonstrate that online use of the OCG provides the benefits of large sample sizes and fast data collection, while leading to convergent and robust findings.

Low Self-Control: A Hidden Cause of Loneliness?

Loneliness has been associated with multiple negative outcomes. But what contributes to loneliness in the first place? Drawing from the literature on the importance of self-regulatory ability for successful social functioning, the present research explored the role of low self-control as a factor leading to loneliness. A set of four studies (and three additional studies in Supplementary Online Materials) using cross-sectional, experimental, daily diary, and experience sampling methods showed that lower self-control is associated with higher loneliness at both trait and state levels.

Strength Is Still a Weakness in Coalition Formation: Replicating and Understanding the Strength-Is-Weakness Effect.

A key observation in coalition formation is that bargainers with most resources are often excluded from coalitions: the Strength-is-Weakness effect. Previous studies have suffered from low sample sizes and lack of (appropriate) incentives and have rarely focused on underlying processes. To address these issues, we conducted a cross-platform replication using the Online Coalition Game.

The Brabant study: design of a large prospective perinatal cohort study among pregnant women investigating obstetric outcome from a biopsychosocial perspective.

Background: Pregnancy is characterised by many biological and psychosocial changes. Adequate maternal thyroid function is important for the developing fetus throughout gestation. Latent class analyses recently showed three different patterns of change in thyroid function throughout pregnancy with different associations with obstetric outcome.

Hormones in speed-dating: The role of testosterone and cortisol in attraction.

There is evidence that testosterone and cortisol levels are related to the attraction of a romantic partner; testosterone levels relate to a wide range of sexual behaviors and cortisol is a crucial component in the response to stress. To investigate this, we conducted a speed-dating study among heterosexual singles. We measured salivary testosterone and cortisol changes in men and women (n = 79) when they participated in a romantic condition (meeting opposite-sex others, i.

Marriage as a training ground: Examining change in self-control and forgiveness over the first 4 years of marriage.

Do partners' levels of self-control and forgiveness change over the course of marriage? Based on the idea that marriage may function as a training ground for these vital relationship abilities, we hypothesized that people increase their levels of self-control and forgiveness over time and that these developments take place simultaneously. We tested these predictions among 199 newlywed couples in the first 4 years of marriage, using a dyadic latent growth curves analysis. Confirming our hypotheses, results showed significant increases in self-control and forgiveness as well as a positive concurrent correlation between these variables.

Modernizing Relationship Therapy through Social Thermoregulation Theory: Evidence, Hypotheses, and Explorations.

In the present article the authors propose to modernize relationship therapy by integrating novel sensor and actuator technologies that can help optimize people's thermoregulation, especially as they pertain to social contexts. Specifically, they propose to integrate (IJzerman et al., 2015a; IJzerman and Hogerzeil, 2017) into Emotionally Focused Therapy by first doing exploratory research during couples' therapy, followed by Randomized Clinical Trials (RCTs).

The benefits of simply observing: mindful attention modulates the link between motivation and behavior.

Mindful attention, a central component of mindfulness meditation, can be conceived as becoming aware of one's thoughts and experiences and being able to observe them as transient mental events. Here, we present a series of studies demonstrating the effects of applying this metacognitive perspective to one's spontaneous reward responses when encountering attractive stimuli. Taking a grounded cognition perspective, we argue that reward simulations in response to attractive stimuli contribute to appetitive behavior and that motivational states and traits enhance these simulations.

Personality, self-control, and welfare-tradeoff ratios in revenge and forgiveness.

We address how trait self-control and trait concern for others relate to the concepts of monitored and intrinsic Welfare Tradeoff Ratios (WTRs), respectively, and how recent work on personality, revenge, and forgiveness are informed by the adaptationist perspective proposed in the target article. We also discuss how the proposed adaptationist perspective provides clues to some previously puzzling findings on revenge.

How can you resist? Executive control helps romantically involved individuals to stay faithful.

In the present research, we examined why some people have more difficulty than others in staying faithful to their romantic partners. Three studies supported our main prediction that executive control is associated with romantically involved individuals' ability to stay faithful. Study 1 showed that participants with a higher level of executive control reported less difficulty in staying faithful to their partners than did those with lower levels of executive control.

What it takes to forgive: When and why executive functioning facilitates forgiveness.

To establish what it takes to forgive, the present research focused on the cognitive underpinnings of the forgiveness process. We conducted four studies that examined and supported the prediction that executive functioning (a set of cognitive control processes) facilitates forgiveness. First, a correlational study revealed a positive relation between executive functioning and dispositional forgiveness (Study 1).