Interdependent Minds by Murray Sandra L.;Holmes John G.;Reis Harry T.;

Author:Murray, Sandra L.;Holmes, John G.;Reis, Harry T.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 655564
Publisher: Guilford Publications

FIGURE 7.3. The effects of implicit exchange-script priming on self-protection goal strength.

FIGURE 7.4. The effects of implicit exchange-script priming on partner-dependence promotion.

Flexibility

Although eliciting the partner’s dependence does work to promote the partner’s greater commitment, this strategy for securing the partner’s responsiveness has a potential cost. Seeing Ron as dependent on her for buying his wine and reading his legal briefs might make Gayle wonder whether he really cares about her or just cannot afford to lose her. Because perceiving a partner as merely dependent can threaten trust, people who are already highly trusting have reason to correct the automated will to control the partner’s commitment.

We examined the potential for flexibility in the application of the “promote dependence” rule in two further studies. In these “conscious will” experiments, we increased the opportunity to correct by inviting experimental participants to consciously use and debate the exchange script (Murray, Aloni, et al., 2009, Experiments 4 and 5). In our first experiment, we primed the exchange script by having people play matchmaker within a dating service simulation. Experimental participants received laminated cards containing profiles of potential dates to match. Each profile contained a self-description and numerical ratings of the profiled person on four communal qualities, such as emotional stability. The experimental participants then selected a “good” match for each date. Control participants picked magazine articles for others to read. In our second experiment, we invoked the exchange script by having experimental participants divine the fate of marriages based on how well participants matched on social commodities. The computer feedback reinforced such exchange deliberations by responding “correct” when participants designated a mismatched couple as divorced or a matched couple as together, and “incorrect” when they designated a mismatched couple as together or a matched couple as divorced. Control participants completed a neutral matching task.

We then measured dependence promotion in each of these studies as we did in the unconscious will experiments. Figure 7.5 presents the results. Low self-esteem people heeded their automated will to self-protect. Even when they consciously deliberated the exchange script, they doubled their behavioral efforts to put their partner in their debt. Once low self-esteem people become preoccupied with exchange they may have little choice but to promote their partner’s instrumental dependence on them. Why? Because a low self-esteem Harry might doubt that he has much more than that to offer Sally (Baumeister, 1993). However, high self-esteem people curbed the automated will to self-protect. When they had the opportunity to consciously debate the script, they overrode it. In the marital divination experiment, high self-esteem people actually downplayed their partner’s dependence on them (relative to controls).

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