Abstract
Background: Receiving emotional support from a romantic partner often leads to emotional costs via negative appraisals about the self and one's relationship, but it is unclear whether certain individuals are more susceptible to these costs. We evaluate whether the presence of perfectionistic and dependent dysfunctional attitudes leads to more negative effects of receiving emotional support from a romantic partner.Methods: Twenty-nine couples (27 men, 31 women; mean age 24.5) completed the Dysfunctional Attitudes Scale and then a daily online questionnaire by recording their mood, appraisals, and received emotional support. Mixed-effects regressions were used to evaluate whether perfectionistic and dependent dysfunctional attitudes moderated the relationship between emotional support receipt and subsequent mood and appraisals.Results: Perfectionism did not interact with emotional support but exerted a main effect of increasing negative moods and appraisals. Dependency interacted with emotional support such that those with more dependent attitudes reported greater negative next-day moods and appraisals as a function of emotional support.Conclusions: Individuals with dependent, but not perfectionistic, dysfunctional attitudes are more likely to experience emotional and cognitive costs after receiving emotional support. These costs may stem from activation or exacerbation of the attitudes specific to dependency, including need for acceptance, support, and approval of others.
Highlights
Receiving emotional support from a romantic partner often leads to emotional costs via negative appraisals about the self and one’s relationship, but it is unclear whether certain individuals are more susceptible to these costs
The cognitive diathesis-stress model of depression posits that chronic negative, dysfunctional thinking acts as a vulnerability to depression in the context of stressful life events
Social support has been proposed as one such intervention that can buffer the ill effects of stress by altering negative appraisals of events (Cohen and Wills, 1985), evidence for the buffering hypothesis is weak and growing research indicates that support can often worsen negative appraisals (Rafaeli and Gleason, 2009)
Summary
Receiving emotional support from a romantic partner often leads to emotional costs via negative appraisals about the self and one’s relationship, but it is unclear whether certain individuals are more susceptible to these costs. We evaluate whether the presence of perfectionistic and dependent dysfunctional attitudes leads to more negative effects of receiving emotional support from a romantic partner. The cognitive diathesis-stress model of depression posits that chronic negative, dysfunctional thinking acts as a vulnerability to depression in the context of stressful life events. Effective interventions for preventing or treating depression, are those that help cognitively vulnerable individuals reduce their negative thinking when they encounter life stress. We examine whether susceptibility to these negative moods and appraisals after receiving emotional support varies as a function of a person’s dependent and perfectionistic dysfunctional attitudes
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