The Predictive Validity of Explicit and Implicit Partner Evaluations for Relationship Behaviors: An Actor–Partner Interdependence Analysis

Abstract

This research introduced novel measures of explicit and implicit romantic partner evaluations and tested whether these measures predict video-observed relationship behaviors. One hundred and eighty heterosexual participants (90 couples) completed 2 measures of explicit partner evaluations, the Relationship Assessment Scale (RAS) and a short form of the Trier Partnership Inventory (TPI–S). Participants also completed measures of implicit partner evaluations, namely 2 variants of an affective priming task (APT), one of them focusing on reaction times (RT-APT) and the other one focusing on errors (EB-APT), and a facial electromyography (fEMG) task. Relationship behaviors were video-recorded in the laboratory and coded by a total of 34 independent observers. Actor–partner interdependence models were used to test whether partner evaluations predicted participants’ own relationship behaviors (actor effects), and the behaviors of the partner (partner effects). Furthermore, we examined how explicit and implicit partner evaluations are related to the behaviors of the couple as a whole. Relationship behaviors were indeed predicted on all 3 levels by the RAS, the TPI–S, the EB-APT, and the fEMG, but not by the RT-APT. The research thus provides researchers with novel tools to assess explicit and implicit partner evaluations that are linked to relationship behaviors.