Motivated Cognition in Relationships

The Pursuit of Belonging

Sandra L. Murray, John G. Holmes

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781351847025
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Cognitive Psychology & Cognition
• Index: Psychology

How can newlyweds believe they will be together forever, while knowing that the majority of marriages end in divorce? Why do people who desperately want to be loved end up alienating those who love them? How can partners that seem like complete opposites end up blissfully happy? This volume explores such fascinating questions. Murray and Holmes outline how basic motivations to be safe from being hurt and find value and meaning control how people feel, think, and behave in close relationships. Additionally, the authors highlight how these motivations infuse romantic life through succinct and accessible descriptions of cutting-edge empirical research and vivid evolving stories of four couples confronting different challenges in their relationship. Integrating ideas from the interdependence, goals, and embodiment literatures, this book puts a provocative new spin on seminal findings from two decades of collaborative research.

The book:

• provides a new, interdependence-based, perspective on motivated cognition in close relationships;
• advances a dyadic perspective that explores how motivation shapes perception and cognition in ways that result in motivation-consistent behavior;
• examines how "goal-driven" cognition translates a person's wishes, desires, and preferences into judgement and behavior, and ultimately, his or her romantic partner's relationship reality;
• offers a refreshing argument that the ultimate effects of motivated cognition on satisfaction and stability depend on whether the motivations which most frequently guide perception and cognition match the reality constraints imposed by the perceiver, the partner, and the characteristics of the relationship.

This book is essential for social and personality psychologists and will also be valuable to clinical psychologists and clinicians who work directly with couples to effect more happy and stable relationships. Advanced undergraduate and graduate students will find it a highly engaging compendium for understanding how motivation shapes affect, cognition, and behavior in close relationships.

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1

INTRODUCING MOTIVATED COGNITION

Love is a canvas furnished by Nature and embroidered by imagination.

Voltaire

There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.

Friedrich Nietzsche, “On Reading and Writing”

Love is not blind – it sees more, not less. But because it sees more, it is willing to see less.

Rabbi Julius Gordon

Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.

Robert Frost

Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love.

Charles M. Schulz, Charlie Brown in “Peanuts”

Social philosophers have long taken pen to paper to try to capture the essence of romantic love. Even the most haphazard samplings of their musings reveal the shared belief that love involves more than meets the eye. Falling in and out of love is thought to be transformative – turning what meets the eye into something that pleases or displeases the eye or even the taste buds (as in the case of the crestfallen Charlie Brown).

This process of transformation is the topic of this book. The idea that love transforms perception, cognition, and behavior is no stranger to anyone who has ever been in love or to anyone who has ever given advice to anyone who has ever been in love. It is certainly no stranger to social psychologists. Scholars of motivated cognition now take it as a given that personal wishes, desires, and preferences color the inferences people make about the social world (Balcetis & Dunning, 2010; Kunda, 1990).

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What happens if we take the deceptively simple assumption that motivation biases social inference and apply it to romantic relationships? What would it buy us? Could it help explain why speed-daters forgo the very suitors who possess the qualities they say they want (Finkel & Eastwick, 2008)? Could it reveal how people come to believe that someone who is nothing like them is a perfect match to their personality (Lykken & Tellegen, 1993)? Might it help us understand how newlyweds’ unconscious attitude toward one another can better forecast their marital fate than their conscious attitudes (McNulty, Olson, Meltzer, & Shaffer, 2013)? Could it explain why people with low self-esteem are happier in their relationships when they lose control over their thoughts (Murray, Derrick, Leder, & Holmes, 2008)? And might it also reveal why so many couples end up questioning why they ever got married in the first place, while others can be married 50 years and still be as happy together as they were when they first dated?

More than 20 years of studying adult close relationships as a collaborative team has convinced us that the answer to these questions is a resounding yes. We offer this book in the hope of explaining exactly how motivation infuses thought and behavior in romantic life. We do so with applied and conceptual objectives in mind.

On the applied side, we hope to dispel the popularized idea that happiness would reign in relationships if people were simply realistic and knew what they were getting in a partner. As perusing the self-help section in any bookstore reveals, there is no shortage of expert opinion attributing relationship fragility to partners’ failure to accurately understand one another. This book will reveal why such unadulterated perceptions of reality are not all that likely and probably not even all that advisable.

On the conceptual side, we plan to identify a short-list of basic motivations that color how romantic partners think and control how they behave. Although our list might ultimately prove to be too short (or too long), we are happy to risk being proven wrong. By boiling romantic life down to its motivational essentials, we hope to integrate what we know about perception and behavior in relationships in ways that can clarify and enhance relationship science. Of course, no simple short-list is likely to be sufficient to explain how motivation infuses romantic life. Relationships involve two people interacting across different situations (e.g., grocery shopping, budgeting, sex, childcare, social support, self-disclosure). Given this interdependent reality, we cannot simply describe how the short-listed motivations shape one partner’s thoughts and behaviors. We also need to consider how these motivations compete and change from one situation to the next and from one partner to the other. This book advances such an interactionist or situated perspective on how motivation infuses romantic life. By paying close attention to features of the situation and characteristics of the partner, we hope to reveal which of the perceiver’s motivations should win the battle for control over thought and behavior, and whether they prevail or not. In so doing, we hope to reveal the power of the motivational forces that bind and also break partners apart.

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So where do we begin? In this chapter, we first introduce four hypothetical heterosexual couples, each of whom will help bring the theory and research we detail to life: Katy and Todd, Sylvia and Brian, Arya and Aaron, and Skyler and Walt. Next, we review the classic perspectives on motivated cognition that served as our starting point in developing an interactionist or situated perspective on motivated cognition in relationships. We conclude this chapter by introducing the four major themes that serve as the intellectual pillars for this book. We introduce these themes largely through examples and build their theoretical and empirical supports in subsequent chapters.

The Couples

No two relationships are exactly alike. Nonetheless, couples are more alike than different in one important respect. Each phase of a relationship’s life cycle (e.g., first meeting, committing, becoming parents) poses similar adaptive dilemmas even if the details differ from one couple to the next. For instance, people who are about to meet a new romantic interest share a common problem – gauging this person’s reciprocal interest in them. Discerning romantic interest will likely be easier for someone meeting a gregarious partner than someone meeting a reticent one, but the underlying problem that needs to be solved is the same. Couples who set up a shared household together also share a common challenge – adjusting to a precipitous increase in tedious responsibilities. Sustaining commitment in the face of chores and bills will be easier for couples with compatible preferences than incompatible ones, but again, the underlying problem to be solved is still the same. We created the couples that populate the pages of this book to highlight the common adaptive problems developing relationships create. In so doing, we hope to bring to life our contention that motivation infuses romantic life specifically to provide solutions for these problems.

Katy and Todd

Katy, a recent college graduate, has suffered more than her share of awkward first and last dates. Hearing her best friend gush about the “perfect” man she met on Tinder inspired Katy to give it a try. That’s how she met Todd. Her first time on Tinder, she quickly dismissed dozens of possibilities before his photo and profile caught her eye. When they first met for coffee, she was drawn to him pretty immediately. The three-month anniversary of the first time they met for coffee is fast approaching and Katy wants to ask Todd to go away for the weekend with her. She was all set to ask him, but the last time they got together, Todd didn’t seem like himself. Now she isn’t sure what to do. She knows what she wants to do, but she’s not sure it’s wise.

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Sylvia and Brian

Sylvia and Brian met because they were both taking the same electives during their first year of college. They have been dating for four years and recently decided to get engaged. Since graduation, they both found jobs and met new friends. Their relationship has had its growing pains as a result. They even considered breaking up once. Their differences are more salient to them now. Brian is an avid athlete and an adventurous spirit and his new friends tell him that Sylvia is too bookish and conventional for him. Sylvia’s friends think that Brian has a few too many friends, especially female ones, and they tell Sylvia she should be more jealous. Despite these vocal naysayers, Brian and Sylvia are convinced they are meant to be together.

Arya and Aaron

Aaron finally persuaded Arya to marry him two years ago. She took a lot of convincing. Arya had always valued her independence and the idea of counting on Aaron to be there for her made her more than a little nervous. She had always had trouble trusting him, even though she did love him, and she just felt safer holding back. Their first year of marriage turned out much better than she had expected. Adjusting to life with Aaron certainly had its challenges. She was used to being in control of her own finances and now she had to explain her spending to Aaron. He also had to better mesh his tendency to be a night owl with her inclination to be an early bird. Even though she still caught herself wondering if she really deserved Aaron, she gradually discovered that Aaron really did seem to need her and she liked taking care of him, even if it was something as simple as making his lunch or picking out a book he’d like. Commitment did not seem as frightening to her now, much to her surprise.

Skyler and Walt

Skyler and Walt have been married for nearly a decade and they are beginning to wonder if they will make it through the next year, let alone the next 10 years. When they first got married, they were surprised by how compatible they were. They liked (a lot of) sex, agreed on finances, and enjoyed being out with friends as much as they enjoyed being home together. Walt’s occasional brashness was the only thing that ever gave Skyler pause. He liked people to get to the point quickly in conversation and he pushed Skyler to be more forthright and concise. Because he always listened to her in the end, Skyler had no trouble seeing Walt’s brashness as the downside of the intensity and passion she adored. But this changed after they had their first baby. Now his brashness makes Skyler feel unappreciated and dismissed. The financial stresses they experienced when she stayed home with Walt only made it even harder for her to see the best in Walt, even though she still wanted to see the best in him.¹

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What Is Motivated Cognition?

Scholars of motivated cognition assume that motivation biases attention, memory, and inference for a straightforward reason. People have needs and wants that must be fulfilled if they are to survive and be happy, healthy, and wise (Balcetis & Lassiter, 2010; Bruner & Goodman, 1947; Bruner & Postman, 1947; Maner et al., 2005). Someone who is thirsty needs to drink, someone who is cold needs shelter, someone who is lonely needs accepting friends, and someone who just married does not need to believe that she chose the wrong person and that the odds are better than even that she will one day divorce. The very fact that once-, twice-, and even thrice-divorced people marry again speaks to the power of the desire for optimism to triumph over experience in this regard.

Because people have needs and wants that must be met, it makes functional sense to perceive the world in ways that highlight opportunities for satiating those needs (Balcetis & Lassiter, 2010; Dunning & Balcetis, 2013; Radel & Clement-Guillotin, 2012). Someone who is thirsty should notice a water fountain, someone who is cold should spy an open window, and someone who is lonely should catch the first glimmer of a potential friend’s smile. Visual perceptions of the environment are indeed powerfully biased by motivation. Balcetis and Dunning (2006) made this point in a series of elegant experiments. In one of these experiments, they first created the wish or motivation to obtain a specific, desirable outcome and avoid an undesirable one. They told participants they would be consuming a delicious, highly palatable glass of freshly squeezed orange juice or a green, sludge-like vegetable concoction. Next they learned that a computer would decide their culinary fate. Half of the participants learned that they would consume the delectable orange juice if a letter appeared on the screen and the vegetable sludge if a number appeared. The other half learned they would consume the delectable orange juice if a number appeared and the vegetable sludge if a letter appeared. Participants then saw a short flash of an ambiguous image that could be either the letter B or the number 13. The researchers then asked participants what they saw. Participants “saw” the image that afforded the outcome they desired. They saw a “B” when letters led to the coveted orange juice and they instead saw a “13” when numbers led to it.

A follow-up to this study revealed that motivation not only biases what people see, but motivation even biases when people see. When words are presented just below the threshold for conscious awareness, hungry people accurately identify food-related words that could satisfy their cravings (e.g., cake), though they cannot identify neutral words (that could do nothing to satisfy their hunger). Sated people are just as blind to these food-related words as they are to neutral words (Radel & Clement-Guillotin, 2012).

Motivation can also bias visual perception when the physical feature of the world to be judged is much less ambiguous. In another set of creative studies, Balcetis and Dunning (2007) activated the wish or motivation to protect one’s self-image as a good person who makes sensible decisions for sound reasons. For most college students, choosing to traipse across the campus quad dressed in a grass skirt, coconut bra, and fruit-adorned hat challenges such a self-perception. So does volunteering to kneel on a skateboard and push oneself up a muddy hill. Balcetis and Dunning reasoned that people who freely committed themselves to such courses of action could satisfy the motivation to see themselves as good and sensible if they perceived the physical distance across the quad to be short and the slope of the hill to be gradual. That is exactly what they found. People who freely committed to traversing the quad while dressed outrageously saw a shorter physical distance from start to end point than people who had no choice in the matter. Similarly, people who freely committed to pushing the skateboard through the mud perceived a less steep hill than people who had no choice in the matter.

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The Classic Conceptualization

In a now classic paper, Kunda (1990) made the case that motivation also has the power to bias higher-order categorization, inference, and evaluation processes. She defined motivation as a “wish, desire, or preference” concerning the outcome of a given reasoning task (p. 480). For instance, our newlywed Arya who wants to believe that she really did marry the “right” person in the end is motivated to see her new husband Aaron’s behavior in ways that support this conclusion. Consequently, when he forgets her birthday, she is likely to evaluate this lapse with a particular conclusion already in mind. She wants to see it as inconsequential. However, she cannot just declare it inconsequential because she needs to believe that her husband prioritizes her needs. According to Kunda (1990), Arya needs to come up with a good and compelling reason to believe that this lapse truly is inconsequential. Attributing Aaron’s forgetting her birthday to his lack of sleep during a busy week at work would serve just such a purpose.

This forgiving attribution probably seems perfectly logical, but it captures a motivated inference nonetheless. In grasping on to Aaron’s fatigue as the explanation for his lapse in memory, Arya conveniently failed to notice that he did manage to remember all of his social engagements with friends on the days surrounding her birthday. Wanting to think the best of Aaron zeroed her attention on the exculpatory evidence (Voss, Ruthermond, & Brandtstädter, 2008). As this example illustrates, people have great flexibility to believe what they want because the desire to reach a particular conclusion biases which pieces of evidence capture attention, surface in memory, and appear credible to discerning eyes (Helzer & Dunning, 2012; Kunda, 1987, 1990). Consequently, people can think they are being objective because they do not realize how their wishes, desires, or preferences have already filtered which aspects of the social world they even notice or remember (Griffin & Ross, 1991).

For instance, people who have been led to believe that extraverts hold the secret to academic success are faster to access memories of themselves being the life of the party than people who have been led to believe that introverts hold the secret to academic success (Kunda & Sanitioso, 1989). People also seem to have no trouble maintaining the desired belief that they are smarter than average, or more cultured than average, or better drivers than average because they define the self-concept they desire in ways that suit their own idiosyncratic aptitudes (Dunning, Meyerowitz, & Holzberg, 1989). For instance, someone who excels in language arts, yet struggles mightily in math, is likely to regard writing skill as the marker of intelligence. Similarly, people can maintain the optimistic belief that they will stay fit and healthy in the future by impugning any suggestion that a steady diet of Doritos puts them at risk (Ditto & Lopez, 1992).

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A Relationship Conceptualization

The research highlighted thus far illust...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Motivated Cognition in Relationships
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• About the Authors
• 1 Introducing Motivated Cognition
• 2 Embodying Safety and Value Goals
• 3 Pursuing Safety
• 4 Pursuing Value
• 5 Why Safety Overrides Value
• 6 When Value Overrides Safety
• 7 Reality Constraints
• 8 Looking Forward
• References
• Author Index
• Subject Index