Automatic partner attitudes and daily experiences of mood and relationship satisfaction

Automatic partner attitudes can be conceptualized as associations stored in memory between a partner and one's evaluation of that partner that are spontaneously activated upon thoughts of or encounters with the partner. Although more negative automatic partner attitudes have been shown to predict worse relationship outcomes over extended periods of time, it is less clear how such attitudes are related to personal and relationship well-being on a daily basis. Using a sample of newlywed couples, we assessed automatic partner attitudes implicitly and then assessed relationship evaluations, positive mood, and negative mood every day for 14 days. On average, more negative automatic partner attitudes were associated with more negative and less positive daily mood but unrelated to daily relationship evaluations. Nevertheless, the association between automatic partner attitudes and daily relationship evaluations was moderated by relationship length, such that more negative automatic partner attitudes were associated with more negative daily relationship evaluations among people in longer relationships, but with more positive daily relationship evaluations among people in shorter relationships. These findings suggest that people experience evaluative feelings activated by their partners as mood on a daily basis and, as the relationship lengthens, they may learn to use this affect to evaluate their relationships. The latter possibility may help explain why automatic partner attitudes predict relationship outcomes over time and suggests that effectively maintaining positive relationship evaluations requires cognitive and behavioral strategies that minimize negative associations involving the partner. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).