Regulating relationship risk: Partner responsiveness as a safety signal
Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 29, 2025

Psychophysiological Assessment of the Effectiveness of Emotion Regulation Strategies in Childhood
Published on: February 11, 2017
1University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, Buffalo, NY, 14260-4110, USA.
Abstract:
People are fundamentally motivated to be included in safe relationships - relationships where they are consistently cared for and protected. Building on the risk-regulation model, this article describes five cues (i.e., affectionate touch, gratitude, acceptance, investments, power) that romantic partners can use to gauge their value to one another, and thus, how safe they are trusting one another to be responsive in specific situations. It also describes how feeling more versus less safe in response to these cues contingently motivates partners to increase connection versus protect themselves against being hurt. The article concludes by describing how people who are chronically less trusting misread these cues, a pessimistic bias that results in them protecting themselves against being hurt unnecessarily, compromising connection.
Related Concept Videos
Theory of Romantic Attachment in Adulthood
Relationship Formation
Obedience
Types of Biopharmaceutical Studies: Controlled and Non-Controlled Approaches
Non-controlled studies, commonly employed for initial exploration, lack a control group, rendering them susceptible to biases and external influences. In contrast,...
Reliability and Validity
Relative Risk

