ReportThe role of self-regulation in derogating attractive alternatives
Introduction
Although having a steady romantic relationship usually offers many positive outcomes such as intimacy and social support, the maintenance of a romantic relationship is not always guaranteed. Even in marital relationships, adherence to the “until death do us part” vow is the exception rather than the rule (Martin, 2006). One of the greatest potential threats to the stability of a romantic relationship are attractive opposite-sex persons (Kelly and Thibaut, 1978, Simpson et al., 1990).1 As a case in point, recent figures indicate that, at least in the Netherlands, “someone else” is the number two reason for divorce (next to incompatible personalities; Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek (CBS), 2006).
At the same time, research suggests that people often do attempt to shield their ongoing relationship from the lure of attractive alternatives. For example, romantically involved people tend to pay less attention to attractive opposite-sex others (Miller, 1997), and display less behavioral signs of interest when interacting with an attractive alternative (Karremans & Verwijmeren, 2008), as compared to people without a romantic relationship. Moreover, and most relevant to the current research, romantically involved individuals tend to evaluate the attractiveness of opposite-sex others less positively in comparison to those who are not romantically involved (i.e., the derogation effect; Johnson and Rusbult, 1989, Simpson et al., 1990). For example, Simpson and colleagues (1990) demonstrated that individuals involved in a dating relationship, as compared to those not in a relationship, judged opposite-sex others that were presented in magazine ads as less physically attractive.
Although the derogation effect has been observed in a number of other studies (Karremans and Verwijmeren, 2008, Lydon et al., 2003, Lydon et al., 1999), it is less clear how romantically involved individuals derogate attractive alternatives. Do these findings imply that they are so passionately committed to their ongoing relationship partner that they have no interest in potential other partners at all? Do they automatically derogate attractive others? Or do people have to regulate their interest in attractive others to shield their ongoing relationship? In the present research, we argue that the latter option is more plausible, and propose that self-regulation, defined as the capacity to override one’s desires, thoughts, and habitual patterns of behavior (Baumeister, Schmeichel, & Vohs, 2007), plays a critical role in shielding one’s romantic relationship from the temptation of attractive alternatives.
Previous research has indicated that people seem to be pulled almost automatically toward attractive others. For example, Van Leeuwen and Macrae (2004) demonstrated that people respond with automatic approach tendencies upon seeing attractive versus non-attractive others. These findings converge with neurophysiological evidence demonstrating that even mere eye contact with attractive people activates reward-related brain activity (Kampe, Frith, Dolan, & Frith, 2001). This may suggest that, irrespective of one’s current relationship status, a person’s initial and automatic response to appealing opposite-sex others is to feel attracted to them. However, from a relationship maintenance perspective, it would not be functional to give into such automatically evoked responses of attraction. For example, attraction to an alternative partner may negatively influence one’s commitment to and pro-relationship motivations towards one’s current partner, which obviously might undermine the stability of the ongoing relationship. To protect one’s current relationship, a better strategy would be to control one’s initially felt interest in attractive opposite-sex others, and to derogate the attractiveness of the alternative as a potential partner.
There is some evidence suggesting that self-regulation plays an important role in other domains of relationship functioning and maintenance. For example, it has been demonstrated that self-regulation promotes behaving in a constructive manner in response to a romantic partner’s potentially destructive behavior (Finkel and Campbell, 2001, Tangney et al., 2004). These findings suggest that the capacity for self-regulation helps individuals to overcome initial and automatically evoked impulses to respond negatively in return, and instead to respond in a more forgiving, relationship-constructive manner. In a similar vein, we reason that self-regulation helps romantically involved individuals to suppress their automatically evoked feelings of attraction toward appealing opposite-sex others, and instead to derogate the attractiveness of such others. In this manner, the relationship benefits of self-regulation may not be restricted to how people respond to their own romantic partner during conflict, but may also extend to how people deal with the temptation of attractive alternatives.
Although there are relatively stable individual differences in self-regulation capacity, the present research examines how moment-to-moment fluctuations in self-regulation may affect how people respond to attractive alternatives. This “in the moment” self-regulatory strength represents the ability to control impulses at a particular time and in a particular situation (Baumeister & Heatherton, 1996). According to Baumeister and Heatherton’s (1996) self-regulatory strength model, self-regulatory strength is a limited, depletable, and renewable resource that can be influenced by prior volitional exertion. Previous research has provided strong evidence for the validity of this model, demonstrating that people’s performance on a self-regulation task reduced when they had to exert high levels of self-regulation in a preceding or simultaneously executed task (for an overview see Baumeister & Vohs, 2004). This state of impairment is known as ‘self-regulatory resource depletion’ (Schmeichel, Vohs, & Baumeister, 2003).
In correspondence with this model, research has for example demonstrated that dieters are more likely to resist the temptation of eating chocolates when they have sufficient self-regulatory resources than when their self-regulation strength is depleted (Vohs & Heatherton, 2000). Similarly, when self-regulation resources are less available or depleted, we expect romantically involved individuals to be especially vulnerable to the temptation of attractive alternatives. Under such circumstances, based on their initial and automatically evoked response (i.e., attraction), they are expected to display relatively high interest in attractive-opposite-sex others. In contrast, when self-regulatory resources are available, romantically involved individuals would be able to exert their self-regulatory strength in order to control such initial responses, and as a result would show less interest in attractive alternatives.
There is some preliminary evidence for this prediction. Gailliot and Baumeister (2007) demonstrated that under conditions of relatively high as compared to low self-regulatory capacity, participants reported that they would be less likely to engage in extra-relationship sexual activity. However, participants in this study merely imagined being in a relationship, and their actual relationship status was not reported. In the current study, we examine differences between people who are actually involved versus not involved in a romantic relationship. In particular, we are interested in the possible role of self-regulation in suppressing initial positive evaluations of attractive alternatives as a mechanism for protecting one’s ongoing relationship.
Two studies were conducted to test the general hypothesis that self-regulation plays an important role in resisting the temptation of attractive alternatives. In both studies, after the capacity for self-regulation was manipulated, romantically involved and non-involved participants indicated their interest in attractive and unattractive opposite-sex persons. In Study 1, self-regulatory strength was manipulated by means of a depletion manipulation; in Study 2, the ability for exerting self-regulation was manipulated by means of a time-pressure manipulation. Based on the reasoning outlined above, we expected that among romantically involved participants relatively high (as compared to low) self-regulation capacity would result in less interest in the attractive opposite-sex others. Such findings are not expected with regard to unattractive others, and are not expected to occur for single participants.
Finally, we explored whether the quality of the relationship would modulate the proposed effect of self-regulation on interest in attractive alternatives. For example, if commitment and satisfaction with the current relationship partner are high, there is “more at stake” and people are therefore expected to be more strongly motivated to shield their current relationship from attractive alternatives (Johnson and Rusbult, 1989, Karremans and Verwijmeren, 2008). Hence, highly committed and satisfied romantically involved individuals might be more likely to use their self-regulatory capacities to devaluate attractive alternatives.
Section snippets
Study 1
Study 1 seeks to provide initial evidence that self-regulation facilitates romantically involved participants’ derogation of tempting alternatives. After participants’ self-regulation strength was manipulated, they indicated their interest in attractive and unattractive opposite-sex others as potential partners.
Study 2
Study 1 provided initial evidence for the role of self-regulation in dealing with attractive alternatives. In the introduction, we reasoned that self-regulatory resources help people in controlling their initial automatic response of attraction toward attractive alternatives. That is, whereas in case of relatively low self-regulatory resources, people respond on their initial automatic responses; when self-regulatory resources are high, they should be able to control their responses by lowering
General discussion
Two studies demonstrated that, with ample self-regulatory resources, romantically involved participants show less interest in attractive opposite-sex others as compared to singles. However, when the possibility for self-regulation was reduced, both studies demonstrated that romantically involved participants displayed as much interest in attractive opposite-sex others as singles. Together, these findings demonstrate that self-regulation capacity plays a crucial role in people’s responses to
Conclusion
Relationship dissolution is not only quite common, but can also have a serious impact on the well-being of people’s lives. Given that one of the main reasons for relationship problems and dissolution is the involvement of one of the partners in an alternative relationship, it is important to understand why individuals often fail to resist the lure of attractive alternatives. The current research demonstrates that self-regulation plays an important role in resisting temptation to attractive
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