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During a 2-month period this investigation followed 342 individuals who were keeping a secret, focusing on predictors and outcomes of revelation. Rumination, identity-related concerns, and self-esteem were the variables of interest. Rumination at the beginning of the study was associated negatively with self-esteem and was positively correlated with identity-related concerns. Despite their positive association with one another, rumination and the identity factors clashed in their impact on the decision to reveal the secret. Finally, the revelation of secrets seems to decrease rumination and increase self-esteem, but only to the extent that the target's reaction was positive and the revelation decreased the self-relevance of the secret for the discloser, respectively. A complex picture emerges of the process of secret concealment and revelation.

Deception is a common strategy for securing a first date with someone from an online dating site. But does the possibility of a second date still exist if deception was used to get the first one? To address this question, we investigated the effects of online dating deception on people's subsequent offline interactions. Online daters ( N = 94) were surveyed before and after their first date with a prospective partner. Their emails through the online dating site were also analyzed for linguistic markers of deception. Juxtaposing the self-report and observational email data revealed a positive association between participants' deception and negative emotion words. Further results indicated that participants' perceptions of their partner's deception—but not their own—negatively predicted first date success.

AbstractThis study uses a longitudinal design to investigate the effects of online dating sites on first date success. Participants were surveyed before their first date with someone from an online dating site (N = 186) and again after meeting their partner in person (N = 94). As part of the survey, they also supplied the e‐mails they had sent to their partner through the dating site so their actual communication could be examined. Findings indicated that first date success was predictable from features of participants' online impressions and relational dynamics. The results are discussed in terms of their theoretical and methodological contributions to the literature on relationship development, as well as their practical implications for online dating sites and users.

In spite of research connecting the demand/withdraw pattern of marital interaction to marital dissatisfaction, questions remain about its association with marital satisfaction when it is considered in the context of other interpersonal behaviors. We explore the possibility that the correlation between demand/withdraw and dissatisfaction merely reflects the ubiquitous finding that expressions of negative affect are associated with dissatisfaction. We also examine whether the association between demand/withdraw and satisfaction is less strong when spouses have a highly affectionate marriage. Based on the current investigation, the demand/withdraw pattern of communication appears to be empirically distinguishable from the extent to which partners express negativity in their everyday lives, and it seems to account for variation in marital satisfaction over and above partners' affectionate behaviors and negativity. Moreover, the inverse association between demand/withdraw and marital satisfaction may be less strong when one partner frequently expresses affection in daily life. Together, these results imply potential advantages to further exploring the interdependence among behaviors within marital interaction systems.

This study focuses on the transition to extended family that occurs as marriage creates in-law relationships along with the spousal unit. Specifically, it utilizes both the relational turbulence model and the multiple goals perspective to examine variations in communication avoidance and satisfaction with one's in-law relationship. Our model proposes that key mechanisms of relational turbulence (i.e., relational uncertainty and interference from partners) are associated with in-law's communicative goals (such as managing uncertainty, fostering a positive in-law identity, and maintaining family relationships), which in turn are associated with topic avoidance. In addition, we hypothesized that relational uncertainty, interference from partners, and the use of topic avoidance would be associated with dissatisfaction in nascent in-law bonds. A cross-sectional analysis of data from 203 children-in-law revealed that in addition to direct associations among relational uncertainty, interference from partners, topic avoidance, and satisfaction, children-in-law's uncertainty management goals mediated a portion of the association between the mechanisms of turbulence and topic avoidance. These findings are consistent with our proposed model, suggesting important implications for our understanding of the transition to extended family, as well as our understanding of relational turbulence and multiple goals in in-law relationships.

Type 2 diabetes has deleterious physiological, psychological, and relational effects both on people living with diabetes (PLWD) and on their family members. We employed the communal coping model to investigate whether coping alongside family members was advantageous. Specifically, PLWD (n = 213) and family members of PLWD (n = 208) completed an online survey assessing their coping responses and a variety of diabetes‐related outcomes (i.e., depressive symptoms, relationship satisfaction, and self‐care). Generally, results indicated that more communal coping was beneficial. However, a second goal of this study was to examine discrepancies between levels of actual communal coping and desired communal coping, and the findings from these analyses add nuance to the generally held belief that more communal coping is always better.

AbstractThis investigation examines whether individuals' reasons for keeping secrets predict whether they eventually reveal those secrets and whether individuals can accurately anticipate the outcomes of revealing. Respondents (n= 342) first reported on a secret they were keeping and then returned 2 months later to report whether they had revealed it and, if so, what happened when they did. Findings indicated that participants' reasons for keeping a secret predicted whether they revealed it. The results also indicated both accuracy and inaccuracy in secret tellers' expectations of the outcomes of revealing a secret. Finally, despite some demonstrable inaccuracies in the forecasted outcomes, participants' retrospective accounts after revealing suggested that participants typically believed that they had accurately predicted the consequences of revealing.