Friendships and Romantic Relationships: Reactions to Social Network Members’ Disapproval of one’s Romantic Relationship Study 3
Creators: name: Sigler, Kirby
name: Forest, Amanda
Publisher: name: Open Science Framework
Year: 2022
Subjects: subject: Social Psychology
subject: Social and Behavioral Sciences
subject: Psychology
subject: FOS: Psychology

description: From their inception, to their possible dissolution, romantic relationships are embedded within a larger social network made up of friends, families, coworkers, acquaintances, and others in the surrounding environment (Sprecher et al., 2006). Extant research suggests that social network approval (or disapproval) for ones’ relationship is associated with key relational outcomes such as relationship commitment (Cox et al. 1997), stability (Le et al. 2010), and satisfaction (Sprecher and Felmlee 1992), as well as relationship dissolution (Sprecher et al., 2006). Much of this work suggests that social network disapproval decreases relationship satisfaction and stability (Sprecher and Felmlee 2000), while other research suggests that social network disapproval intensifies romantic love and bond, at least for a short period of time following initial disapproval (Driscoll et al., 1972). In two initial studies, I examined how people behave in the face of social network disapproval of their relationship, and how romantic relationship and friendship commitment predict endorsement of specific behavioral responses. My findings suggest that people may react to perceiving disapproval of their romantic relationship from network members in a variety of ways, including drawing close to one’s partner, distancing oneself from their partner, distancing from the disapprover, addressing the disapproval, avoiding situations relating to the disapproval, and ignoring the disapproval. These studies begin to illuminate how people respond to social network disapproval of their romantic relationship, but there is much to be learned. First, it is unclear which behaviors are specifically prompted by social network disapproval of one’s relationship. Experimental evidence would allow me to determine whether certain behavioral responses are enacted or heightened specifically when individuals’ relationships are under the threat of social network disapproval, compared to when their relationships are not. Additionally, an experimental paradigm would allow me to uncover whether highly committed partners (versus less committed partners) are disproportionately likely to engage in some behaviors as a response to threat, over and above any tendency to engage in these behaviors in the absence of this threat. Expanding on the results from Study 1 and Study 2 with an experimental paradigm will help answer these remaining questions, as well as lay the foundation for examining impacts of certain behavioral responses to social network disapproval. The purpose of this study is to examine how people behave in the face of social network disapproval of their romantic relationship. Specifically, I seek to uncover which behavioral responses are affected by the receipt of social network disapproval for one’s romantic relationship versus a no disapproval control condition. Further, I intend to examine whether commitment to the romantic relationship and/or commitment to the friend moderates these disapproval condition effects.