essay about promoting healthy relationship

12 Elements of Healthy Relationships

In every relationship , it’s important to consider how we treat  one an other.  Whether it’s  romantic , platonic , familial, intimate , or sexual , your relationship  with another should be respectful, honest, and fun.  

When relationships are healthy, they promote  emotional and social  well ness .  When relationships are unhealthy,  you  may feel drained, overwhelmed, and  invisible .   

In a pandemic, it’s even more important to consid er how you engage with others.   B oundaries, communication, and time apart  are vital to having relationships everyone  involved  feels good about.   Reflect on your current relationships and consider how you can incorporate the  elements  listed below:  

• Communication . The way you talk with friends or partners is an important part of a relationship. Everyone involved should be able to communicate feelings, opinions, and beliefs. When communicating, consider tone and phrasing. Miscommunication often occurs when individuals choose to text versus talking in person or a phone call. Figuring out the best ways to express your feelings together will help eliminate miscommunication.
• Boundaries . Boundaries are physical, emotional, and mental limits or guidelines a person sets for themselves which others need to respect. You and your partners or friends should feel comfortable in the activities you are doing together. All individuals involved should be respectful of boundaries. Whether it’s romantic, sexual, or platonic, consider what you want the relationship to look like and discuss it with the other(s).
• Consent . Consent is important in all relationships. Consent is uncoerced permission to interact with the body or the life of another person. Coercion can look like pressure to do something, physical force, bargaining, or someone holding power over another to get what they want. Consent can look like asking about boundaries in relationships, actively listening to responses, and always respecting those boundaries.
• Trust . Each person in the relationship should have confidence in one another. If you are questioning whether to trust someone, it may be important to communicate your feelings to them. Consider what makes you not trust someone. Is it something they did, or is it something you’ve experienced in other relationships?
• Honesty . Honesty is important for communication. Each person within the relationship or friendship should have the opportunity to express their feelings and concerns. If you don’t feel comfortable being honest with someone, consider why and seek support if needed.
• Independence . It’s important to have time to yourself in any relationship. Having opportunities to hang with others or time for self-care is important to maintain a healthy relationship. If you live with your partner(s) or friend(s), set up designated areas within your place where you can spend time alone.
• Equality . Each person in the relationship should have an equal say in what’s going on. Listen to each other and respect boundaries.
• Support . Each person in the relationship should feel supported. It’s important to have compassion and empathy for one another. In addition to supporting one another, it’s important to recognize your own needs and communicate boundaries around support.
• Responsibility . Some days you may find you said something hurtful or made a mistake. Make sure to take responsibility for your actions and do not place the blame on your partner(s) or friend(s). Taking responsibility for your actions will further trust and honesty.
• Healthy conflict . You may think conflict is a sign of an unhealthy relationship, but talking about issues or disagreements is normal. You won’t find a person that has the exact same interests, opinions, and beliefs as you; thus, at times disagreements may occur. Communicating your feelings and opinions while being respectful and kind is part of a healthy relationship.
• Safety . Safety is the foundation of connection in a relationship. In order to set boundaries, communicate, and have fun, everyone must feel safe. If you do not feel safe to express your feelings, have independence, or anything else on this list, seek support using the resources below.
• Fun . In addition to all these components, you should be enjoying the time you spend with others. Again, it’s important that your relationships promote your well-being and do not diminish it.

Want to learn more about healthy relationships? Check out this quiz by Love is Respect , a project of the National Domestic Violence Hotline .

If you or someone you know is in an unhealthy or abusive relationship, the university has confidential, non-confidential, and peer-led resources you can contact for help and support.

Confidential resources provide assistance and support and information shared is protected and cannot be reported unless given explicit permission from the individual that disclosed; there is imminent threat of harm to the individual or others; the conduct involves suspected abuse of a minor under the age of 18; or otherwise permitted by law or court order.

Non-confidential resources are available to provide support or assistance to individuals but are not confidential and may have broader obligations to report information. Non-confidential resources will report information only to the necessary departments, such as Office of Institutional Equity (OIE).

Peer-led resources are available to provide support and assistance. Services are provided by Johns Hopkins students, and are non-confidential.

Hopkins Confidential Resources

• Counseling Center : 410-516-8278 (press 1 for the on-call counselor). Serves all full-time undergraduate & graduate students from KSAS, WSE, and Peabody.
• Counseling Center Sexual Assault HelpLine: 410-516-7333. Serves all Johns Hopkins students.
• Student Health and Wellness Center : 410-516-4784. Serves all full-time, part-time, and visiting undergraduate and graduate students from KSAS, WSE, and Peabody. Serves post-doctoral fellows enrolled in KSAS, WSE, School of Education, and Sheridan Libraries.
• Religious and Spiritual Life : 410-516-1880.
• Gender Violence Prevention and Education: Alyse Campbell, [email protected] , book a time to chat at: tinyurl.com/MeetwAlyse . Serves all Johns Hopkins students.
• University Health Services (UHS): 410-955-3250
• Mental Health Services : 410-955-1892
• Johns Hopkins Student Assistance Program (JHSAP): 443-287-7000. Serves graduate, medical, and professional students, and immediate family members.

Hopkins Non-confidential Resources

• Hopkins Sexual Assault Response and Prevention website
• Campus Safety and Security : 410-516-7777
• Office of LGBTQ Life : [email protected]
• Office of Institutional Equity : 410-516-8075
• Office of the Dean of Student Life : 410-516-8208

Peer-Led Resources

• Sexual Assault Resource Unit (SARU): Private hotline: 410-516-7887. Serves all Johns Hopkins students.
• A Place to Talk (available on Zoom). Serves Homewood undergrads.

Community Resources

• TurnAround Inc. Hotline : 443-279-0379
• Rape, Abuse, and Incest, National Network : National Sexual Assault Hotline 1-800-656-4673
• Maryland Coalition Against Sexual Assault (MCASA)
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The Power of Healthy Relationships at Work

• Emma Seppälä
• Nicole K. McNichols

Five research-backed principles to cultivate stronger workplace relationships.

Research shows that leaders who prioritize relationships with their employees and lead from a place of positivity and kindness simply do better, and company culture has a bigger influence on employee well-being than salary and benefits. When it comes to cultivating happiness at work, it comes down to fostering positive relationships at work. Citing research from the field of social psychology, the authors outline five core principles that make all relationships, personal or professional, thrive: 1) transparency and authenticity, 2) inspiration, 3) emotional intelligence, 4) self-care, and 5) values.

Kushal Choksi was a successful Wall Street quant who had just entered the doors of the second twin tower on 9/11 when it got hit. As Choksi describes in his best-selling book, On a Wing and a Prayer , his brush with death was a wakeup call. Having mainly focused on wealth acquisition before 9/11, he began to question his approach to work.

• Emma Seppälä , PhD, is a faculty member at the Yale School of Management, faculty director of the Yale School of Management’s Women’s Leadership Program and bestselling author of SOVEREIGN (2024) and The Happiness Track (2017). She is also science director of Stanford University’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education . Follow her work at emmaseppala.com , http://www.iamsov.com or on Instagram . emmaseppala
• Nicole K. McNichols  Ph.D. is an Associate Teaching Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Washington where she teaches courses about sex and relationship science in addition to industrial and organizational psychology. Follow her work at  www.nicolethesexprofessor.com and on Instagram .

Partner Center

• Love & Relationships

The Science Behind Happy Relationships

W hen it comes to relationships , most of us are winging it. We’re exhilarated by the early stages of love , but as we move onto the general grind of everyday life, personal baggage starts to creep in and we can find ourselves floundering in the face of hurt feelings, emotional withdrawal, escalating conflict, insufficient coping techniques and just plain boredom. There’s no denying it: making and keeping happy and healthy relationships is hard.

But a growing field of research into relationships is increasingly providing science-based guidance into the habits of the healthiest, happiest couples — and how to make any struggling relationship better. As we’ve learned, the science of love and relationships boils down to fundamental lessons that are simultaneously simple, obvious and difficult to master: empathy, positivity and a strong emotional connection drive the happiest and healthiest relationships.

Maintaining a strong emotional connection

“The most important thing we’ve learned, the thing that totally stands out in all of the developmental psychology, social psychology and our lab’s work in the last 35 years is that the secret to loving relationships and to keeping them strong and vibrant over the years, to falling in love again and again, is emotional responsiveness,” says Sue Johnson, a clinical psychologist in Ottawa and the author of several books, including Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love .

That responsiveness, in a nutshell, is all about sending a cue and having the other person respond to it. “The $99 million question in love is, ‘Are you there for me?’” says Johnson. “It’s not just, ‘Are you my friend and will you help me with the chores?’ It’s about emotional synchronicity and being tuned in.”

“Every couple has differences,” continues Johnson. “What makes couples unhappy is when they have an emotional disconnection and they can’t get a feeling of secure base or safe haven with this person.” She notes that criticism and rejection — often met with defensiveness and withdrawal — are exceedingly distressing, and something that our brain interprets as a danger cue.

To foster emotional responsiveness between partners, Johnson pioneered Emotionally Focused Therapy , in which couples learn to bond through having conversations that express needs and avoid criticism. “Couples have to learn how to talk about feelings in ways that brings the other person closer,” says Johnson.

Keeping things positive

According to Carrie Cole, director of research for the Gottman Institute , an organization dedicated to the research of marriage, emotional disengagement can easily happen in any relationship when couples are not doing things that create positivity. “When that happens, people feel like they’re just moving further and further apart until they don’t even know each other anymore,” says Cole. That focus on positivity is why the Gottman Institute has embraced the motto “small things often.” The Gottman Lab has been studying relationship satisfaction since the 1970s, and that research drives the Institute’s psychologists to encourage couples to engage in small, routine points of contact that demonstrate appreciation.

One easy place to start is to find ways to compliment your partner every day, says Cole — whether it’s expressing your appreciation for something they’ve done or telling them, specifically, what you love about them. This exercise can accomplish two beneficial things: First, it validates your partner and helps them feel good about themselves. And second, it helps to remind you why you chose that person in the first place.

Listen to the brain, not just your heart

When it comes to the brain and love, biological anthropologist and Kinsey Institute senior fellow Helen Fisher has found — after putting people into a brain scanner — that there are three essential neuro-chemical components found in people who report high relationship satisfaction: practicing empathy, controlling one’s feelings and stress and maintaining positive views about your partner.

In happy relationships, partners try to empathize with each other and understand each other’s perspectives instead of constantly trying to be right. Controlling your stress and emotions boils down to a simple concept: “Keep your mouth shut and don’t act out,” says Fisher. If you can’t help yourself from getting mad, take a break by heading out to the gym, reading a book, playing with the dog or calling a friend — anything to get off a destructive path. Keeping positive views of your partner, which Fisher calls “positive illusions,” are all about reducing the amount of time you spend dwelling on negative aspects of your relationship. “No partner is perfect, and the brain is well built to remember the nasty things that were said,” says Fisher. “But if you can overlook those things and just focus on what’s important, it’s good for the body, good for the mind and good for the relationship.”

Happier relationships, happier life

Ultimately, the quality of a person’s relationships dictates the quality of their life. “Good relationships aren’t just happier and nicer,” says Johnson. “When we know how to heal [relationships] and keep them strong, they make us resilient. All these clichés about how love makes us stronger aren’t just clichés; it’s physiology. Connection with people who love and value us is our only safety net in life.”

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Creating a Healthy Loving Relationship Essay

Introduction.

The most important ingredient for a healthy relationship is unwavering love. Love can be described as a feeling of cherishing and holding each other dearly and unconditionally. The prayer for everyone who is in, or intends to get into a relationship is that the relationship will be healthy and loving for as long as it takes. However, whether relationship will be healthy depends on the mutual commitment of the partners in building and maintaining the bond between them through loyalty, acceptance, communication, and appreciation among others. In building a healthy loving relationship, four key behavioral qualities must be entrenched; respect, trust, honest and caring.

Is essential as it shows concern for the other person’s wellbeing. It involves empathy and accommodation while appreciating the other person’s feelings and offering a shoulder to lean on. According to Wlliams (2006) care involves feeling that the happiness of the other person is more important than your own happiness. Offering support to the other partner at all times and in all endeavors enhances the bonding and creates a path for commitment of either partner in his/her role in the relationship. A healthy loving relationship depends on how well the couple is able to resolve conflicts as they arise in which case reflective listening is paramount. Identifying and solving, and expressing differences caringly is important to the couple’s wellbeing (Schaeffer 1997).

Is a feeling of confidence and faith with the other half that he/she can be relied upon without reservations. This means that, both partners should be committed to earning trust by appreciating each other and being morally upright with utmost value and dignity thus creating a sense of security to each other. In addition, spending time together and being consistent with amount of time spent together builds trust. For trust to prevail, their must be agreement between the partners which gives a sense of moral self integrity and dedication to either partner. Where agreement fails or breaks down, the relationship suffers from eroded trust and breakdown in communication, the remedy of which is to amend or institute a new agreement as soon as possible before the damage becomes worse.

Keeps the relationship intact as, apart from building trust, it ensures both partners engage in truth and meaningful communication with no intent to hurt each other whatsoever. Being honest with oneself also helps to be honest to the other partner. Even where problems are available, admitting their existence means being honest, which in turn acts as a step towards seeking solution. Openness with undistorted information whether negative or not, provided it is the truth is important to keep the relationship intact. Withholding the truth may become disastrous in future in case the truth is revealed in one way or another.

For each other tends to ensure that the values and feelings of either partner are appreciated and not compromised. This means that, both partners value, appreciate and understand each other and in the process tend to accommodate each other. Communication plays a vital role in establishing respect in that, the tone and level of command used influences the level of respect portrayed. Listening as twice as you speak and understanding other person’s boundaries helps to create respect and ignite the mutual bonding in the relationship.

In conclusion, the path to a healthy loving relationship is commitment by both partners to their roles and embodiment of love that is unconditional. In addition upholding the tenets of care, honesty trust and respect, not only shows willingness to foster love, but also enhances connectivity between partners.

Benokraitis, Nijole Vaicaitis. Marriages and families: changes, choices, and constraints. 2 nd Edition, 1996. NJ: Prentice Hall.

Schaeffer, Brenda. Is It Love or Is It Addiction. 2 nd Edition, 1997. MN: Hazelden Publishing.

Williams, Richard N. “Loving and Caring for Each Other”. Loving and Caring for Each Other. 2006. Web.

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IvyPanda. (2021, November 1). Creating a Healthy Loving Relationship. https://ivypanda.com/essays/creating-a-healthy-loving-relationship/

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IvyPanda . 2021. "Creating a Healthy Loving Relationship." November 1, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/creating-a-healthy-loving-relationship/.

1. IvyPanda . "Creating a Healthy Loving Relationship." November 1, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/creating-a-healthy-loving-relationship/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Creating a Healthy Loving Relationship." November 1, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/creating-a-healthy-loving-relationship/.

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Essay on Healthy Relationships

Students are often asked to write an essay on Healthy Relationships in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Healthy Relationships

What is a healthy relationship.

A healthy relationship is like a good friendship. It is when two people spend time together and enjoy each other’s company. They respect each other, listen to each other, and understand each other’s needs. They support each other in good and bad times. A healthy relationship is full of love, trust, and happiness.

Importance of Communication

Talking and listening are important in a healthy relationship. It helps people understand each other better. They can share their feelings, thoughts, and ideas. Good communication also helps to solve problems and avoid misunderstandings.

Trust and Honesty

Trust and honesty are key in a healthy relationship. Trust means believing in the other person. Honesty means telling the truth. Both help to build a strong and loving relationship. They make people feel safe and comfortable with each other.

Respect and Boundaries

Respect is treating others the way you want to be treated. It is about valuing the other person’s feelings, thoughts, and choices. Boundaries are also important. They are rules that help people feel safe and comfortable. They protect people’s personal space and freedom.

Dealing with Conflicts

Conflicts can happen in any relationship. But in a healthy relationship, people handle conflicts in a positive way. They listen to each other, understand the problem, and find a solution together. They do not hurt each other’s feelings or make each other feel bad.

250 Words Essay on Healthy Relationships

A healthy relationship is a bond between two or more people. It is filled with respect, trust, honesty, and good communication. In such relationships, people feel safe and happy. They enjoy spending time together and support each other in good and bad times.

Key Features

There are some important features of a healthy relationship. These include open communication, respect, trust, and equality. Open communication means that people talk freely about their feelings. Respect means that they value each other’s opinions and feelings. Trust means that they believe in each other. Equality means that they treat each other as equals.

Why are Healthy Relationships Important?

Healthy relationships are important for our well-being. They make us feel happy and secure. They also help us grow as individuals. In a healthy relationship, we learn to trust and respect others. We also learn to communicate our feelings in a better way.

How to Build Healthy Relationships?

Building a healthy relationship takes effort. It starts with respect and trust. We should respect each other’s feelings and trust each other. We should also communicate openly. If there is a problem, we should talk about it and find a solution together. We should also spend quality time together. This helps to strengthen the bond.

In conclusion, a healthy relationship is a beautiful bond. It is filled with respect, trust, and good communication. It makes us feel happy and secure. It helps us grow as individuals. To build a healthy relationship, we should respect, trust, and communicate openly with each other.

500 Words Essay on Healthy Relationships

A healthy relationship is like a good friendship. It is filled with respect, trust, honesty, and good communication. In a healthy relationship, both people feel good about each other and about themselves.

Signs of a Healthy Relationship

There are many signs of a healthy relationship. One of the most important is respect. This means that each person values the other and understands and respects their rights.

Another sign is trust. Trust is like a strong rope that holds the relationship together. If there is trust, each person feels secure and safe.

Good communication is also a sign of a healthy relationship. It’s like a bridge that connects two people. With good communication, both people can express their feelings and thoughts openly and honestly.

Importance of a Healthy Relationship

Healthy relationships are very important for our happiness and well-being. They give us a sense of belonging and help us feel loved and valued. They also provide support when we face challenges or problems.

Moreover, healthy relationships teach us important life skills. They help us learn how to respect others, how to trust, and how to communicate effectively. These skills are very helpful in all areas of our life.

Building a Healthy Relationship

Building a healthy relationship is like planting a seed and taking care of it so it can grow into a strong tree. It takes time, effort, and patience.

The first step is to build respect. This can be done by treating the other person with kindness, listening to them, and valuing their opinions.

The second step is to build trust. This can be done by being honest, reliable, and keeping promises.

The third step is to build good communication. This can be done by talking openly about feelings and thoughts, listening carefully, and trying to understand the other person’s point of view.

In conclusion, a healthy relationship is a valuable part of our lives. It is built on respect, trust, and good communication. It brings us joy and helps us grow as individuals. Building a healthy relationship takes time and effort, but the rewards are worth it. Remember, everyone deserves to be in a healthy and happy relationship.

This essay is a simple guide to understanding the concept of healthy relationships. It is important to remember that each relationship is unique and may require different approaches. But the basic principles of respect, trust, and communication always remain the same.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

• Essay on Heaven And Hell
• Essay on Help One-On-One
• Essay on Helping Animals

Apart from these, you can look at all the essays by clicking here .

Happy studying!

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Essays About Relationships: Top 5 Examples Plus 8 Prompts

With rich essays about relationships plus prompts, this writing guide could help you contemplate relationships, including your own.

Healthy relationships come with the rewards of intimacy, love, and the support we need. Learning to preserve healthy relationships and throw out harmful ones is a critical skill to lead a successful life. That is exactly why Warren Buffet , one of the most successful investors, said the most important decision you will make is your choice of a significant partner. 

There are several types of relationships your essay could focus on in your next piece of writing. Take a leap and tackle intimate individual-level relationships or community or even global-level relationships. You might also be interested in our list of books to read after a breakup .

5 Essay Examples

1. relationship weight gain is real — and can be a sign of happiness by angela haupt, 2. what does it mean to be ‘ready’ for a relationship by julie beck, 3. why adult children cut ties with their parents by sharon martin, 4. a relationship under extreme duress: u.s.-china relations at a crossroads by michael d. swaine, 5. how to build strong business relationships — remotely by jeanne m. brett and tyree mitchell, 1. strengthening communication in relationships, 2. helping children build healthy friendships, 3. how social media affects our relationships , 4. establishing relationships with influencers, 5. importance of police-community relationships, 6. dealing with challenging work relationships, 7. promoting cross-cultural relationships among schools, 8. why do long-term relationships fail.

“…[A]mong those who had been married for more than four years, happy couples were twice as likely to put on weight than couples who reported not being as content with their relationship.”

Gaining pounds when you’re in a relationship is real. This essay backs it up with research and even seeks to answer who puts on the most pounds in the relationship. For those hoping to transform their lifestyle, the essay offers practical tips couples can do together to lose pounds while protecting the relationship and preserving the joy that brought them together. You might also be interested in these essays about divorce .

“Readiness, then, is not a result of achieving certain life milestones, or perfect mental health. And checking off items on a checklist doesn’t guarantee a relationship when the checklist is complete.”

People have a variety of reasons for not being ready to commit to a relationship. They may be more committed to developing their careers or simply enjoy the solitude of singlehood. But this essay debunks the concept of readiness for building relationships. Through interviews, one finds that relationships can happen when you least expect them. You might also be interested in these essays about reflection .

“Parent-child relationships, in particular, are expected to be unwavering and unconditional. But this isn’t always the case—some adults cut ties with or distance themselves from their parents or other family members.”

No matter how painful it is, some adults decide to cut off family members to heal from a toxic or abusive childhood relationship or protect themselves if the abuse or toxicity continues. In exploring the primary causes of estrangement, the well-researched essay shows that estrangement may run deep with years of conflict and many attempts to recover the relationship, rather than merely being the whim of selfish adults.

“…Beijing and Washington are transitioning from a sometimes contentious yet mutually beneficial relationship to an increasingly antagonistic, mutually destructive set of interactions.”

The essay charts the 40-year relationship between China and the US and points out how both parties have mutually benefited from the bilateral relations. This starkly contrasts Washington’s accusation that the relationship has been a zero-sum game, one of the numerous oft-heard allegations in the Washington community. But with the looming increase in tension, competition, and potentially a devastating Cold War between the two, parties must work to find a middle ground.

“Although many managers have adapted to virtual meetings to replace face-to-face ones as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, developing new business relationships online presents a particular set of challenges.”

Authors interview 82 managers pre-pandemic and reconnect with some during the health crisis to find out how they have been building relationships with business partners through virtual meetings. Most admit the challenge of establishing trust and assessing partners’ competency, especially when billion-dollar deals are at stake. The authors offer four key pieces of advice to overcome these difficulties. You might find our guide on how to write a vow helpful.

8 Writing Prompts On Essays About Relationships

We all know that communication is what strengthens relationships. But this is easier said than done when both sides want to talk and not listen. For this prompt, discuss the importance of open communication in relationships. Then, offer tips on how to improve communication in relationships and deal with communication gaps. One scenario you can look into is discussing problems in a relationship without getting into a heated debate.

In this essay, you can help parents become effective coaches for their children to make and keep friends. Warn them against being too authoritative in directing their children and instead allow the kids to be part of the ongoing conversation. Give your readers tips on how to build friendships such as promoting kindness, sharing, and understanding from a young age. You may also enjoy these essays about friendships .

When writing this essay, list the positive and negative effects of social media on relationships. A positive outcome of having social media is 24/7 access to our loved ones. One negative effect includes decreased time for more meaningful physical bonding. So, provide tips on how people in relationships can start putting down their mobile phones and talk heart-to-heart again. 

Influencer marketing has become one of the most popular and effective ways to spread your brand message on social media. First, explore why consumers trust influencers as credible product or service review sources. Then, try to answer some of the burning questions your readers may have, such as whether influencer marketing works for big and small businesses and how to choose the perfect influencer to endorse your brand.

In a working police-community relationship, police officials and community members work together to fight crime through information-sharing and other measures. Discuss this interesting topic for an exciting essay.

First, look into the level of working relationship between the police and your community through existing enforcement programs. Then, with the data gathered, analyze how they cooperate to improve your community. You can also build on the United States Department of Justice’s recommendations to lay down the best practices for strengthening police-community relationships. 

Amid competition, a workplace must still be conducive to cooperative relationships among employees to work on shared goals. Create an essay that enumerates the negative effects of work relationships on employee productivity and an office’s overall performance. Then cite tips on what managers and employees can do to maintain a professional and diplomatic atmosphere in the workplace. You can include points from the University of Queensland recommendations, including maintaining respect.

Students in a foreign country tend to feel distant from school life and society. Schools have a critical role in helping them feel at home and safe enough to share their ideas confidently. Set out the other benefits school environments can reap from fostering robust cross-cultural relationships and cite best practices. One example of a best practice is the buddy system, where international students are linked to local students, who could help expand their networks in the facility and even show them around the area to reveal its attributes.

When couples make it through the seven-year itch or the average time relationships last, everything down the road is said to be more manageable. However, some couples break up even after decades of being together. Explore the primary causes behind the failure of long-term relationships and consider the first signs that couples are growing distant from each other.

Look into today’s social sentiments and determine whether long-term relationships are declining. If they are, contemplate whether this should be a cause for concern or merely an acceptable change in culture. For help with your essays, check out our round-up of the best essay checkers and our essay writing tips .

Yna Lim is a communications specialist currently focused on policy advocacy. In her eight years of writing, she has been exposed to a variety of topics, including cryptocurrency, web hosting, agriculture, marketing, intellectual property, data privacy and international trade. A former journalist in one of the top business papers in the Philippines, Yna is currently pursuing her master's degree in economics and business.

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The 14 most important characteristics of healthy relationships.

A healthy relationshi p is one that adds to both people's overall well-being, fueled by communication, respect, and boundaries . For a relationship to be healthy, it requires more than just shared interests and strong feelings for each other. It requires two people who truly understand and care for each other, while also caring for themselves.

Here are the most important characteristics of a healthy relationship:

You respect each other

Respect is one of the most important characteristics of a healthy relationship. Once the chase is over, some people can forget about tending to their partner's feelings and needs. In lasting, healthy relationships, partners value each other and take care with their words, actions, and behaviors. If you want to be with that person each day, make them feel that way. Likewise, you should receive this care from your partner day in and day out.

You're vulnerable with each other

Good communication is a necessary quality of a healthy relationship. If you're not willing to share what's going on with you or what you need from your partner, you're not going to get what you need. Yet people—out of shame or a habit built over a lifetime of bottling up our feelings—don't want to let anyone else in on what's going on with us. If you can trust your partner enough to share your feelings, you're more likely to find yourself in a safe relationship that lasts.

RELATED: How Lack Of Communication Can Sneakily Ruin Relationships

You have total trust in each other

Healthy relationships require trust. You have to be willing to trust your partner not only with your feelings but with your weaknesses. You will have to learn trust at the emotional, physical, and spiritual level. Trust takes practice and is earned one step at a time. Even when trust is broken , you can find a way to repair a breach in trust if you're willing to work on it.

You both maintain unwavering honesty

In a healthy relationship, you have to be willing to share what's going on, no matter how ugly. You can't hide behind lies and deception if you want your relationship to last. If you can't believe your partner when they tell you something, or if your partner is hiding things from you, it's going to be hard for you to feel safe. Honesty helps foster trust and a belief in each other, which is crucial to making it over the long haul. (Here's what open and honest communication in a relationship looks like.)

There's mutual empathy

Another key quality of a healthy relationship is empathy . Empathy means trying to understand what your partner is feeling. It isn't about trying to fix your partner's concerns and problems, necessarily, but about being able to be there for them. If you can pay more attention to what's going on with your partner and strive to see things through their eyes, you will find yourself getting closer over time rather than more distant.

You both prioritize kindness

Do all the things for your partner that you would do for your best friend. Try to anticipate their needs. Think about what they need help with and try to be there for them. Cut out the behavior that gets on their nerves, and find ways to uplift your partner. Thoughtfulness, consideration, and kindness is the recipe for healthy relationships.

You respect each other's boundaries

It's important not to forget that you're two separate people with separate needs, including some needs that you may not share. You will not agree on everything, and sometimes you may not want the same things. It's important to respect these differences and not push each other's boundaries , including emotional boundaries, physical boundaries, and any other types of boundaries . Boundaries are a necessary characteristic of a healthy relationship.

You're both totally committed

You have to be committed to your partner, yes. But more than commitment to your partner, you have to be committed to the relationship. If you think about the health and future of the relationship instead of just your own, you're likely to take more constructive actions and behave differently. It's not just about getting your needs met. It's about replenishing the fire so your relationship can last. That's what a healthy relationship is all about.

You're both thoughtful

Thoughtfulness is a characteristic of a healthy relationship that often gets overlooked because it can be hard to articulate. Essentially, thoughtfulness means keeping your partner in mind and striving to do things that will make their lives better. It's knowing their preferences, opinions, and quirks so you're able to dance with them, not fight them with. The better you know your partner, the more you can practice thoughtfulness. What can you do today to help them or improve their lives? What can you do today to make your partner's day?

You can forgive each other

Any partner will have qualities, characteristics, and behaviors that push your buttons. To make your relationship last, you have to accept your partner unconditionally—quirks, behavior, flaws, and all.

Likewise, you will sometimes feel hurt throughout a relationship because we're all humans who make mistakes. The key is to forgive quickly, let go of grudges, and start over each day. Yes, this is easier said than done, but forgiveness is crucial to the long-term health of the relationship. You have to let go of trespasses and also be willing to ask for forgiveness. Forgiveness takes courage, vulnerability, and practice.

Of course, forgiveness doesn't mean being a pushover or accepting mistreatment from your partner. There are many signs of an abusive relationship that aren't physical to be aware of. In a healthy relationship, you first you make the commitment to accept them completely. Then, you speak up and say what it is that's bothering you. If hurtful actions continue, it may be a sign you should break up .

RELATED: Unconditional Love: How To Give It & Know If It's Healthy

You're gentle with each other

Gentleness comes through in thoughts, words, actions, and your general state of being. It's understanding and accepting your partner completely and treating them delicately. It's not yelling, not name-calling, and not being verbally or emotionally harsh with each other.

Gentleness is treating your partner in a respectful, kind, and compassionate way. It's recognizing your soulful connection and appreciating their inherent humanness.

There's a lot of affection

After some time in relationships, we often forget to show love and affection toward our partners. But affection is a key quality of a healthy relationship. It's the stuff that make relationships great.

Affection can be as simple as touching, holding, or kissing your partner for no reason at all. It's a warm embrace, a light touch, a loving word, or any other small way you can show your partner that you love them.

To be most affectionate, you have to know how your partner receives love best and do more of that. Is it a loving word, a thoughtful gesture, help around the house, or doing something special for them? The better you know what your partner enjoys, the more affectionate you can be.

The love languages quiz can help you figure out how you and your partner can most effectively show your love to each other.

You consistently appreciate each other

Gratitude is another key quality of a healthy relationship. We all take our partners for granted sometimes. If you can regularly remind yourself how lucky you are and how valuable your partner is, and tell them so, you will boost the happiness and longevity of your relationship. Partners who stay together appreciate each other and compliment each other. Recognize what your partner is doing, and let them know that you're thankful for it.

You both feel validated by the other

Most of the time, people don't really understand us. Everyone has different opinions, and needing to always be right can negatively affect your relationship. Validating your partner shows them that you're on their side. When you understand and accept what they say, they feel fully seen, heard, and accepted. It's acknowledging what your partner is saying to you and showing them that you get them—you understand what they're saying and experiencing. When you validate, you accept. And when you accept, you show unconditional love , which is ultimately what keeps people and relationships together in the long run.

Now that you know the characteristics, here are some tips on how to have a healthy relationship .

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8 Keys to Healthy Relationships

What does a healthy relationship look like? This.

Posted October 28, 2013 | Reviewed by Jessica Schrader

I get asked a lot about what a healthy relationship is like, or is supposed to be like. The easy answer is that it looks different for every couple. However, I realized a long time ago that if we didn't grow up with parents who had wonderful ways of relating to one another, that there was virtually nowhere else to turn to find a healthy couple to learn from. This leaves the ways that happy and healthy couples relate as secrets that many of us don't get to experience. So I hope that the following article gives some general ideas on how healthy couples function, although the details will be up to each couple to fill in.

Where This Comes From

The following principles are a combination of three lines of research on relationships. The first is from something called relationship "minding", which was developed by Harvey and Omarzu (2011) . The second is from the Gottman Institute , which studies how couples communicate and interact in positive and negative ways. The third is from current attachment research .

Before going any further, it would be a mistake not to mention things that happen in unhealthy relationships too. Missing some of the things listed later in this article is normal for anyone, however, there are a variety of things that indicate relationships that are unhealthy. These include verbal and emotional abuse (name-calling, intimidation, threats, shaming , belittling); patterns of control and isolation; violence of any kind; violation of boundaries ; and emotional manipulation. If you are experiencing things like this in any of your relationships, I would suggest getting help right away to address it.

Otherwise, as you read the rest of this post, I'd suggest thinking about a variety of relationships in your life; a close friend, your partner, your ex, a family relationship, or others. Each point will work out differently depending on the relationship, and each may also reveal an area for improvement. Also remember that no one can do these perfectly all the time, and most relationships have issues in some dimensions.

1. Taking Interest : People in healthy relationships take interest in one another. This is usually done in a variety of ways from asking how someone is doing (and not just in the small-talk-passing-on-the-street kind of way), inviting them to do things, and asking deeper questions about how they experienced something rather than just what they did.

2. Acceptance & Respect : This means accepting what we have come to know about the other person and continuing to treat him/her with respect. When we really get to know someone, we find out things that are not that great about them, and they find out the same about us. Continuing to hold the other person in a positive light (and you being held in a positive light too!), are essential practices in healthy relationships. Additionally, people in the happiest relationships also talk favorably about each other in social situations, and also try to honor the preferences the other person has for things.

3. Positive Regard : People in healthy relationships tend to see negative things the other person has done as honest mistakes or due to difficult circumstances, and attribute positive things as the result of the other person just being a good person, due to hard work, or other positive character traits.

4. Meeting Basic Needs : The basic needs that everyone has in relationships are companionship, affection, and emotional support. People in healthy relationships are focused on meeting these as well as other special needs that the other person has , and they are willing to grow to be better at this. Read more about those basic relationship needs .

5. Positive Interactions : Research shows that relationships are the most satisfying when there are quantitatively more positive interactions with the other person than negative. For some relationships, there may be a large number of negative interactions, but as long as the number of positive interactions is a lot higher, satisfaction will remain high. For more on this, learn some basics of communication .

6. Solve Problems : There are a lot of unsolvable problems in relationships that will continue to cycle through, regardless of solutions, and people in healthy relationships find ways to reduce these conflicts as much as possible. However, there are also a lot of problems that can be solved, and highly functioning couples will actively compromise and find solutions to those.

7. Rupture & Repair : People in the healthiest relationships are able to quickly and effectively repair damage (ruptures) to their relationships. This means a) recognizing that you or the other person is hurt, angry, or unhappy with something, and b) addressing it in a way that fixes things in a timely manner. Many people wait too long to initiate repairs, some try but make things worse because they aren't sure what to do, and others do not do it at all. A good repair usually starts with an apology , or bringing it up in a constructive way.

8. Reciprocity : This means that both people in the relationship are working on this stuff. If only one person is taking an interest, accepting and respecting, giving the benefit of the doubt, meeting the others' needs, providing positive interactions, and repairing ruptures, then the relationship likely has larger problems that need to be explored.

Will Meek PhD is a therapist in Providence, Rhode Island . Get notifications of all his new posts through Facebook .

Will Meek, Ph.D. , a counseling psychologist, is the Global Director of Mental Health and Wellness at Minerva Schools, and formerly with Brown University.

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Creating Good Relationships: Responsiveness, Relationship Quality, and Interpersonal Goals

Amy canevello.

Research Center for Group Dynamics, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan

Jennifer Crocker

Research Center for Group Dynamics, Institute for Social Research, and Department of Psychology, University of Michigan

Perceived partner responsiveness is a core feature of close, satisfying relationships. But how does responsiveness originate? Can people create relationships characterized by high responsiveness, and consequently, higher quality relationships? We suggest that goals contribute to cycles of responsiveness between people, improving both people’s relationship quality. The present studies examine 1) how interpersonal goals initiate responsiveness processes in close relationships, 2) the self-perpetuating nature of these processes, and 3) how responsiveness evolves dynamically over time through both intrapersonal projection and reciprocal interpersonal relationship processes. In a semester-long study of 115 roommate dyads, actors’ compassionate and self-image goals predicted a cycle of responsiveness between roommates, occurring within weeks and across the semester. In a 3-week study of 65 roommate dyads, actors’ goals again predicted cycles of responsiveness between roommates, which then contributed to both actors’ and partners’ relationship quality. Results suggest that both projection and reciprocation of responsiveness associated with compassionate goals create upward spirals of responsiveness that ultimately enhance relationship quality for both people.

High quality close relationships contribute to mental and physical well-being; poor quality close relationships create stress and undermine health and well-being (e.g., Baumeister & Leary, 1995 ; Uchino, Cacioppo, & Kiecolt-Glaser, 1996 ). Relationship quality depends on beliefs about a relationship partner’s responsiveness--that is, on the perception that a partner understands, values, and supports important aspects of the self. People who perceive their relationship partners as responsive feel close, satisfied, and committed to those relationships ( Reis, Clark, & Holmes, 2004 ).

The present studies focus on the dynamic of responsiveness in dyadic relationships -- relationship processes that promote or undermine reciprocation of responsiveness between relationship partners, affecting both partners’ relationship quality over time. We suggest that people’s interpersonal goals for their relationships, that is their compassionate goals to support others and their self-image goals to create and maintain desired self-images ( Crocker & Canevello, 2008 ), predict positive and negative responsiveness dynamics respectively, changing both people’s relationship quality. In this way, people can create responsive, high-quality relationships for themselves and others.

Responsiveness in Relationships

Responsive relationship partners convey understanding, validation, and caring ( Gable & Reis, 2006 ). They are warm, sensitive to their partners’ feelings, and want to make their partners feel comfortable, valued, listened to, and understood.

Existing theory and research on responsiveness suggests that people’s responsiveness to partners contributes to both their own and partners’ perceptions of responsiveness in the relationship. Lemay and colleagues ( Lemay & Clark, 2008 ; Lemay, Clark, & Feeney, 2007 ) found that people contribute to their own experiences of responsiveness in close relationships; when people report being responsive to relationship partners, they project their responsiveness onto partners and perceive partners as more responsive. Other researchers characterize responsiveness as a transactional process between relationship partners. Reis and Shaver (1988) hypothesize that close relationships develop through an interpersonal process in which actors’ reactions to partners influence partners’ perceptions of actors’ responsiveness. Importantly, Reis and Shaver speculate that goals, motives, needs, and fears of both relationship partners contribute to and result from responsiveness in the relationship. That is, goals and motives predict people’s relationship behaviors and how they interpret partners’ behaviors, which in turn, feed back to predict goals and motives.

The present studies examine both intrapersonal and interpersonal processes of responsiveness and contribute to the responsiveness literature in three important ways. First, as suggested by Reis and Shaver (1988) , interpersonal goals should predict responsiveness processes in close relationships. However, no research that we know of explicitly examines the motivational underpinnings of responsiveness, whether based on projection or reciprocation. We propose that actors’ compassionate goals to support others and self-image goals to construct and maintain desired self-images shape their responsiveness to relationship partners. Through projection, actors’ responsiveness affects their perceptions of their partners’ responsiveness, and hence their own relationship experiences. Through partners’ perceptions and reciprocation of actors’ responsiveness, actors’ responsiveness affects both actors’ and partners’ relationship experiences. We suggest that because projection is an intrapersonal processes and the exchange of responsiveness between relationship partners is an interpersonal process, both can occur simultaneously. That is, people can project their responsiveness onto others, affecting their own relationship experiences, and at the same time, convey responsiveness to relationship partners, affecting partners’ relationship experiences.

Second, projected and reciprocated responsiveness can become self-perpetuating: relationship goals promote or undermine projection and reciprocation of responsiveness, which reinforce both people’s subsequent relationship goals. Thus, through their interpersonal goals, people can create responsive, high-quality relationships for themselves and others and contribute to both people’s goals for the relationship.

Third, to our knowledge, the present studies are the first to examine both immediate and long-term intra- and interpersonal responsiveness dynamics and resulting relationship outcomes as they evolve over time. Previous research suggests that these processes should occur quickly within relationships, guiding people’s relationship experiences and goals in the moment (e.g., Laurenceau, Barrett, & Pietromonaco, 1998 ; Lemay et al., 2007 ). We hypothesize that the effects of compassionate and self-image goals and responsiveness extend over time, predicting change in people’s relationship experiences and goals from day to day and week to week, and that chronic interpersonal goals predict long-term changes in relationship experiences and interpersonal goals over weeks and months. Thus, we propose that projection of responsiveness and reciprocation of responsiveness dynamically affect short-term fluctuations and long-term changes in relationship outcomes.

Figure 1 illustrates our general model in a relationship between an actor (A) and a relationship partner (P). We highlight intra- and interpersonal aspects of the model and detail them below.

Hypothesized theoretical model of interpersonal goals, responsiveness, and relationship quality.

Intrapersonal Process: A’s Compassionate and Self-Image Goals and Responsiveness Predict A’s Relationship Experience

We hypothesize an intrapersonal model examining how people’s goals contribute to their own experiences of responsiveness and resulting relationship goals and quality. Our model extends the intrapersonal projection of responsiveness described by Lemay and colleagues ( Lemay & Clark, 2008 ; Lemay et al., 2007 ), by showing how actors’ goals can be the starting point for change in their responsiveness to partners, which is projected onto partners and leads to change in actors’ goals and relationship outcomes. Paths A–E in Figure 1 show our hypothesized intrapersonal model of goals and responsiveness: A’s interpersonal goals predict change in A’s responsiveness (Path A), which predicts change in A’s perceptions of P’s responsiveness (Path B), with consequences for change in A’s subsequent responsiveness (Path C), goals (Path D), and relationship quality (Path E).

Paths G–K of Figure 1 are a mirror image of the intrapersonal processes in paths A–E, but for partners rather than actors: P’s compassionate goals predict P’s increased and self-image goals predict P’s decreased responsiveness to A (Path G). P’s responsiveness to A predicts P’s increased perceptions of A’s responsiveness (Path H), which then leads to P’s increased responsiveness (Path I), increased compassionate and decreased self-image goals (Path J), and increased relationship quality (Path K).

Below, we present the rationale for each path in the intrapersonal model.

Path A: A’s compassionate and self-image goals predict change in A’s responsiveness

We propose that two types of relationship goals shape responsiveness to relationship partners. Self-image goals focus on constructing, maintaining, and defending desired public and private images of the self ( Crocker & Canevello, 2008 ). When people have self-image goals, they care about what others think of them, but not what others need; consequently they should be less responsive. Compassionate goals focus on supporting others, not to obtain something for the self, but out of concern for others’ well-being ( Crocker & Canevello, 2008 ). When people have compassionate goals, they want to be a constructive force in their interactions with others, and avoid harming them. We suggest that when people have compassionate goals they are more responsive, because they care about others’ well-being. 1

People with chronically high compassionate goals report greater private self-consciousness, lower psychological entitlement, believe that it is possible for both people in a relationship to have their needs met, and believe that it is important that people look out for one another; they trust in and feel closer to others and report both giving and receiving more social support ( Crocker & Canevello, 2008 ). These findings suggest that when people have compassionate goals they understand and trust that when they are responsive to others, they create an environment in which others will respond to them. In contrast, people with chronically high self-image goals report higher psychological entitlement, believe that good outcomes for one person come at the expense of others, and feel that it is important to look out for themselves, even at the expense of others; they report higher loneliness, more conflict with others, and lower interpersonal trust ( Crocker & Canevello, 2008 ). These findings suggest that when people have self-image goals they feel a sense of scarcity and fear that their needs will not be met in collaboration with others. Based on these findings, we propose Path A: When A has the goal to care for and support P, A will become more responsive to P, whereas when A has the goal to create and maintain desired self-images, A will become less responsive to P.

Path B: A’s responsiveness to P predicts A’s increased perceptions of P’s responsiveness

When actors believe they are responsive to partners, they project their own responsiveness onto partners and perceive partners as more responsive ( Kenny & Acitelli, 2001 ; Lemay & Clark, 2008 ; Lemay et al., 2007 ). Several factors might moderate this association. For example, actors who have low self-esteem might feel their partners do not value them and perceive their partners as unresponsive ( Murray, Griffin, Rose, & Bellavia, 2003 ). Also, because of their over-involvement with others and self-neglect, actors high in unmitigated communion might want to see themselves as self-sacrificing and see their partners as unresponsive ( Helgeson & Fritz, 1998 ). However, despite these specific circumstances, in general we expect a strong association between responsiveness and perceptions of partners’ responsiveness. These considerations lead us to propose Path B: A’s responsiveness to P predicts A’s increased perceptions of P’s responsiveness.

Path C: A’s perception of P’s responsiveness predicts A’s increased responsiveness to P

When actors perceive their partners as responsive, they are more responsive in return; when they perceive their partners as unresponsive, actors are less responsive in return ( Fruzzetti, Jacobson, & Blechman, 1990 ; Gable & Reis, 2006 ; Patterson, 1976 ; Plickert, Côté, & Wellman, 2007 ). This may happen for several reasons. People may reciprocate responsiveness out of caring. Actors’ responsiveness strengthens partners’ social bonds to actors, including feelings of caring, connection, and trust, leading partners to want to be responsive to actors (e.g., Brown & Brown, 2006 ; Clark, Fitness, & Brissette, 2004 ). In established communal relationships, partners experience more positive mood and less negative mood when they reciprocate support to actors, compared to when they do not ( Gleason, Iida, Bolger, & Shrout, 2003 ). Even in new relationships, reciprocity of responsiveness may be the result of social exchange norms in which both partners focus on an equal exchange of responsiveness ( Clark & Mills, 1993 ; Mills & Clark, 1982 ). Given this evidence, we propose Path C: A’s perception of P’s responsiveness predicts A’s increased responsiveness to P.

Path D: A’s perception of P’s responsiveness predicts change in A’s compassionate and self-image goals

Actors’ perceptions of partners’ responsiveness should shape actors’ compassionate and self-image goals toward the partner. Actors who perceive partners as responsive feel validated, understood, and cared for ( Reis et al., 2004 ), which fosters a sense of security and permits a shift in focus from protecting the self to supporting others ( Mikulincer, Shaver, Gillath, & Nitzberg, 2005 ; Murray, Holmes, & Collins, 2006 ). In other words, actors’ feelings that partners are responsive to them should foster compassionate goals for partners. Unresponsiveness, on the other hand, conveys a partners’ lack of interest in or concern for actors. Perceptions of partners’ unresponsiveness may signal to actors that they should protect themselves from uncaring partners ( Clark & Monin, 2006 ; Murray et al., 2003 ; Murray, Rose, Bellavia, Holmes, & Kusche, 2002 ) and, as a result, actors should increase in self-image goals. These considerations lead us to propose Path D: A’s perception of P’s responsiveness predicts A’s increased compassionate and decreased self-image goals.

Path E: A’s perception of P’s responsiveness predicts A’s increased relationship quality

Perceived partner responsiveness is crucial to relationship quality ( Clark & Mills, 1993 ; Laurenceau et al., 2004 ; see Reis et al., 2004 for a review). Actors who believe that partners are responsive feel closer, more intimate, and more satisfied with their relationships ( Berg & Archer, 1982 ; Collins & Feeney, 2000 ; Cutrona, Shaffer, Wesner, & Gardner, 2007 ; Davis, 1982 ; Laurenceau et al., 1998 ; Lemay et al., 2007 ). When actors perceive partners as unresponsive, they experience decreased satisfaction, commitment, and closeness in those relationships ( Fincham & Beach, 1999 ; Gottman & Levenson, 1992 ). Consequently, we predict Path E: A’s perception of P’s responsiveness predicts A’s increased relationship quality.

Interpersonal Process: A’s compassionate and self-image goals and responsiveness lead to P’s relationship experience and goals

In addition to this purely intrapersonal process, we hypothesize an interpersonal model in which people’s goals and responsiveness contribute to relationship partners’ experience of actors’ responsiveness, leading to reciprocation of responsiveness and resulting relationship goals and quality. We draw from previous theory and research suggesting that responsiveness is a dyadic process whereby partners perceive actors’ responsiveness and respond in turn (e.g., Collins & Feeney, 2000 ; Reis & Shaver, 1988 ). We hypothesize that actors’ goals can also be the starting point for creating responsiveness dynamics between relationship partners, with consequences for partners’ responsiveness to actors, goals, and relationship quality. Paths A, F, I, J, and K in Figure 1 depict our interpersonal model, in which A’s goals predict change in A’s responsiveness to partners (Path A), which predicts change in P’s perceptions of A’s responsiveness (Path F), with consequences for change in P’s subsequent responsiveness (Path I), goals (Path J), and relationship quality (Path K).

Paths G, L, C, D, and E of Figure 1 are a mirror image of the interpersonal processes in Paths A, F, I, J, and K, but show effects of partners’ goals and responsiveness on change in actors’ relationship experiences: P’s compassionate and self-image goals predict change in P’s responsiveness to A (Path G). P’s responsiveness to A predicts A’s increased perceptions of P’s responsiveness (Path L), which then leads to A’s increased responsiveness, increased compassionate and decreased self-image goals, and increased relationship quality (Paths C, D, and E).

As described previously in our rationale for the intrapersonal model, we propose Path A: that A’s interpersonal goals predict change in A’s responsiveness to P.

Path F: A’s responsiveness predicts P’s increased perceptions of A’s responsiveness

Relationship researchers assume that partners’ perceptions of actors have some basis in actors’ behaviors ( Kelley et al., 1983 ). Most theories of interpersonal relationships assume that actors’ responsiveness to partners predicts partners’ perceptions of actors’ responsiveness (e.g. Bowlby, 1969 ; Gable & Reis, 2006 ; Kelley & Thibaut, 1978 ; I. G. Sarason, Pierce, & Sarason, 1990 ); empirical research supports this prediction ( Abbey, Andrews, & Halman, 1995 ; Bolger, Zuckerman, & Kessler, 2000 ; Collins & Feeney, 2000 ; Feeney & Collins, 2003 ; Lemay & Clark, 2008 ; Vinokur, Schul, & Caplan, 1987 ). For example, in romantic couples when actors disclosed a stressful problem to partners, partners’ reports of their own responsiveness (i.e., responsiveness, listening, understanding, not criticizing, giving support, and expressing concern) positively predicted actors’ perceptions of partners’ responsiveness ( Collins & Feeney, 2000 ). Consequently, we propose Path F: A’s responsiveness to P predicts P’s increased perceptions of A’s responsiveness.

Paths I, J, and K: P’s perceptions of A’s responsiveness and change in P’s relationship experience

Using the same rationale to describe Paths C, D, and E previously, we propose Paths I, J, and K, respectively: P’s perceptions of A’s responsiveness has consequences for P’s increased responsiveness (Path I), increased compassionate and decreased self-image goals (Path J) and increased relationship quality (Path K).

Overview of Present Studies

In two studies of first-semester college freshman roommates, we tested 1) how interpersonal goals initiate projection and reciprocal responsiveness in close relationships, 2) the self-perpetuating nature of these processes, and 3) how responsiveness evolves dynamically over time through both intrapersonal projection and reciprocal interpersonal relationship processes. First semester college students provide an interesting population for examining these processes. Roommates in these samples did not know each other before living together, so their relationships are relatively unbiased by relationship history and past interactions. Unlike most close relationships, previously unacquainted roommates do not self-select into the relationship. At the same time, many first-year students experience significant disruption of their social lives. When they move away from home to attend college, they must build a social network. Their roommates are often the first people they meet and with whom they spend significant time.

Study 1 tested whether students’ compassionate and self-image goals predict a cycle of projected and reciprocal responsiveness between roommates with implications for both people’s relationship goals. Study 2 reports previously unpublished data from the Roommate Goals Study ( Crocker & Canevello, 2008 , Study 2), examining the implications of these processes for both roommates’ relationship quality.

College roommates completed pretest, posttest, and 10 weekly questionnaires, each including measures of compassionate and self-image goals, responsiveness to roommates, and perceived roommates’ responsiveness. We tested associations between students’ goals and 1) the intrapersonal process predicting their own experiences of responsiveness, and 2) the interpersonal process predicting their roommates’ experiences of responsiveness.

We tested a number of alternative explanations and moderators of these processes in Study 1. First, self-disclosure elicits responsiveness from others (e.g., Greene, Derlega, Mathews, Vangelisti, & Perlman, 2006 ; Reis & Patrick, 1996 ; Reis & Shaver, 1988 ). Associations between goals and responsiveness to roommates could be due to perceptions of roommates’ disclosure, and associations between responsiveness to roommates and perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness could be due to disclosure to roommates.

Second, we sought to distinguish responsiveness from social support. Previous research shows that compassionate and self-image goals predict change in perceived available support and supportive behaviors ( Crocker & Canevello, 2008 ). The present studies focus on responsiveness, which we hypothesize is a specific type of support. Support is often broadly defined, including perceptions of support availability and frequency of supportive behaviors (B. R. Sarason, Shearin, Pierce, & Sarason, 1987 ) and includes structural (e.g., group membership or family relationships) and functional components (e.g., providing tangible or emotional support) ( Uchino, 2004 ). Responsiveness refers to people’s sensitivity to partners and desires that partners feel valued, listened to, and understood. Researchers differ in how they view the relation between responsiveness and support; some argue that support is a component of responsiveness (e.g., Reis et al., 2004 ); others conceptualize responsiveness as a subset of social support, distinguishing between responsive and unresponsive support (e.g., Collins & Feeney, in press ). Regardless, researchers agree that responsiveness and support are distinct but related constructs; support providers may not be perceived as responsive. We tested whether support made available to roommates and perceived available social support from roommates explained the effects of responsiveness to roommates and perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness, respectively.

Third, we examined whether negative mood accounts for or moderates the hypothesized associations. For example, the association between interpersonal goals and responsiveness to others might be spurious, if both are associated with anxious or depressed feelings. Feeling anxious or depressed might also moderate these associations. For example, the relation between responsiveness to roommates and perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness may be particularly strong when people do not feel anxious or depressed.

We controlled for students’ self-disclosure to their roommates and their perceptions of their roommates’ disclosure, social support made available to and perceived available support from roommates, and anxiety and depression to rule them out as alternative explanations.

Participants

One hundred fifteen first-semester same-sex freshmen roommate dyads at a large Midwestern university who did not know each other prior to college volunteered for a study of goals and roommate relationships during the fall semester. Via advertisements in the campus newspaper and flyers, we offered each roommate $60 for completing 12 surveys over 10 weeks ($10 for each the pretest and posttest and $4 for each weekly survey) plus a $40 bonus for completing all 12 surveys. One hundred nine pairs (95%) completed the pretest, posttest, and at least 8 weekly surveys. Although 6 pairs completed fewer parts of the study, we retained all data for analyses where possible. 2 Eighty-six pairs (75%) were female. Seventy-five percent of participants reported their race as White or European-American, 2% as Black or African-American, 15% as Asian or Asian-American, and 8% selected other. The racial composition of the sample closely approximated the racial composition of the incoming freshman class. Participants ranged in age from 18 to 21 years ( M = 18.1 years, SD = .36).

In groups of 1 to 8, roommate pairs attended a 1.5 hour session to learn about the study, give their consent, complete the pretest survey, and receive instructions for completing the remaining 11 surveys. All surveys were administered using UM Lessons software. After completing the pretest survey, participants were instructed to complete the 10 weekly online surveys in privacy and not to discuss their responses with each other. The weekly surveys took about 30 minutes to complete and roommates were required to complete weekly surveys within no less than 48 hours of each other. To retain as many participants as possible in the study, participants were given up to 11 weeks to complete the 10 weekly surveys. 3 Once roommates had completed 10 weekly surveys, they completed the posttest survey and were paid for their participation.

Participants completed measures of compassionate and self-image goals, responsiveness to roommates, perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness, disclosure to and from roommates, support made available to roommates, available support from roommates, anxiety, and depression at pretest, posttest, and weekly. At pretest, participants completed questions about demographics (gender, race/ethnicity, age, parental income). Additional measures not germane to the goals of the present investigation were also included.

Self-image and compassionate goals for participants’ relationships with their roommates were measured using a modified measure from Crocker & Canevello (2008) . Pretest and posttest items began with the phrase, “In my relationship with my roommate, I want/try to." Weekly items began with “This week, in my relationship with my roommate, I wanted/tried to.” All items were rated on a scale ranging from 1 ( not at all ) to 5 ( extremely ). Eight items assessed compassionate goals: “be supportive of my roommate;” "have compassion for my roommate's mistakes and weaknesses;" "be aware of the impact my behavior might have on my roommate's feelings;" “make a positive difference in my roommate’s life;” "avoid neglecting my relationship with my roommate;" "avoid being selfish or self-centered;" "be constructive in my comments to my roommate;" and "avoid doing things that aren’t helpful to me or my roommate." Six items reflected self-image goals, including "avoid showing my weaknesses;" “avoid revealing my shortcomings or vulnerabilities;” "avoid the possibility of being wrong;" "convince my roommate that I am right;" "get my roommate to do things my way;" and "avoid being blamed or criticized." Both scales had high internal consistency at pretest (self-image α = .79; compassionate α = .75), posttest (self-image α = .87; compassionate α = .94), and across participants and weeks (self-image goals: .83 < α < .91, M α = .88; compassionate goals: .85 < α < .94, M α = .91).

Responsiveness to roommates and perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness were measured with a 6-item modified version of a responsiveness measure used in previous research ( Cutrona, Hessling, & Suhr, 1997 ; Gore, Cross, & Morris, 2006 ). Participants indicated how they acted toward their roommate in general at pretest and posttest. All items were rated on a scale from 1 ( not at all ) to 5 ( very much ). Items included “I try to make my roommate feel comfortable about him/herself and how he/she feels;” "I try to make my roommate feel valued as a person;" "I try to be sensitive to my roommate’s feelings;" “I really try to understand my roommate’s concerns;" “I really listen to my roommate when he/she talks;” and “I behave warmly toward my roommate.” We measured weekly responsiveness using the same items, asking how participants acted toward their roommate that week. Responsiveness was reliable at pretest (α =.93), posttest (α = .97) and in each weekly survey (.94 < α < .98, M α = .97).

A parallel set of items assessed the extent to which participants believed their roommates responded to them. Pretest and posttest items asked about roommates’ general responsiveness. Sample items included “my roommate tries to make me feel comfortable about myself and how I feel;” and "my roommate tries to make me feel valued as a person." We measured weekly roommate responsiveness with the same items, referring to how roommates acted toward participants that week. Perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness was reliable at pretest (α = .95), posttest (α =.98), and in the weekly surveys (.94 < α < .98, M α = .97).

Disclosure to the roommate and perceptions of roommates’ disclosure were measured with a 5-item modified version of a disclosure measure used by Gore and colleagues (Gore et al., 2006a; Miller, Berg, & Archer, 1983 ). Participants were instructed to indicate the extent to which they discussed each topic with their roommates; pretest and posttest items began with the phrase, “In general, I discuss:." All items were rated on a scale from 1 ( discussed not at all ) to 5 ( discussed fully and completely ) and included “my deepest feelings;” “my worst fears;” “what I like and dislike about myself;” “my close relationships with other people;” and “things I have done which I am proud of.” We measured weekly disclosure using the same instructions and items, beginning with the phrase “This week, I discussed:.” Disclosure to roommates was reliable at pretest (α =.85), posttest (α = .94) and from week to week (.85 < α < .95, M α = .92).

A parallel set of items assessed the extent to which participants believed their roommates self-disclosed. Pretest and posttest items began with the phrase, “In general, my roommate discusses:." Sample items included “his/her deepest feelings;” “his/her worst fears;” and “what he/she likes and dislikes about him/herself.” We measured weekly roommate disclosure with the same items, referring to the extent to which roommates self-disclosed that week. Roommate disclosure was reliable at pretest (α = .89), posttest (α =.94), and in weekly surveys (.89 < α < .95, M α = .93).

Perceived social support availability from roommates and support made available to roommates were measured with the Multidimensional Survey of Perceived Social Support ( Zimet, Dahlem, Zimet, & Farley, 1988 ). Perceived availability pretest and posttest items were preceded with the stem “In general, I feel that.” Weekly items were preceded with the stem “This past week, I felt that.” Sample items included “My roommate really tried to help me” and “I could count on my roommate if things went wrong.” Perceived social support availability was reliable at pretest (α =.93), posttest (α = .96) and from week to week (.93 < α < .97, M α = .96).

Social support made available to roommates was also measured at pretest, posttest and weekly using a parallel set of items. Sample items included “I really tried to help my roommate” and “my roommate can count on me when things go wrong.” Social support made available to roommates was reliable at pretest (α = .92), posttest (α =.95), and in weekly surveys (.86 < α < .96, M α = .94).

Anxiety was assessed with the Speilberger State Anxiety Scale ( Spielberger, Vagg, Barker, Donham, & Westberry, 1980 ). At pretest and posttest, participants rated their anxiety in general on a scale ranging from 1 (never) to 5 (always); in the weekly surveys, they rated their anxiety over the past week on the same scale. Anxiety had high internal consistency at pretest (α =.91), posttest (α =.94), and in each of the weekly surveys (.94 < α < .95, Mα = .94).

Depression was assessed at pretest, posttest, and weekly using the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Inventory (CES-D; Radloff, 1997). The CES-D was developed to measure depressive symptoms in community samples and consists of 20 depression-related symptom items rated on a 4 point scale (0–3) based on the amount of time during the past week the respondent has experienced each symptom. Scores can range from 0 to 60. The CES-D had high internal consistency at pretest (α =.86), posttest (α =.89) and each of the weekly surveys (.90 < α < .92, Mα = .91).

Factor Analyses

Table 1 shows the means, standard deviations, and intrapersonal (i.e., within-person) intraclass correlations, which adjust for the degree of nonindependence between dyad members ( Griffin & Gonzalez, 1995 ) for all primary variables in Study 1. Because correlations between compassionate goals and responsiveness to roommates and perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness were high, we conducted exploratory factor analyses (EFA) on these items at pretest and confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) on items at posttest and each week, comparing the fit of a model specifying 2 factors with a model specifying 1 factor.

Study 1 means, standard deviations, and intrapersonal intraclass correlations for all primary pretest, posttest, and mean weekly variables.

N = 230 at pretest, N = 218 at posttest. Chronic scores were calculated by averaging across the weekly reports. Self-image and compassionate goals were measured on a scale ranging from 1 (never) to 5 (always). Responsiveness to roommates and perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness were measured on a scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 5 (very much).

Compassionate goals and responsiveness to roommates

Compassionate goals and responsiveness to roommates, though correlated, are empirically distinct. EFAs on the pretest items suggested that 2 factors accounted for 48% of the variance: all responsiveness items loaded on the first factor, with loadings ranging between .64 and .99; all compassionate goal items loaded on the second factor, with loadings ranging between .38 and .66. Importantly, no secondary loading exceeded |.28|. We conducted CFAs on items at posttest and each of the 10 weeks (yielding 11 separate sets of CFAs), testing two-factor, 136.84 < χ 2 (76, 218 < N < 230) < 232.48, Mχ 2 (76, 218 < N < 230) = 183.77, and single-factor solutions, 336.77 < χ 2 (77, 218 <N < 230) < 726.72, Mχ 2 (77, 218 < N < 230) = 586.71. For all analyses, two-factor solutions provided significantly better fit, 194.33 < Δχ 2 (1, 218 < N < 230) < 554.95, MΔχ 2 (1, 218 < N < 230) = 402.94.

Compassionate goals and perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness

Compassionate goals and perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness, though correlated, are also empirically distinct. EFAs on the pretest items suggested that 2 factors accounted for 51% of the variance: all responsiveness items loaded on the first factor, with loadings ranging between .74 and .93; all compassionate goal items loaded on the second factor, with loadings ranging between .39 and .63. Importantly, no secondary loading exceeded |.23|. We conducted CFAs on items at posttest and each of the 10 weeks (again, yielding 11 separate sets of CFAs), testing two-factor, 110.55 < χ 2 (76, 218 < N < 230) < 247.82, Mχ 2 (76, 218 < N < 230) = 166.94, and single-factor solutions, 448.56 < χ 2 (76, 218 < N < 230) < 948.77, Mχ 2 (76, 218 < N < 230) = 753.14. For all analyses, two-factor solutions provided significantly better fit, 338.01 < Δχ 2 (1, 218 < N < 230) < 747.22, MΔχ 2 (1, 218 < N < 230) = 586.20.

Overview of Primary Analyses

We conducted data analyses in two phases. In Phase 1 we focused on the intrapersonal associations between goals and responsiveness. We hypothesized that students’ goals would predict change in their responsiveness to roommates (Path A; Figure 1 ), which would predict change in their perceptions of their roommates’ responsiveness (Path B), which would in turn, predict change in their compassionate and self-image goals (Path D). In Phase 2 we focused on the interpersonal associations among these variables to examine how actors’ goals predict change in their responsiveness to partners (Path A), which predicts change in partners’ perceptions of actors’ responsiveness (Path F), which predicts change in partners’ subsequent responsiveness to actors (Path I) and goals (Path J). We tested both the intra- and interpersonal associations 1) within weeks, 2) from week to week using lagged analyses, and 3) across the semester from pretest to posttest.

Importantly, all intra- and interpersonal analyses assess change. For example, in weekly analyses we test whether fluctuations in goals (i.e., the difference between goals that week and that person’s average goals across 10 weeks) predict responsiveness that week; in lagged analyses, we test whether Week 1 goals predict change in responsiveness from Weeks 1 to 2; and in pretest and posttest analyses, we test whether chronic goals predict change in responsiveness from pretest to posttest. Thus, these analyses test the dynamic intra- and interpersonal associations between goals, responsiveness, and perceptions of others’ responsiveness.

General Analytic Strategy

In these data, individuals were nested within dyads and dyads were crossed with weeks ( Kashy, Donnellan, Burt, & McGue, 2008 ). Thus, we controlled for the nonindependence of individuals within dyads in all analyses using the MIXED command in SPSS ( Campbell & Kashy, 2002 ; Campbell, Simpson, Boldry, & Kashy, 2005 ; Kenny, Kashy, & Cook, 2006 ), and because individuals within dyads were indistinguishable, we specified compound symmetry so that intercept variances between dyad members were equal. For all analyses, we structured the data so that each dyad was represented by two lines of data, allowing each participant within a dyad to represent both an actor and a partner (see Campbell & Kashy, 2002 , for a sample arrangement of data). Path models were tested sequentially, with a separate regression equation for each path. For each path, we regressed the criterion on the predictor(s), controlling for all variables preceding that path in the model. All Study 1 path analyses are illustrated in Figure 2 and Figure 3 . Estimates outside of brackets indicate the partial correlation for that association, controlling for previous paths in the model; estimates inside brackets indicate tests of the individual path, not controlling for previous paths in the model. Partial correlations for all analyses were calculated using the method described by Rosenthal and Rosnow (1991) .

Study 1: Intrapersonal (within-person) path analyses of weekly, lagged-week, and pretest and posttest data. NOTE: All estimates are partial correlations; estimates in brackets indicate test of the individual path, not controlling for previous paths in the model. *** p < .001, ** p < .01, * p < .05.

Study 1: Interpersonal (between-person) path analyses of weekly, lagged-week, and pretest and posttest data. NOTE: All estimates are partial correlations; estimates in brackets indicate test of the individual path, not controlling for previous paths in the model. *** p < .001, ** p < .01, * p < .05.

Table 1 shows the means, standard deviations, and intrapersonal (i.e., within-person) intraclass correlations ( Griffin & Gonzalez, 1995 ), for all primary pretest, posttest, and chronic weekly variables. We created measures of chronic compassionate and self-image goals by averaging each measure across the 10 weeks. In general, compassionate goals, responsiveness, and perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness were strongly correlated at pretest and posttest, and across weeks. Self-image goals were less strongly associated with responsiveness and perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness. Because compassionate and self-image goals were significantly correlated, we regressed all outcome variables on compassionate and self-image goals simultaneously. Table 2 shows the interpersonal (i.e. actor-partner) intraclass correlations for all primary variables. Roommates’ compassionate goals, responsiveness and perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness were moderately correlated across time-points; self-image goals predicted fewer partner variables.

Study 1 interpersonal (i.e. actor-partner) intraclass correlations for all pretest, posttest, and mean weekly variables.

Intrapersonal Processes: Students’ Goals Predicting Their Own Responsiveness and Subsequent Goals

Phase 1 analyses test an intrapersonal model in which students’ compassionate and self-image goals predict change in their responsiveness to roommates (Path A; Figure 1 ), which predicts change in their perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness (Path B), which in turn predicts change in students’ subsequent compassionate and self-image goals (Path D). Thus, all Phase 1 analyses use only actor variables as predictors and outcomes. Note that, because the data are structured so that actors and partners are interchangeable, these analyses simultaneously test the process by which partners’ goals lead to partners’ own responsiveness and goals (i.e., Paths G, H, and J).

Weekly associations

First, we examined our hypothesized model within weeks, testing whether weekly interpersonal goals predicted responsiveness to roommates that same week, which then predicted perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness that week. Coefficients for weekly analyses were derived from random-coefficients models using restricted maximum-likelihood estimation, and models included fixed and random effects for the intercept and each predictor. In weekly analyses we person-centered all predictors so that scores represent differences from each individual’s own average across 10 weeks (e.g., Enders & Tofighi, 2007 ; Kreft & de Leeuw, 1998 ; Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002 ).

Path analyses supported our hypothesized model within weeks (see the top of Figure 2 ). Weekly compassionate goals predicted higher and self-image goals predicted lower weekly responsiveness to roommates. Responsiveness to roommates, in turn, positively predicted higher perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness.

Lagged-week analyses

Next, we tested the lagged-week associations between interpersonal goals, responsiveness to roommates, and perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness. Examination of the temporal sequence of effects across weeks does not demonstrate causality but can shed light on the plausibility or implausibility of causal pathways ( Kenny, 1975 ; Leary, 1995 ; Rogosa, 1980 ; West, Biesanz, & Pitts, 2000 ). For example, evidence that compassionate goals on Week 1 predict responsiveness in Week 2, controlling for responsiveness on Weeks 1 (i.e., testing whether goals one week predict residual change in responsiveness the following week) would be consistent with the hypothesis that compassionate goals cause responsiveness. No association would rule out a causal effect over this time period. Thus, unlike within-week analyses, lagged analyses test the plausibility of causal associations for each hypothesized pathway in our intrapersonal model.

Coefficients for lagged-week analyses were derived from random-coefficients models using restricted maximum-likelihood estimation, with models including fixed and random effects for the intercept and each predictor. We used a residual change strategy to test changes from week to week, regressing the Week N + 1 dependent variable on relevant Week N predictors, controlling for the Week N dependent variable. When change in a variable was a predictor, we entered the Week N and Week N + 1 predictors into the model and interpreted the week N + 1 variable.

We grand mean centered predictors in tests of lagged-week hypotheses because our prediction concerned change in the outcome from week to week. Lagged analyses examine whether change in the outcome from one week to the next is related to levels of the goal (or other predictor), regardless of the source – individual differences or weekly fluctuations around those individual differences. For example, we hypothesize that As’ goals one week predict their responsiveness the following week, controlling for that week’s responsiveness. Person centering predictors tests whether fluctuations in As’ goals from As’ own average goals predict outcomes. Consequently, in our example person-centering predictors in lagged analyses tests whether within-person departures from As’ average goals one week predict As’ responsiveness the following week, controlling for within-person departures from As’ average responsiveness that week. This does not test our lagged hypothesis. Thus, centering on the grand mean for that week is justified and appropriate in these analyses (e.g., Enders & Tofighi, 2007 ). 4

In the lagged-week data, we tested a path model in which goals at Week 1 predict change in responsiveness to roommates from Weeks 1 to 2, which predict simultaneous change in perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness from Weeks 1 to 2, which in turn predict change in compassionate and self-image goals from Weeks 1 to 3. We expected that, in the case of projection, associations between changes in responsiveness to roommates and changes in perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness would be relatively immediate because they occur as a function of perceptions – we expect that when actors become more responsive to roommates, they simultaneously increase their perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness. Accordingly, we hypothesized that change in responsiveness to roommates from Weeks 1 to 2 predicted simultaneous change in perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness.

For each path, we regressed the criterion on the predictor(s), controlling for all variables preceding that path in the model. We tested this path model (i.e., actors’ Week N compassionate and self-image goals predict change in actors’ responsiveness to roommates from Weeks N to N + 1, which predicts change in actors’ perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness from Weeks N to N + 1, which predicts change in actors compassionate and self-image goals from weeks N to N + 2; see the middle of Figure 2 ) in 4 regression equations (except when goals were entered as predictors: because we tested them simultaneously, we were able to test two paths in one equation). Lagged analyses were conducted on all 10 weeks. For simplicity, we refer to Week N as “Week 1,” Week N+1 as “Week 2,” and Week N+2 as “Week 3.”

Lagged-week path analyses supported our hypotheses (see middle of Figure 2 ). Week 1 compassionate goals predicted increased and Week 1 self-image goals predicted decreased responsiveness to roommates from Weeks 1 to 2, which predicted increased perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness from Weeks 1 to 2, which predicted increased compassionate goals and decreased self-image goals from Weeks 1 to 3.

Change across the semester

To test whether and how students’ chronic compassionate and self-image goals contribute to long-term changes in their responsiveness, perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness and goals, we examined a path model in which chronic goals averaged across 10 weeks predicted change in responsiveness to roommates across the semester, which then predicted change in perceptions of the roommates’ responsiveness, which in turn predicted changes in goals from pretest to posttest.

Coefficients for testing change from pretest to posttest were derived from fixed-effects models using restricted maximum-likelihood estimation. We grand mean centered predictors in tests of pretest and posttest hypotheses because we were interested in chronic goals and responsiveness as individual differences. We used a residual change strategy, similar to that used in lagged-week analyses, to test changes from pretest to posttest.

Results partially support our path model (see bottom of Figure 2 ). Chronic compassionate goals predicted increased and chronic self-image goals predicted decreased responsiveness to roommates from pretest to posttest, which predicted change in perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness from pretest to posttest, but perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness did not predict changes in students’ own compassionate and self-image goals from pretest to posttest.

Next, we tested several alternative explanations for and moderators of the associations tested in Figure 2 . We tested whether perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness, disclosure, support, anxiety and depression explained associations in our models by adding the appropriate variables to the path models tested above. Specific analyses for each covariate are described below. Note that our main concern was not whether these covariates were related to each outcome, but whether they could explain or offer an alternative explanation for our findings. Thus we do not report the association between each covariate and outcome variable. Instead, we report associations between our main predictors and outcome variables, controlling for covariates. We also test whether associations in Figure 2 are moderated by anxiety, depression or gender by adding the appropriate main effect and product terms, as described below. Simple slopes for interactions were computed at 1 standard deviation above and below the means of the moderators ( Aiken & West, 1991 ). Because of space considerations, we do not report individual statistics for each covariate test. Instead, we report a summary of results for each covariate; tables of results can be obtained from the first author.

Do perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness explain associations between goals and change in responsiveness to roommates?

Associations between students’ interpersonal goals and changes in their responsiveness to roommates might be attributed to perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness: students’ goals may lead them to be more or less responsiveness to roommates because goals are also associated with perceiving roommates as more or less responsive. We retested the links between compassionate and self-image goals and responsiveness to roommates in all models in Figure 2 , controlling for weekly perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness in weekly analyses, Week 1 perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness in lagged analyses, and chronic perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness in the pretest and posttest analyses. Across all three sets of analyses, all associations between compassionate goals and higher or increased responsiveness remained significant, .17 < pr s < .46, all p s < .001, although perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness predicted higher or increased responsiveness to roommates, .37 < pr s < .40, all p s < .001, across analyses. Thus, students’ perceptions of roommates as more or less responsive do not explain the association between compassionate goals and increased responsiveness to roommates.

On the other hand, 2 of the 3 analyses suggested that associations between students’ self-image goals and lower or decreased responsiveness to roommates could be explained by perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness. Weekly self-image goals no longer predicted weekly responsiveness to roommates, pr = −.03, ns, and chronic self-image goals no longer predicted change in responsiveness from pretest to posttest, pr = −.09, ns. In lagged analyses, Week 1 self-image goals still predicted decreased responsiveness to roommates from Weeks 1 to 2, pr = −.25, p < .001. Thus, students’ self-image goals led to their decreased responsiveness to the extent that they perceived their roommates as less responsive.

Does disclosure explain these associations?

Because others’ disclosure elicits responsiveness and perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness may be a function of people’s own disclosure ( Reis & Shaver, 1988 ), we examined the possibility that associations between responsiveness to roommates and perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness could be explained by perceptions of roommates’ disclosure or disclosure to roommates. We reanalyzed paths in the weekly, lagged-week, and change from pretest to posttest analyses, controlling for the appropriate disclosure variable (i.e., we regressed responsiveness to roommates on goals controlling for perceptions of roommates’ disclosure and we regressed perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness on responsiveness to roommates controlling for disclosure to roommates). In lagged-week analyses we controlled for Week 1 disclosure, or Weeks 1 and 2 disclosure, depending on the specific path we tested. In testing change from pretest to posttest, we controlled for the appropriate chronic or pretest and posttest disclosure variables, again depending on the specific path we tested.

Interpersonal goals predicted responsiveness and responsiveness predicted perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness, independent of disclosure. In 9 of 10 analyses, results remained unchanged when we retested these paths controlling for the appropriate disclosure variables; in the weekly model, the association between weekly self-image goals and responsiveness to roommates became marginally significant when we controlled for perceptions of roommates’ disclosure that week, pr = −.07, p < .06. Thus, people’s interpersonal goals offer an alternative to disclosure in creating responsive close relationships.

Does support availability explain these associations?

These paths might be explained by perceived available support from roommates and support made available to roommates. We reanalyzed all paths, controlling for the appropriate support variable (i.e., when responsiveness to roommates was the criterion, we controlled for support made available to roommates; when perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness or goals were the criterion, we controlled for perceived available support from roommates), using the strategy described above (e.g., in lagged-week analyses we controlled for change in support on the weeks responsiveness variables were included in analyses).

Results remained unchanged when we retested individual paths controlling for the appropriate support variables in 8 of 10 analyses (we did not retest nonsignificant links between perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness and goals). In the weekly model, the association between self-image goals and responsiveness to roommates became nonsignificant when we controlled for perceived available support, pr = −.05, ns, and in the pretest to posttest model, the association between chronic self-image goals and change in responsiveness to roommates became nonsignificant when we controlled for chronic perceived available support, pr = −.09, ns. Thus, self-image goals do not predict change in responsiveness beyond available support: that is, self-image goals may contribute to change in responsiveness because of available support. However, available support cannot explain associations between compassionate goals and change in responsiveness, and support made available to roommates cannot explain the association between students’ responsiveness and their perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness, nor can it explain why students’ perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness predict change in their compassionate goals in the lagged analyses.

Does anxiety or depression explain associations in these models?

We also tested whether the associations in Figure 2 were explained by feeling anxious or depressed. We reanalyzed all paths in weekly, lagged-week, and change from pretest to posttest analyses, controlling for anxiety and depression in separate analyses, using the strategy for testing covariates described above. Results did not change when we controlled for anxiety and depression in 18 of 20 analyses. In the pretest and posttest model, the link between chronic self-image goals and change in responsiveness to roommates became nonsignificant when we controlled for chronic anxiety, pr = −.13, ns, and marginal when we controlled for chronic depression, pr = −.14, p = .07. Thus, anxiety and depression appear to explain why self-image goals lead to longer-term decreases in responsiveness, but they cannot explain why self-image goals lead to decreased responsiveness in weekly and lagged-week analyses, or why compassionate goals lead to higher and increased responsiveness. Anxiety and depression also cannot explain projection of responsiveness or why it leads to increased compassionate goals in the lagged model.

Do associations in these models differ by levels of anxiety or depression?

Because links in the intrapersonal model might depend on negative mood, we tested whether anxiety or depression moderated the simple associations in Figure 2 (i.e., not controlling for other variables in the model), testing 26 separate product terms. Only one was significant: in the weekly model (top of Figure 2 ) anxiety moderated the relation between weekly compassionate goals and weekly responsiveness to roommates, pr = .07, p <.05, such that this association was stronger for those who reported higher anxiety, pr = .33, p <.001, compared to those reporting lower anxiety, pr = .20, p <.001. Results suggested that compassionate goals are beneficial for responsiveness, particularly when anxiety is higher. No other links in the intrapersonal models were moderated by anxiety or depression (all other pr s < |.13|, ns). Thus, results strongly suggest that the processes described by the intrapersonal model do not operate differently depending on negative mood.

Do these associations differ by gender?

Because the intrapersonal process from goals to perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness and change in goals might differ for men and women, we tested whether gender moderated each individual path (i.e., not controlling for other variables in the models) in all models in Figure 2 . In all analyses, gender was treated as a fixed effect (i.e., no random effects were specified in weekly and lagged-week models) and coded such that 1 = men and 2 = women. Gender moderated just 2 of the 13 associations tested (all other pr s < |.07|, ns). First, in the lagged model (the middle of Figure 2 ), gender moderated the association between change in responsiveness to roommates and change in perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness, pr = .25, p < .001, such that the relation was stronger for women, pr = .75, p < .001, than men, pr = .48, p < .001. Second, in tests of pretest to posttest change (the bottom of Figure 2 ), gender moderated the association between change in perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness and change in self-image goals, pr = −.16, p < .05, such that perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness predicted decreased self-image goals for women, pr = −.20, p < .01, but not men, pr = .04, ns .

Summary of intrapersonal processes

These data support our hypothesis that interpersonal goals predict change in responsiveness, which leads to projection of responsiveness: compassionate goals predict increased and self-image goals predict decreased responsiveness to roommates, which predicts increased perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness. This process operates within weeks, from week to week, and across 10 weeks, supporting our hypothesis about the dynamic associations between goals and projection of responsiveness. 5 . Covariates did not consistently account for any of these associations, nor were associations moderated by negative mood or gender. 6

Results were mixed with respect to our hypothesis that the relation between goals and projection is self-perpetuating. Lagged-week analyses supported our hypothesis - increased perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness from Weeks 1 to 2 predicted changes in interpersonal goals from Weeks 1 to 3. However, analyses of change from pretest to posttest did not support this hypothesis – changes in perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness from pretest to posttest did not predict changes in goals from pretest to posttest.

Interpersonal Processes: Actors’ Goals and Responsiveness Predicting Partners’ Goals and Responsiveness

The goal of Phase 2 analyses was to test our interpersonal model whereby actors’ compassionate goals predict their increased and self-image goals predict their decreased responsiveness to partners (Path A; Figure 1 ). Actors’ responsiveness to partners then predicts partners’ increased perceptions of actors’ responsiveness (Path F), which then predicts partners’ increased responsiveness to actors (Path I) and increased compassionate and decreased self-image goals (Path J). Again, note that, because the data are structured so that actors and partners are interchangeable, these analyses simultaneously the process by which partners’ goals predict actors’ responsiveness and goals (i.e., Paths G, L, C, and D). We examined this general model within weeks, from week to week using lagged analyses, and the across the semester using the same analytic strategies described to test our projection (i.e., intrapersonal) hypotheses.

Weekly Associations

We examined our hypothesized interpersonal model within weeks, testing whether actors’ weekly interpersonal goals predicted their responsiveness to roommates that same week, which then predicted partners’ perceptions of actors’ responsiveness that week, which then predicted partners’ interpersonal goals and responsiveness to actors.

Within-week analyses support our hypotheses (see the top of Figure 3 ). On weeks when actors had higher compassionate goals they reported being more responsive to partners, and on weeks when actors had higher self-image goals they reported being less responsive to partners. Actors’ responsiveness to partners predicted partners’ higher perceptions of actors’ responsiveness, which predicts partners’ higher responsiveness to actors and partners’ compassionate goals. Partners’ weekly perceptions of actors’ responsiveness did not predict their own self-image goals that same week.

Again, because lagged analyses provide information about the plausibility of causal pathways, we tested whether actors’ compassionate and self-image goals at Week 1 predicted change in their responsiveness from Weeks 1 to 2, which predicted simultaneous change in partners’ perceptions of actors’ responsiveness from Weeks 1 to 2, which then predicted change in partners’ interpersonal goals and responsiveness to actors from Weeks 1 to 3. We predicted that change in actors’ responsiveness to roommates from Weeks 1 to 2 predicted simultaneous change in partners’ perceptions of actors’ responsiveness from Weeks 1 to 2 because responsiveness transactions between roommates should occur simultaneously (i.e., partners should perceive change in actors’ responsiveness as actors report change in their own responsiveness).

Lagged-week analyses did not support our interpersonal hypotheses (see middle of Figure 3 ). Actors’ Week 1 compassionate goals predicted increased responsiveness and Week 1 self-image goals predicted decreased responsiveness to partners from Weeks 1 to 2, but change in actors’ responsiveness to partners from Weeks 1 to 2 did not predict simultaneous change in partners’ perceptions of actors’ responsiveness from Weeks 1 to 2. Change in partners’ perceptions of actors’ responsiveness from Weeks 1 to 2 positively predicted change in partners’ responsiveness to actors and compassionate goals from Weeks 1 to 3, but did not predict change in partners’ self-image goals from Weeks 1 to 3.

These results do not support the plausibility of causal effects of change in actors’ responsiveness to partners on change in partners’ perceptions of actors’ responsiveness. However, changes in partners’ perceptions of actor’s responsiveness led to their increased responsiveness to actors and compassionate goals the following week.

Change from pretest to posttest

To test whether and how actors’ chronic compassionate and self-image goals contribute to long-term changes in their own responsiveness, and partners’ perceptions of actors’ responsiveness, responsiveness to actors, and goals, we examined a path model in which actors’ chronic goals predicted change in actors’ responsiveness to partners across the semester, which predicted change in partners’ perceptions of actors’ responsiveness, which in turn predicted changes in partners’ goals and responsiveness to actors from pretest to posttest.

Results support our interpersonal model (see bottom of Figure 3 ). Actors’ chronic compassionate goals predict increased and chronic self-image goals predict decreased responsiveness to partners. Change in actors’ responsiveness to partners positively predicted change in partners’ perceptions of actors’ responsiveness from pretest to posttest, which positively predicted change in partners’ responsiveness to actors and compassionate goals and marginally negatively predicted change in partners’ self-image goals across the semester.

Next, we tested several alternative explanations for and moderators of the associations tested in Figure 3 . We tested whether disclosure, available support, anxiety or depression explained associations between actors’ responsiveness to partners and partners’ perceptions of actors’ responsiveness by adding the appropriate variables to the interpersonal path models tested above. Details of these analyses are provided below. Note that, as in tests of covariates in the intrapersonal models, the critical test was whether covariates altered the results of our path models, and not whether the covariates were related to each outcome. Because of this, we do not report the association between each covariate and outcome variable. We also tested whether associations between actors’ responsiveness and partners’ perceptions of actors’ responsiveness were moderated by partners’ own goals, and whether associations unique to the interpersonal models were moderated by anxiety, depression or gender using the strategy described above. Again, because of space considerations, we do not report individual statistics for each covariate test, but instead report a summary of results for each covariate; tables of results can be obtained from the first author.

Do partners’ goals influence how they perceive actors’ responsiveness?

We tested the possibility that the links between actors’ responsiveness and partners’ increased perceptions of actors’ responsiveness were dependent on partners’ goals. For all models in Figure 3 , we tested whether partners’ goals moderated the individual paths (i.e., not controlling for other variables in the models) between actors’ responsiveness to partners and partners’ perceptions of actors’ responsiveness, testing the moderating effect of each goal separately. In the weekly model we tested whether partners’ weekly goals moderated this association; in the lagged analyses we tested whether partners’ Week 2 goals moderated the link between change in actors’ responsiveness to partners from Weeks 1 to 2 and change in partners’ perceptions of actors’ responsiveness from Weeks 1 to 2; in the pretest to posttest analyses we tested whether partners’ posttest goals moderated the link between change in actors’ responsiveness to partners from pretest to posttest and change in partners’ perceptions of actors’ responsiveness from pretest to posttest. Across analyses, partners’ goals did not moderate this association, compassionate goals: −.07 < pr < .02, all ns; self-image goals: all pr s < .02, all ns. Actors’ and partners’ agreement about actors’ responsiveness to partners does not depend on partners’ compassionate or self-image goals.

Does disclosure, available support, anxiety, or depression explain associations between actors’ responsiveness to partners and partners’ perceptions of actors’ responsiveness? 7

We tested associations between actors’ responsiveness to partners and partners’ perceptions of actors’ responsiveness in weekly and change from pretest to posttest models in Figure 3 , separately controlling for partners’ perceptions of actors’ disclosure, partners’ social support available from actors, and partners’ anxiety and depression using a strategy similar to that described for the intrapersonal models. We did not test covariates in the lagged model because there was no association between change in actors’ responsiveness and change in partners’ perceptions of actors’ responsiveness. Results remained unchanged in 7 of 8 tests. Change in actors’ responsiveness to partners from pretest to posttest no longer predicted change in partners’ perceptions of actors’ responsiveness from pretest to posttest when we controlled for change in partners’ support available from actors. Overall, results suggest that actors’ and partners’ agreement about actors’ responsiveness cannot be accounted for by partners’ perceptions of disclosure, anxiety, or depression. However, changes in actors’ responsiveness to partners leads to changes in partners’ perceptions of actors’ responsiveness because actors’ responsiveness is supportive.

Does disclosure, available support, anxiety or depression explain associations between changes in partners’ perceptions of actors’ responsiveness and change in partners’ responsiveness or compassionate goals?

We tested the link from partners’ perceptions of actors’ responsiveness to partners’ responsiveness and compassionate goals, controlling for partners’ perceptions of actors’ disclosure, support available from roommates, anxiety, and depression (in 24 separate analyses). We did not retest nonsignificant links between partners’ perceptions of actors’ responsiveness and partners’ self-image goals. All results remained unchanged, suggesting that partners’ responsiveness reciprocity (i.e., the link between partners’ perceptions of responsiveness and responsiveness to actors) and compassionate goals could not be accounted for by their perceptions of actors’ disclosure, support available from roommates, anxiety, or depression.

Do these associations differ by partners’ levels of anxiety or depression?

We tested whether partners’ anxiety or depression moderated links between actors’ responsiveness and partners’ perceptions of actors’ responsiveness in all models in Figure 3 . We also tested whether partner’s anxiety or depression moderated associations between partners’ perceptions of actors’ responsiveness and partners’ responsiveness to actors in lagged and pretest and posttest models. Partners’ anxiety and depression did not moderate these associations in 9 of 10 tests (all pr s < |.11|, ns). However, in pretest and posttest analyses, depression moderated the link between change in partners’ perceptions of actors’ responsiveness and partners’ responsiveness, pr = −.20, p < .01, such that this association was stronger when partners also reported lower depression (lower depression: pr = .70, p < .001; higher depression: pr = .63, p < .001). Thus, when partners become more depressed, they are less likely to reciprocate increased perceptions of actors’ responsiveness.

We tested whether gender moderated associations unique to the interpersonal models (e.g., links between actors’ responsiveness to partners and partners’ perceptions of actors’ responsiveness in weekly, lagged-week, and change from pretest to posttest analyses; links between partners’ perceptions of actors’ responsiveness and partners’ goals in weekly analyses; and links between partners’ perceptions of actors’ responsiveness and partners’ responsiveness to actors in lagged-week, and change from pretest to posttest analyses), using the same strategy reported for testing whether gender moderated intrapersonal associations. Gender did not moderate any of the 7 paths tested (all pr s < |.13|, all ns).

Study 1 examined intra- and interpersonal models of responsiveness in first-semester college roommates. Results were generally consistent with our hypotheses: students’ compassionate and self-image goals lead to change in their responsiveness to roommates, with consequences for change in both people’s perceptions of responsiveness in the relationship and interpersonal goals. Thus, people’s goals can create their own and others’ responsiveness and goals. In general, these associations were not due to disclosure, available support, anxiety, or depression.

Students’ goals predict their own experiences of responsiveness - their compassionate and self-image goals predict change in their responsiveness to partners, which then predicts projection of their responsiveness onto partners. We also predicted a self-perpetuating cycle between goals and responsiveness in relationships: actors’ perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness in turn predict change in their own compassionate and self-image goals. We found support for this hypothesis in the lagged-week data, but these effects did not appear to have any cumulative effect from pretest to posttest, suggesting projection processes have relatively short-term consequences for people’s goals, but do not affect their goals over the longer-term.

Tests of the interpersonal associations were partially consistent with our hypothesis. We expected agreement between actors and partners on actors’ responsiveness to partners, which should have predicted change in partners’ responsiveness to actors and goals. We found strong evidence for this hypothesis within weeks and over the semester - when actors reported increased responsiveness to partners, partners perceived increased responsiveness from actors, which then led to partners’ increased responsiveness to actors and increased compassionate goals. However, we did not find these associations in the lagged-week analyses – changes in actors’ responsiveness to partners from Weeks 1 to 2 did not predict partners’ perceptions of actors’ responsiveness over that same period, perhaps due to measurement timing; when students were asked to think about their and their roommates’ behaviors over the past week, the two roommates may have simply recalled or drew their responses from different events. More precise measurements of daily goals and responsiveness might show greater agreement between actors’ and partners’ reports. In study 2, we examined these associations in daily measures across three weeks to investigate this possibility.

Study 1 also did not address the implications of being responsive to others for the relationship itself. We predicted that this process of building (or undermining) projected and actual responsiveness between roommates has implications for both people’s perceived relationship quality. We included a measure of relationship quality in Study 2 to address this issue.

Study 1 ruled out self-disclosure, anxiety, and depression as alternative explanations for these processes. Study 1 also ruled out available support as an alternative explanation for associations between change in partners’ perceptions of actors’ responsiveness and change in partner’s responsiveness and compassionate goals and in 2 of 3 analyses, change in available support also could not account for associations between change in actors’ responsiveness to partners to change in partners’ perceptions of actors’ responsiveness. However, self-esteem or esteem for roommates might also account for these associations. For example, if high self-esteem predicts compassionate goals, responsiveness to roommates, and perceived responsiveness of roommates, the associations observed in Study 1 could be spurious. Esteem for roommates might also produce spurious associations if associations with perceptions of responsiveness are simply due to positive evaluations of roommates. Additionally, esteem for roommates may also produce spurious findings if students who hold their roommates in high esteem have more compassionate goals, are more responsive, and perceive their roommates as more responsive.

Alternatively, self-esteem may moderate associations tested in Study 1. Previous research shows that self-esteem moderates associations between perceptions of partners’ regard and relationship behavior and satisfaction ( Murray, Bellavia, Rose, & Griffin, 2003 ; Murray, Griffin, Rose, and Bellavia, 2003 ). In the present context, associations between actors’ compassionate goals and responsiveness to partners, and between perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness and relationship quality might be stronger when actors’ self-esteem is high. We tested self-esteem and esteem for roommates as covariates and self-esteem as a moderator in Study 2.

Study 2 used data from the Roommate Goals Study (Crocker & Canevello, Study 2) to examine how students’ goals predict projected and reciprocal responsiveness between roommates that ultimately influences both peoples’ relationship quality. The general design was similar to Study 1, but over a different time frame; same-sex freshmen roommate dyads completed a series of pretest, posttest, and 21 daily questionnaires, each including measures of compassionate and self-image goals, responsiveness to roommates, perceived roommates’ responsiveness, relationship quality, and self-esteem and esteem for roommates.

Again, we expected both intrapersonal and interpersonal consequences of compassionate and self-image goals. The design of Study 2 allowed us to more closely examine interactions between roommates by assessing students daily instead of weekly. Also, we followed roommate pairs over a shorter time period to examine whether these processes occur in daily interactions. Finally, we included measures of self-esteem and esteem for roommates to rule out these variables as alternative explanations for our hypotheses.

Sixty-five first-semester freshmen roommate dyads at a large Midwestern university who did not know each other prior to college volunteered for a study of goals and roommate relationships during the fall semester. Students completed a pretest survey, 21 daily surveys, and a posttest survey. Sixty-two pairs (95%) completed all 23 surveys; 46 pairs (71%) were female, and 19 (29%) were male. Sixty-eight percent of participants reported their race as White or European-American, 4% as Black or African-American, 16% as Asian or Asian-American, 5% were Latino(a), and 6% selected other. The racial composition of the sample closely approximates the racial composition of the incoming freshman class. Participants ranged in age from 18 to 22 years ( M = 18.2 years).

Roommate pairs attended an initial lab session to learn about the study, give their informed consent, complete the pretest survey, and receive instructions for completing the remaining 22 online surveys. The daily surveys took about 10 min. to complete and roommates were required to complete daily surveys on the same day. Participants were instructed to complete the surveys in privacy and not to discuss their responses with each other. To retain as many participants as possible in the study, participants were given up to 28 days to complete the 21 daily surveys. 8 Once roommates had completed 21 daily surveys, they completed the posttest survey and were paid for their participation. For a detailed description of the procedure see Crocker and Canevello (2008) , Study 2.

Participants completed measures of their compassionate and self-image goals, perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness, responsiveness to the roommate, relationship quality, self-esteem, and esteem for roommates at pretest, posttest, and daily. The pretest measure also included questions about demographics (gender, race/ethnicity, age, parental income). Additional measures not germane to the goals of the present investigation were also included.

Compassionate and self-image goals for participants’ relationships with their roommates were measured at pretest, posttest, and daily, using the measure described in Study 1. 9 Based on exploratory factor analyses, we modified the scales in the following ways: for the compassionate goals scale we dropped “be supportive of my roommate” and “make a positive difference in my roommate’s life” and added "be aware of the impact my behavior might have on my roommate's feelings" and "avoid doing anything that would be harmful to my roommate." For the self-image goals scale we dropped “avoid revealing my shortcomings and vulnerabilities” and added "avoid coming across as unintelligent or incompetent" and "demonstrate my intelligence.” Both scales had high internal consistency at pretest (self-image α = .80; compassionate α = .84), posttest (self-image α = .87; compassionate α = .93), and across days (self-image goals: .75 < α < .87, M α = .83; compassionate goals: .88 < α < .96, M α = .94).

Responsiveness to the roommate and perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness were measured using a 12-item version of the scale used in Study 1. Additional items included “I do things to show my roommate that I care about him/her;” “I try to see things from his/her point of view;” “I am uncaring toward my roommate” (reverse); “I try to show respect for my roommate’s capabilities and talents;” “I don’t really take my roommate’s concerns seriously” (reverse); and “I am sincere when I interact with my roommate.” We measured daily responsiveness with 8 items from the pretest and posttest measure asking how participants acted toward their roommate that day. Responsiveness was reliable at pretest (α =.93), posttest (α = .95) and from day to day (.89 < α < .95, M α = .93).

A parallel set of 12 items assessed the extent to which participants believed their roommates responded to them at pretest and posttest. Sample items included "My roommate seems sensitive to my feelings" and "My roommate is sincere when he/she interacts with me." We removed “My roommate seems uncaring” and “My roommate makes me feel comfortable about myself and my feelings” because in factor analyses, they overlapped with relationship quality. We measured daily roommate responsiveness with 7 items from the pretest and posttest measure asking how roommates acted toward participants that day. Roommate responsiveness was reliable at pretest (α = .96), posttest (α =.94), and from day to day (.84 < α < .92, M α = .89).

Relationship quality included measures of satisfaction, commitment and closeness. Because all scales were highly correlated at each time point (all r s > .67), and we had the same predictions for these indicators of relationship quality, we standardized and averaged these scales to create pretest, posttest, and daily composite relationship quality scores.

In the pretest and posttest, we measured relationship satisfaction with 6 questions: “In general, how satisfied are you with your relationship with your roommate?” “How well does your roommate meet your needs?” “How good is your relationship with your roommate compared to most?” “How many problems are there in your relationship with your roommate?” (reverse scored) “How often do you wish you hadn’t moved in with your roommate?” (reverse scored) and “To what extent has your relationship with your roommate met your original expectations?” Students responded on a scale from 1 ( poorly/not at all/never ) to 5 ( extremely well/completely/often ). We measured commitment using an abbreviated version of the measure developed by Rusbult and colleagues ( Rusbult, Verette, Whitney, Slovik, & Lipkus, 1991 ): “To what extent are you committed to your relationship with your roommate?” “For what length of time would you like your relationship with your roommate to last?” “To what extent are you attached to your roommate?” and “How likely is it that you will end your relationship with your roommate in the near future?” (reverse scored). Students rated items on a 9-point scale (0 = Not at all/< 1 month , 8 = Extremely/ 5+ years ). Two items assessed closeness (e.g., Gore et al, 2006 ): “Relative to all other relationships, how would you characterize your relationship with your roommate?” and “Relative to what you know about other people’s roommate relationships, how would you characterize your relationship with your roommate?” and were rated on a 1 ( not as close as others ) to 5 ( much closer than others ) scale. The relationship quality composite measures had high internal consistency at pretest (α =.90) and posttest (α =.92)

We measured daily relationship satisfaction with 3 questions from the pretest/posttest measure: “How well does your roommate meet your needs today?” “How good is your relationship with your roommate today, compared to most?” and “Today, to what extent do you wish you hadn’t moved in with your roommate?” (reversed). Students responded on a scale from 1 ( poorly/not at all/never ) to 5 ( extremely well/completely/often ). We measured commitment using the four commitment items from the pretest measure, with each item referring to how they felt that day. A single item assessed closeness: “How close do you feel to your roommate today?” and was rated on a 1 ( not at all ) to 5 ( extremely ) scale. The daily relationship quality composite measure had high internal consistency each day of the study (.82 < α < .88, M α = .86).

Self-esteem . The Rosenberg Self-Esteem Inventory ( Rosenberg, 1965 ) was used to assess global self-esteem. In the pretest and posttest surveys, self-esteem was measured using the original 10-item measure. We used an abbreviated version of this measure in the daily surveys, with the stem “Today, to what extent did you feel:” followed by 4 questions: “that you are a person of worth,” “that you are a failure,” (reverse scored) “satisfied with yourself,” and “that you are no good at all,” (reverse scored). Self-esteem had adequate internal consistency at pretest (α = .89), posttest (α = .90), and each day of the study (.83 < α < .93, M α = .90).

Esteem for roommates was measured at pretest, posttest, and in each of the daily surveys. In the pretest and posttest, esteem for roommates was measured with 10 questions, adapted from the Rosenberg self-esteem measure ( Rosenberg, 1965 ), with items assessing evaluation of roommates (not perceptions of roommates’ self-esteem). Sample items included: “I certainly feel my roommate is useless at times,” (reverse scored) “I feel that my roommate has a number of good qualities,” and “I feel that my roommate is a person of worth, at least on an equal basis with others.” Students responded on a scale from 1 ( strongly disagree ) to 5 ( strongly agree ). In the daily surveys, we measured esteem for roommates with the stem “Right now, to what extent do you feel that:” followed by 4 questions: “your roommate is a person of worth,” “your roommate is a failure,” (reverse scored) “you are satisfied with your roommate,” and “your roommate is no good at all,” (reverse scored). Esteem for roommates had adequate internal consistency at pretest (α =.88), posttest (α =.89), and across days (.78 < α < .91, M α = .86).

Table 3 shows the intrapersonal (i.e., within-person) intraclass correlations, which adjust for the degree of nonindependence between dyad members ( Griffin & Gonzalez, 1995 ), means, and standard deviations for all of the main variables in Study 2. As in Study 1, compassionate goals correlated strongly with responsiveness to roommates and perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness. Also, perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness correlated strongly with relationship quality. Following Study 1, we conducted a series of factor analyses to determine whether these measures were empirically distinct.

Study 2 means, standard deviations, and intrapersonal intraclass correlations for all pretest, posttest, and mean daily variables.

N = 130 at pretest, N = 124 at posttest. Chronic scores were calculated by averaging across the 21 daily reports. Responsiveness to the roommate and roommate responsiveness was measured on a scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 5 (very much). Relationship quality was standardized. Chronic self-image and compassionate goals were measured on a scale ranging from 1 (never) to 5 (always).

Perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness and relationship quality

Perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness and relationship quality are empirically distinct. We conducted EFAs on pretest relationship quality and perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness items. In an initial EFA on pretest items, all but two perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness items (“my roommate makes me feel comfortable about myself and my feelings” and “my roommate seems uncaring”) loaded on the two factors as predicted. After removing those items, a 2-factor solution accounted for 57% of the variance: all perceptions of roommate’s responsiveness items loaded on the first factor, with loadings ranging between |.49| and |.87|; all relationship quality items loaded on the second factor, with loadings ranging between |.49| and |.86|. Importantly, the highest loading on a secondary factor was |.22|. We conducted CFAs on items for each day of the study and at posttest, excluding the two items removed from the EFA above (for a total of 22 separate sets of analyses), testing 2-factor, 120.46 < χ 2 (df = 89 and 208, 124 < N < 130) < 553.274, Mχ 2 (df = 89 and 208, 124 < N < 130) = 232.09, and single-factor solutions, 188.97 < χ 2 (df = 90 and 209, 124 < N < 130) < 860.03, Mχ 2 (df = 90 and 209, 124 < N < 130) =371.45. For all sets of analyses, 2-factor solutions fit significantly better, 63.54 < Δχ 2 (1, 124 < N < 130) < 306.752, MΔχ 2 (1, 124 < N < 130) = 139.36. Because of their overlap with relationship quality, we did not include the two cross-loading items in our final scoring of perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness, nor did we include them in future factor analyses of perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness items.

As in Study 1, the items used to assess compassionate goals and responsiveness to roommates were empirically distinct. We conducted EFAs on pretest compassionate goals and responsiveness to roommate items and CFAs on these items at posttest and each day, comparing the fit of a 2-factor model with that of a single-factor model. In an initial EFA on pretest items, a 2-factor solution accounted for 50% of the variance: all responsiveness items loaded on the first factor, with loadings ranging between |.41| and |.88|; all compassionate goal items loaded on the second factor, with loadings ranging between .50 and .74. No secondary loading exceeded |.17|. We conducted CFAs on items at posttest and across the 21 days, testing 2-factor, 133.52 < χ 2 (df = 89 and 151, 124 < N < 130) < 350.19, M χ2 (df = 89 and 151, 124 < N < 130) = 198.89, and single-factor solutions, 252.81 < χ 2 (df = 90 and 152, 124 < N < 130) < 500.52, M χ 2 (df = 90 and 152, 124 < N < 130) = 394.18. For all sets of analyses, the 2-factor solution fit significantly better, 104.41 < Δχ 2 (1, 124 < N < 130) < 308.15, M Δχ 2 (1, 124 < N < 130) = 195.29.

The items used to assess compassionate goals and perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness are also empirically distinct. We conducted EFAs on pretest compassionate goals and perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness items and CFAs on these items at posttest and each day, comparing the fit of a 2-factor model with that of a single-factor model. An EFA on pretest items showed that a 2-factor solution accounted for 53% of the variance: all perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness items loaded on the first factor, with loadings ranging between |.58| and |.88|; all compassionate goal items loaded on the second factor, with loadings ranging between .44 and .78. No secondary loading exceeded |.27|. We conducted CFAs on items at posttest and across the 21 days, testing 2-factor, 111.09 < χ 2 (df = 76 and 118, 124 < N < 130) < 234.48, M χ2 (df = 76 and 118, 124 < N < 130) = 150.34, and single-factor solutions, 241.75 < χ 2 (df = 77 and 119, 124 < N < 130) < 531.71, M χ 2 (df = 77 and 119, 124 < N < 130) = 395.46. For all sets of analyses, the 2-factor solution fit significantly better, 102.44 < Δχ 2 (1, 124 < N < 130) < 376.90, M Δχ 2 (1, 124 < N < 130) = 245.12.

Overview of Analyses

Data analyses proceeded in two phases. Phase 1 focused on intrapersonal associations and included only actor variables: we tested a model in which students’ goals predict their responsiveness to roommates (Path A), which predicts their perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness (Path B), which then predicts students’ own goals (Path D) and relationship quality (Path E). Phase 2 focused on interpersonal associations, and included actor and partner variables: we tested a model in which actors’ goals predict their responsiveness to partners (Path A), which predicts partners’ perceptions of actors’ responsiveness (Path F), which predicts partners’ goals (Path J) and relationship quality (Path K). As in Study 1, we tested associations in each phase within a given day, from day to day using lagged analyses, and across three weeks (i.e., from pretest to posttest). As in Study 1, all intra- and interpersonal analyses assess change.

Because the structure of the data was similar to Study 1 (persons within dyads and dyads crossed with days; Kashy et al., 2008 ), we arranged the data and conducted analyses using the same strategy as in Study 1, controlling for the appropriate levels of nonindependence using the MIXED command in SPSS, specifying compound symmetry so that intercept variances between dyad members were equal, and testing change using residuals. Again, path models were tested sequentially; for each path, we regressed the criterion on the predictor, controlling for all variables preceding that path in the model. Partial correlations are reported for all analyses ( Rosenthal & Rosnow, 1991 ).

Table 3 shows the means, standard deviations, and intrapersonal (i.e., within-persons) intraclass correlations for all pretest, posttest, and mean daily variables. We created measures of chronic compassionate and self-image goals by averaging each measure across the 21 days. Compassionate goals, responsiveness, and perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness were strongly correlated at pretest and posttest, and across days. Self-image goals were less strongly correlated with responsiveness and perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness, particularly at posttest and in the chronic measures. As in Study 1, compassionate and self-image goals were significantly correlated. To test the independent effects of goals on outcomes, we regressed all outcome variables on compassionate and self-image goals simultaneously. Table 4 shows the interpersonal (i.e. actor-partner) intraclass correlations for all variables. Roommates’ reported compassionate goals, responsiveness and perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness were moderately correlated across time-points; actors’ self-image goals predicted fewer partner variables.

Study 2 interpersonal (i.e. actor-partner) intraclass correlations for all pretest, posttest, and mean daily variables.

Intrapersonal Processes: Students’ Goals Predicting Their Own Responsiveness, Perceptions of Roommates’ Responsiveness and Subsequent Goals and Relationship Quality

Phase 1 analyses test an intrapersonal model in which students’ compassionate and self-image goals predict their responsiveness to roommates (Path A; Figure 1 ), which predicts their perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness (Path B), which in turn predict their subsequent compassionate and self-image goals (Path D) and relationship quality (Path E). All Phase 1 analyses use only actor variables as predictors and outcomes. As in Study 1, because actors and partners are interchangeable, these analyses simultaneously test the process by which partners’ goals lead to partners’ own goals and relationship quality (i.e., Paths G, H, J and K).

Same Day Associations

First, we examined our hypothesized model within days, testing whether daily interpersonal goals predicted daily responsiveness to roommates, which predicted daily perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness, which then predicted daily relationship quality. Following Study 1, coefficients for daily analyses were derived from random-coefficients models using restricted maximum-likelihood estimation, where models included fixed and random effects for the intercept and each predictor. Also, following the rationale for centering described in Study 1 within-week analyses, we person-centered all predictors.

Within-day analyses supported our hypothesized intrapersonal model (see top of Figure 4 ). Daily compassionate goals predicted higher responsiveness to roommates; daily self-image goals did not predict responsiveness to roommates. Responsiveness to roommates predicted higher perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness on that day, which then positively predicted relationship quality on that day.

Study 2: Intrapersonal (within-person) path analyses of daily, lagged-day, and pretest and posttest data. NOTE: All estimates are partial correlations; estimates in brackets indicate test of the individual path, not controlling for previous paths in the model. *** p < .001, ** p < .01, * p < .05.

Lagged-Day Analyses

We next examined our intrapersonal model using lagged-day analyses to test the plausibility of causal paths in our model. Using the strategy described in Study 1 lagged analyses, i.e., random-coefficients models using restricted maximum-likelihood estimation with all predictors grand mean centered, we constructed MIXED models that regressed one day’s criterion on the previous day’s predictor and criterion.

Using the logic from Study 1’s intrapersonal lagged-week path model, we hypothesized a lagged-day path model in which goals at Day 1 predict change in responsiveness to roommates from Days 1 to 2, which predict simultaneous change in perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness from Days 1 to 2, which in turn predict change in compassionate and self-image goals and relationship quality from Days 1 to 3.

Results supported the intrapersonal model (see middle of Figure 4 ). Day 1 compassionate goals predicted increased responsiveness to roommates and Day 1 self-image goals predicted decreased responsiveness to roommates from Days 1 to 2. Change in responsiveness to roommates from Days 1 to 2 positively predicted change in perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness from Days 1 to 2, which in turn, positively predicted change in relationship quality and compassionate goals and but did not predict change in self-image goals from Days 1 to 3.

These analyses support the plausibility of a causal chain from goals to responsiveness to roommates and perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness to relationship quality. Compassionate goals predict increased responsiveness and perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness across days, which results in increased relationship quality and compassionate goals and decreased self-image goals, while self-image goals predict decreased responsiveness and perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness across days, which results in decreased relationship quality and compassionate goals and increased self-image goals.

To test whether and how students’ chronic compassionate and self-image goals contribute to changes in their responsiveness, perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness, goals, and relationship quality over time, we tested a path model in which chronic goals averaged across 21 days predicted change in responsiveness to roommates from pretest to posttest, which then predicted change in perceptions of the roommates’ responsiveness, which in turn predicted changes in goals and relationship quality from pretest to posttest. Again, following Study 1, coefficients for testing change from pretest to posttest were derived from fixed-effects models using restricted maximum-likelihood estimation and we grand mean centered all predictors.

Results testing change across 3 weeks supported our intrapersonal model (see bottom of Figure 4 ) and suggest that effects of goals accumulate over time, resulting in longer-term changes in compassionate and self-image goals and relationship quality. Chronic compassionate goals predict increased and chronic self-image goals predict decreased responsiveness to roommates from pretest to posttest, which predicted increased perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness from pretest to posttest, which predicted increased relationship quality and compassionate goals, and decreased self-image goals.

As in Study 1, we tested several alternative explanations for and moderators of these associations, using the same statistical strategies described in Study 1. We tested whether perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness, self-esteem, or esteem for roommates explained associations in Figure 4 . We also test whether these associations were moderated by self-esteem or gender. Finally, we also tested an alternative model suggesting that perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness result from relationship quality (as compared to our hypothesis that relationship quality results from perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness). As in Study 1, we used the procedure recommended by Aiken and West (1991) to examine simple slopes. Specific analyses for each covariate are described below. As in Study 1, our main concern was whether these covariates offered an alternative explanation for our findings. Thus, we report the associations between our predictor and outcome variables, controlling for covariates, but do not report whether covariates were related to each outcome, not controlling for our predictors. Again, tables of these analyses including covariates can be obtained from the first author.

We tested whether associations between students’ interpersonal goals and changes in their responsiveness to roommates could be explained by reciprocity of perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness by retesting the links between compassionate and self-image goals and responsiveness to roommates (all models in Figure 4 ), controlling for daily perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness in daily analyses, Day 1 perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness in lagged analyses, and chronic perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness in the pretest and posttest analyses. As in Study 1, perceptions of roommates responsiveness predicted higher or increased responsiveness to roommates across all three sets of analyses, .19 < pr s < .60, all p s < .001. Associations between compassionate goals and higher and increased responsiveness remained significant in daily and lagged analyses, daily: pr = .26, p < .001; lagged: pr = .33, p < .001. In pretest and posttest analyses, chronic compassionate goals no longer predicted change in responsiveness to roommates when we controlled for chronic perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness, pr = .10, ns.

The associations between students’ self-image goals and decreased responsiveness to roommates were not explained by perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness. In lagged analyses and analyses of change from pretest to posttest, self-image goals predicted decreased responsiveness to roommates, when we controlled for perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness, both pr s = −.21, both p s < .05. The association between daily self-image goals and responsiveness to roommates was not significant in the original model. Overall, these results suggest that students’ interpersonal goals predict change in their responsiveness to roommates, but not because they also perceive roommates as more or less responsive.

Does self-esteem or esteem for roommates explain these associations?

We tested whether the hypothesized processes were due simply to students’ esteem for themselves or their roommates. We reanalyzed all models in the daily, lagged-day, and change from pretest to posttest data, controlling for these covariates separately, using the analytic strategy from Study 1. Results remained unchanged in 31of 32 analyses. In the pretest to posttest model (bottom of Figure 4 ) the association between change in perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness and change in self-image goals became marginal when we controlled for change in esteem for roommates, pr = −.21, p < .08, however change in esteem for roommates did not significantly predict change in self-image goals, pr = −.10, ns. Thus, the associations tested here cannot be accounted for by self-esteem or esteem for roommates.

Does self-esteem moderate these associations?

We also tested whether each individual path in the models in Figure 4 was moderated by self-esteem (not controlling for other variables in the model). Overall, the intrapersonal process did not depend on self-esteem. Only 2 of 16 interactions were significant; self-esteem moderated the association between self-image goals and decreased responsiveness so that it was stronger with lower self-esteem in the lagged day analyses, pr = .14, p < .05 (low self-esteem, pr = −.21, p < .001, high self-esteem, pr = −.02, ns), but weaker with lower self-esteem in pretest to posttest analyses, pr = −.20, p < .05, (low self-esteem, pr = −.19, p < .05, high self-esteem, pr = −.36, p < .001). For all other moderation analyses pr s < |.12|, ns.

As in Study 1, responsiveness dynamics may differ by gender. We tested whether gender moderated each individual path (i.e., not controlling for other variables in the models) in each intrapersonal model, using the strategy described in Study 1. Gender did not moderate any of the 16 associations in Figure 4 , all pr s < |.17|, ns.

Does relationship quality lead to perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness?

It is possible that students’ relationship quality leads to changes in their perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness. To address this, we tested alternative orders of perceptions of roommate’s responsiveness and relationship quality in lagged-day and change from pretest to posttest analyses. (We did not test this alternative order in the daily data because the cross-sectional nature of those data do not speak to the plausibility of causal associations and either order would provide virtually the same result.) Change in relationship quality from Days 1 to 2 did not predict change in perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness from Days 1 to 3, pr = .06, ns. Chronic perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness averaged across 21 days predicted increased relationship quality, pr = .23, p < .05; chronic relationship quality averaged across 21 days did not predict change in perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness, pr = .10, ns. (We did not test whether change in relationship quality from pretest to posttest would predict change in perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness from pretest to posttest because this test of simultaneous change would provide the same result for either ordering.) Thus, these analyses do not support the idea that perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness are simply a function of relationship quality.

These results replicate and extend the intrapersonal process found in Study 1: goals predict change in responsiveness to roommates, which predicts increased projection of responsiveness, which predicts changes in goals and relationship quality. 10 Self-esteem and esteem for roommates did not account for these associations and they were not moderated by self-esteem. 11

Thus, goals have immediate implications for responsiveness, projection of responsiveness, goals, and relationship quality. These effects held in lagged day analyses and predicted change in goals and relationship quality across three weeks. However, these analyses do not address whether students’ goals predict their roommates’ experiences. The second phase of analyses addresses this issue.

Interpersonal Processes: Actors’ Goals and Responsiveness Predicting Partners’ Responsiveness and Relationship Quality

Phase 2 analyses test whether partners perceive actors’ responsiveness and whether these perceptions predict partners’ own goals and relationship quality. We tested an interpersonal model in which actors’ goals predict actors’ responsiveness to partners (Path A), which predicts partners’ perceptions of actors’ responsiveness (Path F), which predicts partners’ goals and relationship quality (Paths J and K, respectively). These analyses simultaneously examine the process by which partners’ goals predict actors’ goals and relationship quality (i.e., Paths G, L, D, and E). We examined evidence supporting this model within days, from day to day, and across three weeks, using the same analytic strategy described in Study 1 interpersonal analyses.

Within-day analyses support our hypotheses (see top of Figure 5 ). On days actors had higher compassionate goals, they reported being more responsive to partners; actors’ daily self-image goals were unrelated to their daily responsiveness to partners. Actors’ daily responsiveness to partners predicted partners’ higher perceptions of actors’ responsiveness, which then predicted partners’ higher relationship quality and compassionate goals, but did not predict self-image goals.

Study 2: Interpersonal (between-person) path analyses of daily, lagged-day, and pretest and posttest data. NOTE: All estimates are partial correlations; estimates in brackets

Following the logic from Study 1’s interpersonal lagged-week path model, we hypothesized an interpersonal lagged-day path model in which actors’ goals at Day 1 predict change in their responsiveness to roommates from Days 1 to 2, which predict simultaneous change in partners’ perceptions of actors’ responsiveness from Days 1 to 2, which in turn predict change in partners’ compassionate and self-image goals and relationship quality from Days 1 to 3.

Lagged-day tests of the path model support the plausibility of causal effects in our hypothesized interpersonal model (see middle of Figure 5 ). Actors’ compassionate goals on Day 1 predicted increased responsiveness to partners from Days 1 to 2; actors’ self-image goals on Day 1 predicted decreased responsiveness to partners from Days 1 to 2. Change in actors’ responsiveness to partners from Days 1 to 2 positively predicted simultaneous change in partners’ perceptions of actors’ responsiveness from Days 1 to 2, which positively predicted change in partners’ relationship quality and compassionate goals from Days 1 to 3. Change in partners’ perceptions of actors’ responsiveness from Days 1 to 2 did not predict change in partners’ self-image goals from Days 1 to 3.

Changes Across 3 Weeks

The interpersonal effects of actors’ goals accumulated over time, indirectly predicting change in partners’ relationship quality and goals over three weeks (see bottom of Figure 5 ). Actors’ chronic compassionate goals predicted increased responsiveness and actors’ chronic self-image goals predicted decreased responsiveness to partners from pretest to posttest. Change in actors’ responsiveness to partners positively predicted change in partners’ perceptions of actors’ responsiveness, which positively predicted change in partners’ relationship quality and compassionate goals from pretest to posttest, but did not predict change in partners’ self-image goals.

As in Study 1, we tested whether partners’ goals moderate their perceptions of actors’ responsiveness, whether self-esteem or esteem for roommates explain associations unique to the interpersonal model, and whether those associations are moderated by self-esteem or gender, using the same analytic strategies described in Study 1.

As in Study 1, we tested the possibility that the links between actors’ responsiveness and partners’ perceptions of actors’ responsiveness were dependent on partners’ goals. For all models in Figure 5 , we tested whether partners’ goals moderated the individual paths (i.e., not controlling for other variables in the models) between actors’ responsiveness to partners and partners’ perceptions of actors’ responsiveness, using the strategy described in Study 1. Across daily, lagged, and pretest and posttest analyses, partners’ goals did not moderate this association, compassionate goals: −.09 < pr < .02, all ns; self-image goals: −.04 < pr < .02, all ns. Again, actors’ and partners’ agreement about actors’ responsiveness does not depend on partners’ compassionate or self-image goals.

To rule out the possibility that esteem for roommates or self-esteem explained associations unique to the interpersonal model, we retested the links between actors’ responsiveness to partners and partners’ perceptions of actors’ responsiveness, controlling for partners’ self-esteem or esteem for roommates in separate analyses. We tested these links in all models in Figure 5 using the analytic strategy described previously. In the weekly data, we also tested whether partners’ self-esteem or esteem for roommates accounted for associations between partners’ daily perceptions of actors’ responsiveness and partners’ compassionate and self-image goals. Results remained unchanged in all 5 analyses.

We also tested whether self-esteem moderated associations between actors’ responsiveness and partners’ perceptions of actors’ responsiveness in all models and associations between partners’ perceptions of actors’ responsiveness and partners’ compassionate and self-image goals in the weekly model. None of the 5 product terms tested were significant (all pr s < |.15|, ns).

We tested whether gender moderated associations unique to the interpersonal models (i.e., paths from actors’ responsiveness to partners to partners’ perceptions of actors’ responsiveness in daily, lagged-day, and change from pretest to posttest analyses; and paths from perceptions of actors’ responsiveness to partners’ compassionate and self-image goals in daily analyses); gender did not moderate any of the 5 paths tested (all pr s < |.13|, ns).

Study 2 results strongly support our overall hypothesis that people’s goals can create their own and others’ responsiveness and relationship quality. First, we replicated and extended the intrapersonal associations found in Study 1. Again, students’ goals predicted their responsiveness to roommates, led them to project their responsiveness onto roommates, which then contributed to their goals and relationship quality. We found evidence for this process within days, from day to day, and across the study. Second, interpersonal results supported our hypothesis that students’ goals predict their responsiveness to their roommates, which lead roommates’ to feel responded to, which in turn lead to roommates’ relationship quality and goals. In contrast to Study 1, interpersonal effects in Study 2 were quite clear, suggesting that these processes occur in a more immediate time frame (daily rather than weekly), possibly because in daily reports actors and partners are more likely to base their reports on the same events.

GENERAL DISCUSSION

People who perceive others as responsive become responsive themselves and perceive their partners as more responsive, leading to high quality relationships for both the partner and the self. But what creates perceived partner responsiveness in relationships? The studies reported here explore the processes that promote or undermine responsiveness over time. We incorporate and build on two models in the responsiveness literature: an intrapersonal projection model in which responsiveness predicts perceptions of others’ responsiveness and one’s own relationship outcomes (e.g., Lemay & Clark, 2008 ), and an interactive dyadic model in which actors’ responsiveness to partners predicts partners’ perceptions of actors’ responsiveness (e.g., Reis & Shaver, 1988 ).

Indeed, our data are consistent with the hypothesis that students project their responsiveness onto their roommates. Across data sets, results consistently show that responsiveness to roommates strongly predicts perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness (i.e., projection). 12  However, they also support the hypothesis that responsiveness is a dyadic process, as suggested by Reis and Shaver (1988) – in 5 of 6 models tested, actors’ responsiveness to partners predicted partners’ increased perceptions of actors’ responsiveness. Approximately one-third of the total variance in responsiveness to roommates occurred at the dyad level (30% in Study 1 and 39% in Study 2). Just over one-third of the total variance in perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness occurred at the dyad level (34% in Study 1 and 38% in Study 2).  If responsiveness was strictly an individual projection phenomenon, then we should not find variance in responsiveness and perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness at the dyad level.  Because a portion of variance in responsiveness and perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness occurs at the dyad level, and these roommates did not have a long relationship history or self-select into their roommate relationships, the portion of variance that occurs at the dyad level likely indicates dyadic processes.  Given inconsistent findings in the literature regarding whether responsiveness is a real behavioral phenomenon, our data are important because they consistently support the hypothesis that responsiveness is a dyadic process, in addition to a process of projection.

Results from the current studies also suggest that interpersonal goals provide one avenue for creating responsiveness in relationships, initiating a self-perpetuating relation between goals and responsiveness projection and reciprocation, and demonstrate that these processes are dynamic and extend over time. We consider each of these contributions in turn.

Compassionate and Self-Image Goals Predict Responsiveness in Relationships

Although Reis and Shaver (1988) speculate that actors’ goals and motives play a role in responsiveness processes, no research that we know of has examined these associations. Our data indicate that interpersonal goals can create or undermine responsiveness in close relationships. Across two studies, when people had compassionate goals, they became more responsive to relationship partners. When people had self-image goals, they became less responsive.

Our data show that interpersonal goals, particularly compassionate goals, predict responsiveness. Reis and Shaver’s theorizing focused mainly on disclosure as the mechanism by which responsiveness is created -- actors reveal personally relevant thoughts and feelings to partners and when partners are responsive, actors perceive that responsiveness. Although empirical research supports the Reis and Shaver hypothesis that self-disclosures lead to perceptions of partners’ responsiveness ( Laurenceau et al., 1998 ; Laurenceau, Barrett, & Rovine, 2005 ; Manne et al., 2004 ), disclosure cannot explain associations between compassionate goals, responsiveness to roommates, and perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness in these data. In Study 1, disclosure did not account for 10 of the 11 associations leading to responsiveness or perceptions of roommate’s responsiveness. Thus, these data suggest that responding to partners is an alternative route to creating responsive partners, and that actors’ goals to support partners out of concern for their well-being (versus trying to control what partners think of them) can begin this process. Through their compassionate and self-image goals, people create their own relationship experiences; when they are responsive to others, people project their responsiveness onto others, perceiving them as more responsive, with consequences for people’s own relationship quality. Through their goals, people also create others’ experiences; when, because of their interpersonal goals, people are responsive to partners, partners perceive their responsiveness, which has consequences for partners’ relationship quality.

Perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness did not explain why compassionate goals predict responsiveness to roommates. In only 1 of 6 analyses across both samples did the association between compassionate goals and responsiveness drop to nonsignificance when we controlled for perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness. Thus, people with compassionate goals are not responsive simply because they reciprocate perceived responsiveness in their partners. Perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness may, however, explain why self-image goals predict lower responsiveness. Perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness accounted for the link between weekly self-image goals and responsiveness and between chronic self-image goals and change in responsiveness from pretest to posttest in Study 1. Thus, people with self-image goals are less responsive, apparently, because they perceive others as less responsive.

The association between compassionate goals and responsiveness to roommates was remarkably robust. We examined whether several potential confounds could explain the effects of compassionate goals on responsiveness to roommates. Neither support availability nor negative affect (i.e., anxiety and depression; Study 1) or self-esteem (Study 2) consistently accounted for associations between actors’ compassionate goals, responsiveness, and perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness, nor did they account for associations between actors’ responsiveness, partners’ perceptions of actors’ responsiveness, partners’ responsiveness, and partners’ goals. 13 We also examined whether negative affect in Study 1, or self-esteem in Study 2 moderated the effects of compassionate goals; they did not. The processes we describe – compassionate goals lead to increased responsiveness, which leads to both people’s increased perceptions of the others responsiveness, which then leads to changes in both people’s goals and partners’ increased reciprocated responsiveness -- cannot be attributed to, nor do they depend on, affect or feeling that support is available. Compassionate goals appear to have unique implications for, responsiveness, perceptions of others’ responsiveness, and change in people’s own and partners’ interpersonal goals and relationship quality.

In contrast, the effects of self-image goals on responsiveness to roommates were explained by perceived available support, anxiety, and depression in several analyses, although the effects were inconsistent across weekly, lagged, and pretest to posttest analyses (Study 1). These results suggest that self-image and compassionate goals relate to responsiveness to others through different processes. Self-image goals predict responsiveness through affect and feeling that support is available; compassionate goals predict responsiveness through some other process, unrelated to affect and available support.

Self-Perpetuating Associations between Goals and Responsiveness in Relationships

These studies provide strong evidence for a powerful self-perpetuating virtuous cycle from compassionate goals to responsiveness to relationship quality and subsequent goals. Across all analyses, compassionate goals predicted increased responsiveness and perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness predicted increased compassionate goals in 10 of 12 analyses. Only two findings did not support an effect of perceptions of responsiveness on compassionate goals: first, in Study 1, change in perceptions of partners’ responsiveness from pretest to posttest did not predict change in compassionate goals from pretest to posttest; second, in Study 2, change in perceptions of partners’ responsiveness from Days 1 to 2 only marginally predicted increased compassionate goals from Days 1 to 3. Both of these exceptions occurred in intrapersonal models, suggesting that projection of responsiveness alone may not always be sufficient to create this mutually reinforcing process; it may depend on partners’ responses or behaviors. Overall, these data support our hypothesis that compassionate goals perpetuate future compassionate goals in the self and others.

Of course, upward spirals of compassionate goals and responsiveness cannot continue indefinitely. Future research should address the conditions or situations that cause responsiveness dynamics to asymptote or reverse. We speculate that responsiveness uses attentional resources. Even when people want to support others, they may not always have the attentional capacity to be sensitive to others’ emotional states. Thus, attentional demands may interrupt the upward spiral of compassionate goals and responsiveness. Furthermore, demands on partners’ attention and partners’ lack of motivation to be supportive may interrupt the interpersonal aspects of this upward spiral.

The present studies provide weaker evidence for a vicious cycle from self-image goals to responsiveness. Self-image goals predicted decreased responsiveness to roommates, but perceptions of responsiveness did not predict subsequent self-image goals. However, self-image goals may indirectly have consequences for future compassionate goals; self-image goals contribute to decreased responsiveness, which ultimately leads to decreased compassionate goals for both partners. Thus, the present studies more strongly indicate the benefits of one person’s compassionate goals for both people’s relationship quality than the detriments of self-image goals.

Responsiveness Processes are Dynamic and Extend over Time

The present studies demonstrate the dynamic nature of associations among goals, responsiveness reciprocation, and relationship quality over time. Perceptions of partners’ responsiveness vary from interaction to interaction (e.g., Laurenceau et al., 1998 ), but little research has investigated whether and how these discrete interactions influence long-term relationship experiences. Both the intrapersonal and the interpersonal responsiveness processes in the present studies occurred within a day, and had lingering consequences over several days, suggesting the power of interpersonal goals to create lasting effects on responsiveness. Goals and responsiveness also have cumulative consequences over a semester. Roommates’ chronic goals over weeks and months predicted long-term changes in both people’s responsiveness and perceptions of the others’ responsiveness, with consequences for both people’s goals and relationship quality. Because they operate over the long-term, compassionate goals may create a foundation for enduring, sustainable high-quality relationships.

Examining these processes over different time periods also allowed us to rule out alternative explanations. Within-day and -week analyses suggest that these processes fluctuate within people and are not due to individual differences. For example, on days and weeks when people have higher compassionate goals, they are more responsive to roommates; on days and weeks when those same people have higher self-image goals they are less responsive to roommates. Individual differences (e.g., chronic goals, gender, or social desirability) cannot account for daily and weekly within-person fluctuations in these processes. The lagged analyses and tests of change from pretest to posttest indicate the plausibility of causal paths in these models. Overall, these data do not allow us to rule out causal paths from interpersonal goals to responsiveness to both people’s perceptions of partners’ responsiveness to both people’s compassionate goals and relationship quality in daily assessment across 3 weeks. Tests of change across three weeks and a semester also speak to the cumulative effect of these processes over time. Students’ chronic compassionate goals accumulate to predict long-term changes in responsiveness between roommates. Taken together, these data suggest that interpersonal goals may provide a potential point of intervention – changing people’s daily and weekly goals toward others can change both people’s experiences that day or week, and the following days and weeks, with potential consequences for long-term goal and relationship change.

As a methodological note, results of these studies suggest that the interpersonal processes captured by diary methods may depend on the length of diary intervals. Our data show that the links between actors’ responsiveness to partners and partners’ perceptions of actors’ responsiveness differ depending on whether diaries were completed daily or weekly. In daily and lagged-day analyses (Study 2), roommates showed strong agreement on actors’ responsiveness, suggesting that roommates were drawing from similar events in recalling and reporting their daily relationship experiences. However, we did not find strong actor-partner agreement in weekly assessments (Study 1). Specifically, in lagged-week analyses actors’ Week 1 self-reported responsiveness did not predict change in partners’ perceptions of actors' responsiveness from Weeks 1 to 2. Further, in pretest to posttest change analyses, the association between actors’ responsiveness and partners’ perceptions of actors’ responsiveness became nonsignificant when we controlled for change in partners’ perceived available support. These data suggest that participants report on similar events and experiences in daily reports, however there may be a disconnect between what actors report and what partners perceive when reporting their experiences over longer periods of time (in this case 1 week). Actors may recall their own intentions to be responsive to partners, but these may be independent of partners’ accounts, which may be based on roommates’ supportive behaviors rather than perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness. Thus, daily measures may capture each person’s experiences, but weekly measures may capture each person’s most salient or personally relevant experiences, which may differ for each relationship partner.

Responsiveness and Social Support

Responsiveness and support are theoretically distinct constructs; responsiveness involves tuning into and reacting to others’ states, whereas support involves providing help, information, and assistance, but not necessarily attending to others’ emotional and psychological needs. In the current data, only 2 of 17 significant associations in Figure 2 and Figure 3 could be explained by support, providing empirical evidence that support and responsiveness, although related, are distinct constructs. Previous work also suggests a distinction between support and responsiveness. For example, Collins and colleagues ( Collins, Guichard, Ford, & Feeney, 2006 ) propose that effective caregiving (i.e., support) involves both responsiveness and sensitivity to partners’ signals. Caregiving lacking either responsiveness or sensitivity to partners’ signals is ineffective, consistent with our distinction between responsiveness and support. Whereas effective caregiving predicts improved perceived relationship quality, mood, and self-esteem for recipients, ineffective caregiving does not ( Feeney, 2004 ; Feeney & Collins, 2003 ).

The distinction between support and responsiveness raises many questions about the nature and functions of support versus responsiveness. For example, is responsiveness a subset of support or vice versa? What consequences does each have for relationship outcomes and functioning, and for both relationship partners’ mental and physical health? Theoretical and empirical distinctions between responsiveness and support may clarify their different effects and perhaps resolve issues such as why support is sometimes unhelpful.

These studies are consistent with the hypotheses that interpersonal goals can promote or undermine reciprocal responsiveness between relationship partners and that process can lead to both partners’ relationship quality and interpersonal goals. However, the generalizability of these findings to other types of relationships has yet to be established. The close relationships in these studies were relatively new and the processes shown here were relatively unaffected by relationship history or self-selection into relationships, making them ideally suited for examining relationship processes because they rule out several alternative explanations. We expect that these responsiveness dynamics apply to other types of relationships, for example, between romantic, family, or work dyads. Factors such as relationship history or being in a high-stakes relationship may attenuate or amplify the effects of goals. For example, in relationships with long histories, responsiveness may be affected more strongly by past events rather than by current goals or perceptions of partners’ responsiveness. In high-stakes relationships, for example between firefighters whose lives depend on coworkers, the effects of goals may be amplified because the responsiveness of others to current needs may have life or death consequences. Of course, these are empirical questions to be addressed in future studies.

The nature of the samples may also limit the generalizability of the findings. Both samples were largely female (75% in Study 1 and 71% in Study 2). Despite the relatively small number of men, we tested whether gender moderated the associations found in both studies. Few associations differed by gender relative to the number of tests conducted -- only 2 of 40 product terms between the two samples were significant. Furthermore, results of these moderation analyses were inconsistent between samples – the two paths that were moderated by gender in Study 1 were not consistent between models and did not replicate in Study 2. Additional research with larger samples involving more males would clarify the generalizability of the findings across genders.

Because goals and responsiveness were not manipulated, these studies do not enable us to specify causal relationships among variables. However, several aspects of the results are consistent with causal associations among the variables. Temporal associations among variables in the lagged-week and lagged-day analyses and tests of change from pretest to posttest are consistent with causal links in our path models. Although these effects could be due to unmeasured variables, we ruled out disclosure, social support, self-esteem, and esteem for roommates as alternative explanations. Both studies also provided evidence of an interpersonal process in which actors’ goals and responsiveness lead to changes in partners’ perceptions, behaviors, and goals. Overall, these results support the plausibility of a causal effect of interpersonal goals on responsiveness to roommates, reciprocal associations between people’s responsiveness, and causal effects of perceived partners’ responsiveness on relationship quality and interpersonal goals.

Finally, although exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses across samples suggest that compassionate goals, responsiveness to roommates, perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness, and relationship quality are separate constructs, examination of zero-order correlations in Table 1 and Table 3 suggest a relatively high degree of overlap between these variables. This may lead some to question our findings. However, it is important to remember that our analyses assess change in these constructs over time . If our goals, responsiveness, and relationship quality measures did, in fact, tap the same construct, tests of change would not be as strong or consistent across analyses and samples. At best, we would expect instability in our effects (e.g., compassionate goals would carry significant variance in some cases, but not others).

That said, we acknowledge this limitation and suggest that future research include more specific measures of responsiveness to others and perceptions of others’ responsiveness. In this research, we used standard measures of responsiveness, which included items assessing both participants’ intentions (i.e., what they were trying to do) and behaviors (i.e., what they actually did). Given that our goals measure captures intentions, it is not surprising that these scales were strongly correlated. Future research should distinguish between enacted responsiveness and responsive intentions.

Additional Theoretical Mechanisms

Overall, results from these two studies support our argument that interpersonal goals lead to both people’s relationship quality through the projection of responsiveness and responsiveness dynamics between relationship partners. However, these results generate additional questions, including how interpersonal goals lead to responsiveness and how responsiveness is communicated between partners. We suggest that goals translate to responsiveness through affect and constructive and destructive beliefs about relationship problems.

When people have self-image goals, they report feeling afraid and confused when interacting with their roommates (e.g., Crocker & Canevello, 2008 ) and endorse unconstructive beliefs about relationships (e.g,. believing that people should take care of themselves, even at the expense of others and blaming the other person for relationship problems; Canevello & Crocker, 2009 ; Crocker & Canevello, 2008 ). We suggest that when people have compassionate goals, fear, confusion, and unconstructive beliefs about relationship problems render them insensitive to partners’ needs, resulting in decreased responsiveness.

When people have compassionate goals, they report feeling caring and connected when they interact with their roommates, (e.g., Crocker & Canevello, 2008 ) and they endorse constructive beliefs about relationship problems (e.g., believing that people should take care of each other and sharing responsibility for relationship problems; Canevello & Crocker, 2009 ; Crocker & Canevello, 2008 ). We suggest that when people have compassionate goals, caring, connection, and constructive beliefs about relationship problems lead to a heightened sensitivity to partners’ needs, resulting in increased responsiveness.

We also suggest that responsiveness is communicated to relationship partners through responsive support behaviors (e.g., Collins & Feeney, in press ). That is, partners’ perceptions of actors’ responsiveness should depend on the match between actors’ behaviors and partners’ needs. When actors’ responsive behaviors attend to partners’ needs, partners should report higher perceptions of actors’ responsiveness. When actors’ responsive behaviors do not address supports sought by partners, partners should report lower perceptions of actors’ responsiveness.

Perceived partner responsiveness is a core feature of close, satisfying relationships and can be created in at least two ways: through an intrapersonal process of projecting own responsiveness onto others or through an interpersonal process whereby people’s reported responsiveness is perceived by partners. But how does responsiveness originate? Our findings suggest that people’s interpersonal goals (to either support others or construct and maintain desired images of the self) can initiate or inhibit responsiveness and its projection and reciprocation in relationships, which predicts relationship quality and reinforces interpersonal goals for both relationship partners. In light of these data, we suggest that people not only can create the types of relationships that they want - those characterized by high responsiveness, and consequently, higher quality, but they also can create responsive, high quality relationships for others.

Acknowledgments

The project described was supported by Grant Number R01MH058869 from the National Institute of Mental Health. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institute of Mental Health or the National Institutes of Health.

We are grateful to Samir Adhia, Laura Diskin, George Payapilly, Cristina Popa, Robby Uppal, Megan Villwock, and Claire Woodward for their assistance with data collection and to Riia Luhtanen, Kate Oddi, Juliana G. Breines, Dominik Mischkowski, and Mary Liu for their invaluable assistance in both of these studies. We are also grateful to our friends at Learning as Leadership for inspiring our research on self-image and compassionate goals.

The following manuscript is the final accepted manuscript. It has not been subjected to the final copyediting, fact-checking, and proofreading required for formal publication. It is not the definitive, publisher-authenticated version. The American Psychological Association and its Council of Editors disclaim any responsibility or liabilities for errors or omissions of this manuscript version, any version derived from this manuscript by NIH, or other third parties. The published version is available at www.apa.org/journals/psp

Similarly, being responsive does not necessitate having compassionate goals. People may be responsive to others without intending to be caring or compassionate. For example, Cathy may be responsive to Dan, not because she has compassionate goals, but because she wants Dan to like her. She may make Dan feel comfortable about himself and valued as a person, be sensitive to his feelings, and understand his concerns, but Cathy may not have compassionate goals to make a positive difference in Dan’s life or avoid being selfish or self-centered. Although compassionate goals are distinguishable from responsiveness, we hypothesize that when people have compassionate goals, they typically are responsive.

2 Of the remaining five percent of respondents, one pair completed the pretest and 9 weekly surveys; two pairs completed the pretest, posttest, and 5 weekly surveys; and three pairs completed the pretest and less than 6 weekly surveys.

3 Participants reported that completing the weekly surveys did not strongly affect their reports or their roommate relationships during Study 1. In the posttest measure, students rated the influence of the weekly records on scales ranging from 1 ( not at all ) to 7 ( very much ). Although we do not have a control group for comparison, participants did not report that it was particularly difficult to complete the weekly surveys ( M = 3.58) and felt that their weekly surveys were accurate ( M = 5.33). Completing the records did increase how much they thought about their roommates and relationships ( M = 4.34) and positive thoughts about the relationships ( M = 3.35). However, they did not report that completing the surveys affected their behavior ( M = 2.61) or the occurrence of negative ( M = 1.94) or positive ( M = 2.67) events between roommates.

4 Although several authors provide guidelines for centering in multilevel models (e.g., Kreft & de Leeuw, 1998 ; Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002 ), they also discourage “thoughtless application” of these guidelines ( Enders & Tofighi, 2007 , p. 136) and, instead, encourage centering strategies based on specific substantive research questions.

5 We examined whether compassionate and self-image goals interacted to predict responsiveness to roommates. Weekly goals did not interact to predict weekly responsiveness or change in responsiveness to the following week, both pr s < |.04|, ns. Chronic goals did interact to predict change in responsiveness to roommates from pretest to posttest, pr = .15, p < .05, such that the association between chronic compassionate goals and increased responsiveness to roommates was stronger with lower self-image goals, pr = .59, p < .001, compared to higher self-image goals pr = .58, p < .001.

6 Previous data from our lab suggests that social desirability positively predicts chronic compassionate goals and negatively predicts chronic self-image goals ( Crocker & Canevello, 2008 , Study 1). In Study 1, pretest social desirability positively correlated with chronic self-image goals, r = .23, p < .01, and negatively correlated with chronic compassionate goals, r = −.22, p < .01. Importantly, when we regressed posttest outcomes on pretest social desirability and pretest outcome variables, social desirability did not predict change in responsiveness to roommates ( pr = .09, ns), nor did it predict change in perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness ( pr = .05, ns). Thus, although social desirability is associated with interpersonal goals, it cannot account for associations between goals and changes in outcomes from pretest to posttest. Social desirability also cannot account for within week analyses because person centered predictors remove the influence of individual differences. Finally, lagged analyses test whether goals on a particular week predict changes in outcomes the following week. Because social desirability is a stable personality factor, we see no reason why it would explain the lagged associations between goals and outcomes.

7 We tested alternative explanations for associations unique to the interpersonal models in Figure 3 . Results for other paths are redundant with test of covariates in the intrapersonal models in Figure 2 .

8 Participants reported that completing daily surveys did not strongly affect their reports or their roommate relationships during Study 2. As in Study 1, students rated the influence of the daily records on scales ranging from 1 ( not at all ) to 7 ( very much ) in the Study 2 posttest measure. Again, we do not have a control group for comparison, but participants did not report that it was particularly difficult to complete the weekly surveys ( M = 3.62) and felt that their weekly surveys were accurate ( M = 5.16). Completing the records did increase how much they thought about their roommates and relationships ( M = 4.88) and positive thoughts about the relationships ( M = 3.72). However, although they reported that that completing the surveys affected their behavior somewhat ( M = 3.19), they did not affect the occurrence of negative ( M = 2.01) or positive ( M = 2.95) relationship events.

9 Compassionate goal items differ between studies because Study 2 preliminary factor analyses suggested that we include “be aware of the impact my behavior might have on my roommates’ feelings,” and “avoid doing anything that would be harmful to my roommate.” We included “be supportive of my roommate” and “make a positive difference in my roommates’ life” in the compassionate goals measure in Study 1 because in factor analyses, it loaded strongly with other compassionate goal items and did not load with responsiveness items. Because factor analyses in Study 2 suggested that it loaded equally with compassionate goal and responsiveness items, we removed this item in Study 2 to reduce overlap between measures. Self-image goal items differ between studies because preliminary factor analyses suggested different solutions. Importantly, although the goals measures differ slightly between studies, they provide consistent results.

10 We examined whether compassionate and self-image goals interacted to predict responsiveness to roommates. Goals did not interact to predict responsiveness or change in responsiveness in daily, lagged, or pretest to posttest analyses, all pr s < |.10|, ns.

11 In Study 2, pretest social desirability does not predict chronic self-image ( r = .13, ns) or compassionate goals ( r = −.05, ns). Importantly, when we regress posttest outcomes on pretest social desirability and pretest outcome variables, social desirability does not predict change in responsiveness to roommates, perceptions of roommates’ responsiveness, relationship quality, compassionate goals, or self-image goals, −.05 < prs < = .05, all ns. Again, social desirability also cannot account for within week analyses because person centered predictors remove the influence of individual differences, and because social desirability is a stable personality factor, we see no reason why it would explain the lagged associations between goals and outcomes.

12 We also tested whether compassionate goals moderate projection (i.e., the relation between A’s responsiveness and A’s perceptions of Ps’ responsiveness). In Study 1 weekly analyses, A’s compassionate goals moderated this association, pr = −.07, p <.05, such that the association was stronger for lower compassionate goals, pr = .38, p <.001, than higher compassionate goals, pr = .28, p <.001. In Study 2 daily analyses, the product between A’s compassionate goals and A’s responsiveness was marginal, pr = −.09, p <.07. Again, the association was stronger for lower compassionate goals, pr = .63, p <.001, than higher compassionate goals, pr = .55, p <.001. Thus, these data are consistent with the hypothesis that goals moderate projection, such that projection is stronger when people have lower compassionate goals. However, they do not suggest that people never project when they have compassionate goals. They simply project less.

13 It is important to note that support accounts for the association between change in actors’ responsiveness to partners and change in partners’ perceptions of actors’ responsiveness from pretest to posttest. This result may indicate that partners detect responsiveness through supportive behavior. However, we hesitate to overstate or over-interpret this finding because 1) it did not replicate in within-week or lagged-week analyses and 2) we did not specifically test mediation.

Contributor Information

Amy Canevello, Research Center for Group Dynamics, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan.

Jennifer Crocker, Research Center for Group Dynamics, Institute for Social Research, and Department of Psychology, University of Michigan.

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How to Have Healthy Family Relationships With Less Stress

Elizabeth Scott, PhD is an author, workshop leader, educator, and award-winning blogger on stress management, positive psychology, relationships, and emotional wellbeing.

Carly Snyder, MD is a reproductive and perinatal psychiatrist who combines traditional psychiatry with integrative medicine-based treatments.

Families can be a life-giving force when they are healthy and relatively stress-free. When healthy, they can be one constant you can count on—so much so that a healthy family relationship can positively impact your health and well-being.  

Strong family relationships also provide comfort, guidance, and strength that you can draw on in times of stress. Likewise, they provide a sense of belonging and unconditional love you are not likely to find anywhere else.

Benefits of Health Family Relationships

Strong family relationships can:

• Help individuals cope with stress
• Improve self-esteem
• Increase well-being
• Encourage people to engage in healthy behaviors
• Provide social support
• Create a foundation for healthy, trusting relationships with others
• Allows people to feel secure and loved
• Encourage the development of values and personal responsibility

But when these relationships are unhealthy or stress-filled, they can feel exhausting and emotionally draining. A highly-conflicted or toxic family relationship can cause a lot of damage. Not only do these unhealthy relationships deprive you of support, but they also can create additional stress, conflict, and even health issues.

For instance, research indicates that 10% to 30% of children grow up in families where their health and well-being are endangered or weakened by unhealthy family relationships.

What Makes a Family Healthy

Generally, people depend on their families in times of crisis for emotional and practical support. Sometimes they even depend on them for support when they're experiencing a financial crisis .

The family is a constant in a person's life. Families also carry your history and share your future. Who better than siblings, parents, and other close relatives to reminisce with about your childhood?

This connection to fond memories, support in times of need, and unconditional love is the unique way that families can bring happiness, stress relief, and a sense of well-being.

According to researchers, strong families all have six qualities in common.   These qualities include appreciation/affection, commitment, positive communication, time together, strong coping skills, and spiritual well-being. Here's a closer look at each.

Appreciation and Affection

Healthy families help one another when they need it. They also keep their promises, support one another, and show affection when they are together. A warm embrace, a squeeze of the hand, or a pat on the back all are gestures that speak love and support to one another.

Healthy families are loyal, supportive, and committed. They find it easy to trust one another with the details of their lives. They also share responsibilities and make decisions together and are there for you when you need them. No one has your back like your family.

Positive Communication

Healthy families often share regular meals together and enjoy talking about their lives and their experiences. What's more, criticisms, putdowns, name-calling, and other types of emotional abuse are rare.

Instead, families encourage and build one another up.

Time Together

Typically, healthy families have fun when they are together, smiling and laughing often. Whether their time is planned or spontaneous, strong families enjoy being around one another. They also share one another's interests and passions.

Strong Coping Skills

Resilience is a hallmark of healthy families. While dealing with a challenge or a crisis is never easy, healthy families encourage one another to remain strong and hopeful. They often look for the good in a bad situation and accept the things they cannot change. Going through a crisis together makes their bonds even stronger.

Spiritual Well-Being

Healthy families usually have positive outlooks on life. They also are filled with thankfulness and gratitude. Typically, these families share common values and may even share the same spiritual or religious beliefs.

Even if they do not agree on everything, healthy families are kind and respectful of other opinions.

Coping With Common Family Issues

Unfortunately, family relationships are so complex, they're not always easy to navigate. In fact, dealing with difficult family members is downright hard.

And even though it may be better for your stress level and your health to eliminate strained relationships from your life, it's not always that simple when difficult people are related to you. To keep conflict at bay and reduce stress, check out these tips on dealing with common family issues.

Focus on Healthy Communication

Conflict is virtually inevitable in any relationship, but there are healthy ways of dealing with it. For instance, if you know that you and your family member disagree over religion or politics, try to stick to more neutral topics. Likewise, if your family member has some negative traits that really rub you the wrong way, focus on the positives instead.

Listening and being empathetic whenever you can is especially important as well. But don't be a doormat either. It's fine to be assertive and let family members know when they have crossed a line.

And, if the conversation is spiraling out of control, know when to take a timeout. With a little hard work, you may be able to have a respectful conversation with your family members, even when you don't see eye to eye.

Be Authentic

When people get together with their families of origin, it is not uncommon to revert to old behavior patterns. But if you’ve grown beyond these old roles and they no longer reflect who you are, don't be afraid to be who you are now. It may take some hard work to stay true to yourself, but in the end, you will be glad you did.

When family members mention how much you have changed or tell you they miss the old you, don't feel obligated to be that person again, especially if you changed for a reason.

For instance, if you were once a heavy drinker and the life of the party, it might be hard for family members to adjust to seeing you without a drink in your hand. But they will get used to it.

You don't have to sacrifice who you are now to make other people feel comfortable. This is called people-pleasing and it's an unhealthy habit to fall into.

Address Family Prejudices

Typically, prejudices arise from a misguided or learned belief that certain groups of people need to be treated differently or with less respect and consideration. Some common prejudices involve race, ethnicity, religion, gender, and sexual orientation.

When you witness prejudice in family members, it's important to tactfully address it right away. Sometimes family members don't realize that what they are doing or saying is marginalizing and insulting.

Talking about tolerance and acceptance is essential. Just be sure to do it lovingly. If you get emotional, judgmental, or angry, your family members will likely focus on those things instead of hearing what you're saying.

If they are unwilling to be respectful, you may need to establish some boundaries with them. Being family doesn't give them the right to disrespect you, a significant other, or anyone else.

Deal With Family Drama

Sometimes families are filled with gossiping, backstabbing, and other types of relational drama. When this happens, it is best to shut it down or stay out of it altogether. Nothing good comes from throwing shade, talking behind people's backs, and pitting people against one another.

Even if you don't participate in the drama, just listening to the mean words communicates that you might condone it. Instead, try redirecting the conversation or walking away. You also can be more direct and indicate that you are not comfortable with the conversation.

The key is to let your family member know that you don't want to be part of the drama.

Address Adult Sibling Rivalry and Jealousy

Sibling relationships are complex, but even more so if sibling rivalry or jealousy exists. In fact, adult sibling rivalry can cause strained relationships, where siblings argue and struggle to get along.

If you feel your relationship with your family is strained because your parents favor another sibling, you may be surprised to find that you’re not alone.

Try not to take perceived favoritism personally or allow it to impact your relationship with the family. While it may appear your parent is closer to your sibling, this does not mean that it is true or that your parent loves that sibling more than you. And whatever you do, do not perpetuate these feelings by competing with your sibling.

You can cope with common family issues by improving communication, being authentic, addressing prejudices, and managing family drama or jealousy.

How to Get Help

Dysfunctional families can take a toll on individual health, but there are steps you can take to address serious problems in the family unit. Family therapy is a type of treatment that focuses on mending relationships, improving communication, and helping each family member understand their place and impact on the rest of the family.

There are also specific types of family therapy, such as:

• Family systems therapy
• Functional family therapy
• Narrative family therapy
• Psychoeducation
• Strategic family therapy
• Supportive family therapy

In many cases, therapists may draw on various techniques and traditions to address a family's specific needs. If you think your family would benefit from therapy, talk to your doctor for a referral. 

While therapy is often most effective when all members participate, this is not always possible. If other family members are unwilling or able to attend therapy, you will also benefit from talking to a therapist on your own.

A Word From Verywell

While you cannot control the types of relationships you have with your family members, you can create greater harmony in your relationships. Work toward strengthening and improving your family relationships. Be open, honest, and empathetic, but don't be afraid to set boundaries with toxic or abusive family members. You are not required to endure abuse just because you're related.

Thomas PA, Liu H, Umberson D. Family relationships and well-being . Innov Aging . 2017;1(3):igx025. doi:10.1093/geroni/igx025

Poutiainen H, Hakulinen-Virtanen T, Laatikainen T. Associations between family characteristics and public health nurses' concerns at children's health examinations . Scand J Caring Sci . 2014;28(2):225-34. doi:10.1111/scs.12035

Defrain J. Asay S. Strong families around the world . Marriage & Family Review . 41(1-2):1-10. doi:10.1300/J002v41n01_01

Carr A.  Family therapy and systemic interventions for child-focused problems: the current evidence base: Child-focused problems .  Journal of Family Therapy . 2019;41(2):153-213. doi:10.1111/1467-6427.12226

Varghese M, Kirpekar V, Loganathan S.  Family interventions: basic principles and techniques .  Indian J Psychiatry . 2020;62(Suppl 2):S192-S200. doi:10.4103/psychiatry.IndianJPsychiatry_770_19

By Elizabeth Scott, PhD Elizabeth Scott, PhD is an author, workshop leader, educator, and award-winning blogger on stress management, positive psychology, relationships, and emotional wellbeing.

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Building and maintaining healthy relationships

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Healthy relationships with your partner and family members can enhance your life and make everyone feel good about themselves. They don’t just happen though; healthy relationships take time to build and need work to keep them healthy. The more positive effort you put into a relationship, the healthier it should be.

What are the signs of a healthy relationship?

People in healthy relationships love and support each other. They help each other practically as well as emotionally. They are there for each other in the good times and the bad times.

Healthy relationships are commonly based on:

• open communication
• both shared and individual interests
• understanding
• emotional support
• shared values around finances, child raising and other important matters

What are the benefits of healthy relationships?

People who have healthy relationships are more likely to feel happier and satisfied with their lives. They are less likely to have physical and mental health problems.

Healthy relationships can:

• increase your sense of worth and belonging and help you feel less alone
• give you confidence
• support you to try out new things and learn more about yourself

Communication in a healthy relationship

People who are in a healthy relationship talk to each other regularly and listen to each other too.

Misunderstandings can happen, and that can lead to people being upset, hurt or confused.

It is best to be clear about what you want to say. Making a real effort to understand what the other person is saying also helps. Double checking that you have understood correctly can avoid misunderstandings.

Just because you love each other doesn’t mean you will be able to communicate well or know what the other is thinking.

To encourage more open communication in your relationship:

• set aside time to speak to each other, without interruptions
• put yourself in the other person’s shoes
• don’t rely on the other person to guess what is going on, or how you are feeling
• listen to each other, and make sure the other person knows you are listening to them
• let the other person finish what they are saying
• talk about things honestly and respectfully
• try not to be too defensive
• stay calm and try not to attack

Communication is not just talking; non-verbal communication — your posture, tone of voice, facial expressions — can tell the other person how you feel. Non-verbal communication can even undermine what you’re saying if your behaviour doesn’t match your words.

How can I maintain healthy relationships?

Building healthy relationships with partners, friends and family is good for you. It improves your mood, your mental health and your wellbeing .

Maintaining them is important. It takes time and commitment. No relationship is perfect, but it is important that it brings you more happiness than stress . Here are some tips for a healthy relationship.

Be clear about what you want

Assertive communication helps make your point more clearly than passive or aggressive communication. It means you make your point clearly and honestly, while respecting the other person's point of view.

Try using ‘I’ statements instead of accusatory ‘you’ statements. For example, say "I really hate it when you don't clean up the dishes" rather than "You never help me in the kitchen".

Say sorry when you’re wrong

This is really important as it helps heal relationship breakdowns that inevitably occur.

Be affectionate and show appreciation

Relationships can become routine after a while. Make special time together and continue to show your affection. Even just snuggling on the couch after work helps show intimacy.

Make the relationship a priority

It can be hard to balance relationships, work, family and friends. You can help establish a work-life balance by setting limits at work and learning to say no – this will ensure you make time for your relationship.

Develop shared interests

Finding hobbies you both enjoy allows you to spend time together. This could be as simple as doing a night class together or taking up a new sport.

Work on feeling good about yourself

Feeling good about yourself allows you to give the best to your relationships. Taking time to do what you enjoy can help.

Healthy friendships maintain your happiness and self-esteem , so it is important that you stay in touch with your friends when you are in a relationship.

One of the warning signs of an unhealthy relationship is when you quit activities you used to enjoy because of your partner.

Find solutions that work for both of you

Conflict is a part of any relationship. It is essential that you both respect and accept your differences and similarities. Finding solutions that work for both of you will probably require compromise at different times.

Make plans for the future

By making plans for the future together, you both show you are in the relationship for the long term.

Family time

Finding time together as a family can be difficult, but there are many benefits to regularly sharing family meals. Even one family meal a week gives everyone a chance to catch up, connect and communicate with each other.

Having relationship issues?

It is normal to have ups and downs in a relationship. It is also normal to have different opinions. Relationships, and people, change over time.

Your relationship is not healthy if one person has more power than another, or if that person is abusive or violent .

When a relationship ends

The end of a relationship can be a very painful time. It may take 2 or 3 years for people whose long-term relationship has ended to recover and to put their lives together again. Some people develop serious health and emotional problems during this time.

Resources and support

If you would like to talk to someone, here are some organisations that can help:

• Lifeline (anyone having a personal crisis) — call 13 11 14 or chat online.
• MensLine Australia (online counselling and forum for men) — call 1300 78 99 78.
• Relationships Australia provides support groups and relationship counselling, including for people in an abusive relationship - call 1300 364 277.

Learn more here about the development and quality assurance of healthdirect content .

Last reviewed: October 2021

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Building a healthy relationship

Falling in love vs. staying in love, tip 1: spend quality time face to face, tip 2: stay connected through communication, tip 3: keep physical intimacy alive, tip 4: learn to give and take in your relationship, tip 5: be prepared for ups and downs, tips for building a healthy relationship.

Whether you're looking to keep a new romantic relationship strong or repair a relationship that's on the rocks, these tips can help you feel loved and connected to your partner.

All romantic relationships go through ups and downs and they all take work, commitment, and a willingness to adapt and change with your partner. But whether your relationship is just starting out or you’ve been together for years, there are steps you can take to build a healthy relationship. Even if you’ve experienced a lot of failed relationships in the past or have struggled before to rekindle the fires of romance in your current relationship, you can find ways to stay connected, find fulfillment, and enjoy lasting happiness.

What makes a healthy relationship?

Every relationship is unique, and people come together for many different reasons. Part of what defines a healthy relationship is sharing a common goal for exactly what you want the relationship to be and where you want it to go. And that’s something you’ll only know by talking deeply and honestly with your partner.

However, there are also some characteristics that most healthy relationships have in common. Knowing these basic principles can help keep your relationship meaningful, fulfilling and exciting whatever goals you’re working towards or challenges you’re facing together.

You maintain a meaningful emotional connection with each other. You each make the other feel loved and emotionally fulfilled. There’s a difference between being loved and feeling loved. When you feel loved, it makes you feel accepted and valued by your partner, like someone truly gets you. Some relationships get stuck in peaceful coexistence, but without the partners truly relating to each other emotionally. While the union may seem stable on the surface, a lack of ongoing involvement and emotional connection serves only to add distance between two people.

You’re not afraid of (respectful) disagreement. Some couples talk things out quietly, while others may raise their voices and passionately disagree. The key in a strong relationship, though, is not to be fearful of conflict . You need to feel safe to express things that bother you without fear of retaliation, and be able to resolve conflict without humiliation, degradation, or insisting on being right.

You keep outside relationships and interests alive. Despite the claims of romantic fiction or movies, no one person can meet all of your needs. In fact, expecting too much from your partner can put unhealthy pressure on a relationship. To stimulate and enrich your romantic relationship, it’s important to sustain your own identity outside of the relationship, preserve connections with family and friends, and maintain your hobbies and interests.

[Read: Making Good Friends]

You communicate openly and honestly. Good communication is a key part of any relationship. When both people know what they want from the relationship and feel comfortable expressing their needs, fears, and desires, it can increase trust and strengthen the bond between you.

Speak to a Licensed Therapist

BetterHelp is an online therapy service that matches you to licensed, accredited therapists who can help with depression, anxiety, relationships, and more. Take the assessment and get matched with a therapist in as little as 48 hours.

For most people, falling in love usually seems to just happen. It’s staying in love—or preserving that “falling in love” experience—that requires commitment and work. Given its rewards, though, it’s well worth the effort. A healthy, secure romantic relationship can serve as an ongoing source of support and happiness in your life, through good times and bad, strengthening all aspects of your wellbeing. By taking steps now to preserve or rekindle your falling in love experience, you can build a meaningful relationship that lasts—even for a lifetime.

Many couples focus on their relationship only when there are specific, unavoidable problems to overcome. Once the problems have been resolved they often switch their attention back to their careers, kids, or other interests. However, romantic relationships require ongoing attention and commitment for love to flourish. As long as the health of a romantic relationship remains important to you, it is going to require your attention and effort. And identifying and fixing a small problem in your relationship now can often help prevent it from growing into a much larger one down road.

The following tips can help you to preserve that falling in love experience and keep your romantic relationship healthy.

You fall in love looking at and listening to each other. If you continue to look and listen in the same attentive ways, you can sustain the falling in love experience over the long term. You probably have fond memories of when you were first dating your loved one. Everything seemed new and exciting, and you likely spent hours just chatting together or coming up with new, exciting things to try. However, as time goes by, the demands of work, family, other obligations, and the need we all have for time to ourselves can make it harder to find time together.

Many couples find that the face-to-face contact of their early dating days is gradually replaced by hurried texts, emails, and instant messages. While digital communication is great for some purposes, it doesn’t positively impact your brain and nervous system in the same way as face-to-face communication. Sending a text or a voice message to your partner saying “I love you” is great, but if you rarely look at them or have the time to sit down together, they’ll still feel you don’t understand or appreciate them. And you’ll become more distanced or disconnected as a couple. The emotional cues you both need to feel loved can only be conveyed in person, so no matter how busy life gets, it’s important to carve out time to spend together.

Commit to spending some quality time together on a regular basis. No matter how busy you are, take a few minutes each day to put aside your electronic devices, stop thinking about other things, and really focus on and connect with your partner.

Find something that you enjoy doing together, whether it is a shared hobby, dance class, daily walk, or sitting over a cup of coffee in the morning.

Try something new together. Doing new things together can be a fun way to connect and keep things interesting. It can be as simple as trying a new restaurant or going on a day trip to a place you’ve never been before.

Focus on having fun together. Couples are often more fun and playful in the early stages of a relationship. However, this playful attitude can sometimes be forgotten as life challenges start getting in the way or old resentments start building up. Keeping a sense of humor can actually help you get through tough times, reduce stress and work through issues more easily. Think about playful ways to surprise your partner, like bringing flowers home or unexpectedly booking a table at their favorite restaurant. Playing with pets or small children can also help you reconnect with your playful side.

Do things together that benefit others

One the most powerful ways of staying close and connected is to jointly focus on something you and your partner value outside of the relationship. Volunteering for a cause, project, or community work that has meaning for both of you can keep a relationship fresh and interesting. It can also expose you both to new people and ideas, offer the chance to tackle new challenges together, and provide fresh ways of interacting with each other.

As well as helping to relieve stress, anxiety, and depression, doing things to benefit others delivers immense pleasure. Human beings are hard-wired to help others. The more you help, the happier you’ll feel——as individuals and as a couple.

Good communication is a fundamental part of a healthy relationship. When you experience a positive emotional connection with your partner, you feel safe and happy. When people stop communicating well, they stop relating well, and times of change or stress can really bring out the disconnect. It may sound simplistic, but as long as you are communicating, you can usually work through whatever problems you’re facing.

Tell your partner what you need, don’t make them guess.

It’s not always easy to talk about what you need. For one, many of us don’t spend enough time thinking about what’s really important to us in a relationship. And even if you do know what you need, talking about it can make you feel vulnerable, embarrassed, or even ashamed. But look at it from your partner’s point of view. Providing comfort and understanding to someone you love is a pleasure, not a burden.

[Read: The 5 Love Languages and Their Influence on Relationships]

If you’ve known each other for a while, you may assume that your partner has a pretty good idea of what you are thinking and what you need. However, your partner is not a mind-reader. While your partner may have some idea, it is much healthier to express your needs directly to avoid any confusion.

Your partner may sense something, but it might not be what you need. What’s more, people change, and what you needed and wanted five years ago, for example, may be very different now. So instead of letting resentment, misunderstanding, or anger grow when your partner continually gets it wrong, get in the habit of telling them exactly what you need.

Take note of your partner’s nonverbal cues

So much of our communication is transmitted by what we don’t say. Nonverbal cues, which include eye contact, tone of voice, posture, and gestures such as leaning forward, crossing your arms, or touching someone’s hand, communicate much more than words.

When you can pick up on your partner’s nonverbal cues or “body language,” you’ll be able to tell how they really feel and be able to respond accordingly. For a relationship to work well, each person has to understand their own and their partner’s nonverbal cues. Your partner’s responses may be different from yours. For example, one person might find a hug after a stressful day a loving mode of communication—while another might just want to take a walk together or sit and chat.

It’s also important to make sure that what you say matches your body language. If you say “I’m fine,” but you clench your teeth and look away, then your body is clearly signaling you are anything but “fine.”

When you experience positive emotional cues from your partner, you feel loved and happy, and when you send positive emotional cues, your partner feels the same. When you stop taking an interest in your own or your partner’s emotions, you’ll damage the connection between you and your ability to communicate will suffer, especially during stressful times.

Be a good listener

While a great deal of emphasis in our society is put on talking, if you can learn to listen in a way that makes another person feel valued and understood, you can build a deeper, stronger connection between you.

There’s a big difference between listening in this way and simply hearing. When you really listen—when you’re engaged with what’s being said—you’ll hear the subtle intonations in your partner’s voice that tells you how they’re really feeling and the emotions they’re trying to communicate. Being a good listener doesn’t mean you have to agree with your partner or change your mind. But it will help you find common points of view that can help you to resolve conflict.

Manage stress

When you’re stressed or emotionally overwhelmed, you’re more likely to misread your romantic partner, send confusing or off-putting nonverbal signals, or lapse into unhealthy knee-jerk patterns of behavior. How often have you been stressed and flown off the handle at your loved one and said or done something you later regretted?

If you can learn to quickly manage stress and return to a calm state, you’ll not only avoid such regrets, but you’ll also help to avoid conflict and misunderstandings——and even help to calm your partner when tempers build.

Touch is a fundamental part of human existence. Studies on infants have shown the importance of regular, affectionate contact for brain development. And the benefits don’t end in childhood. Affectionate contact boosts the body’s levels of oxytocin, a hormone that influences bonding and attachment.

Sex is often a cornerstone of a committed relationship. It can be an intimate emotional experience and a great tool for protecting or improving your mental, physical, and emotional health. However, many couples find it difficult to talk about sex, especially when sexual problems occur. Feelings of embarrassment, shame, and hurt can often impact physical intimacy and push you apart. 

Whatever issues you’re facing, there are many things you can do to get your sex life back on track and enjoy more fulfilling sex. An issue such as erectile dysfunction , for example, can be a difficult topic to discuss. But there are solutions available, including medications like Cialis (tadalafil) or Viagra (sildenafil) .

[Read: Tips to Improve Your Sex Life]

It’s also important to remember that sex shouldn’t be the only method of physical intimacy in your relationship. Frequent, affectionate touch—holding hands, hugging, kissing—can be equally important.

Of course, it’s important to be sensitive to what your partner likes. Unwanted touching or inappropriate overtures can make the other person tense up and retreat—exactly what you don’t want. As with so many other aspects of a healthy relationship, this can come down to how well you communicate your needs and intentions with your partner.

Even if you have pressing workloads or young children to worry about, you can help to keep physical intimacy alive by carving out some regular couple time, whether that’s in the form of a date night or simply an hour at the end of the day when you can sit and talk or hold hands.

If you expect to get what you want 100% of the time in a relationship, you are setting yourself up for disappointment. Healthy relationships are built on compromise. However, it takes work on each person’s part to make sure that there is a reasonable exchange.

Recognize what’s important to your partner

Knowing what is truly important to your partner can go a long way towards building goodwill and an atmosphere of compromise. On the flip side, it’s also important for your partner to recognize your wants and for you to state them clearly. Constantly giving to others at the expense of your own needs will only build resentment and anger.

Don’t make “winning” your goal

If you approach your partner with the attitude that things have to be your way or else, it will be difficult to reach a compromise. Sometimes this attitude comes from not having your needs met while younger, or it could be years of accumulated resentment in the relationship reaching a boiling point. It’s alright to have strong convictions about something, but your partner deserves to be heard as well. Be respectful of the other person and their viewpoint.

Learn how to respectfully resolve conflict

Conflict is inevitable in any relationship, but to keep a relationship strong, both people need to feel they’ve been heard. The goal is not to win but to maintain and strengthen the relationship.

Make sure you are fighting fair . Keep the focus on the issue at hand and respect the other person. Don’t start arguments over things that cannot be changed.

Don’t attack someone directly but use “I” statements to communicate how you feel. For example, instead of saying, “You make me feel bad” try “I feel bad when you do that”.

Don’t drag old arguments into the mix . Rather than looking to past conflicts or grudges and assigning blame, focus on what you can do in the here-and-now to solve the problem.

Be willing to forgive.  Resolving conflict is impossible if you’re unwilling or unable to forgive others.

If tempers flare, take a break . Take a few minutes to relieve stress and calm down before you say or do something you’ll regret. Always remember that you’re arguing with the person you love.

Know when to let something go.  If you can’t come to an agreement, agree to disagree. It takes two people to keep an argument going. If a conflict is going nowhere, you can choose to disengage and move on.

It’s important to recognize that there are ups and downs in every relationship. You won’t always be on the same page. Sometimes one partner may be struggling with an issue that stresses them, such as the death of a close family member. Other events, like job loss or severe health problems, can affect both partners and make it difficult to relate to each other. You might have different ideas of managing finances or raising children.

Different people cope with stress differently, and misunderstandings can rapidly turn to frustration and anger.

[Read: Surviving Tough Times by Building Resilience]

Don’t take out your problems on your partner. Life stresses can make us short tempered. If you are coping with a lot of stress , it might seem easier to vent with your partner, and even feel safer to snap at them. Fighting like this might initially feel like a release, but it slowly poisons your relationship. Find other healthier ways to manage your stress, anger, and frustration.

Trying to force a solution can cause even more problems . Every person works through problems and issues in their own way. Remember that you’re a team. Continuing to move forward together can get you through the rough spots.

Look back to the early stages of your relationship. Share the moments that brought the two of you together, examine the point at which you began to drift apart, and resolve how you can work together to rekindle that falling in love experience.

Be open to change. Change is inevitable in life, and it will happen whether you go with it or fight it. Flexibility is essential to adapt to the change that is always taking place in any relationship, and it allows you to grow together through both the good times and the bad.

If you need outside help for your relationship, reach out together . Sometimes problems in a relationship can seem too complex or overwhelming for you to handle as a couple. Couples therapy can help. If it’s more comfortable for you, counseling services are available online , with some platforms accepting insurance . Alternatively, talking together with a trusted friend or religious figure may also be beneficial.

More Information

• Am I in a Healthy Relationship? - Article aimed at teens to determine if your relationship is as healthy as it should be. (TeensHealth)
• Help with Relationships - Articles addressing common relationship problems, such as arguments and conflict, communication, and infidelity. (Relate UK)

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Promoting Young Children’s Social and Emotional Health

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In a preschool classroom, some of the 3- and 4-year-old children smile, laugh, and giggle during free play; are curious about what happens next during story time; ask what and why questions while doing hands-on activities; and use words to express feelings and needs. In the toy area, Tom and Juan both reach for a small blue car. Tom says, “May I please have it first, then you have it later?” Juan replies, “You have it for five minutes and then I have it for five minutes.” Noticing this exchange, their teacher says, “Tom and Juan, you are talking about taking turns. What a great way to play together!”

Tom, Juan, and their classmates are a model of social and emotional health in preschool. Children who are socially and emotionally healthy tend to demonstrate, and continue to develop, several important behaviors and skills (adapted from McClellan & Katz 2001 and Bilmes 2012). They

• Are usually in a positive mood
• Listen and follow directions
• Have close relationships with caregivers and peers
• Care about friends and show interest in others
• Recognize, label, and manage their own emotions
• Understand others’ emotions and show empathy
• Express wishes and preferences clearly
• Gain access to ongoing play and group activities
• Are able to play, negotiate, and compromise with others

Why social and emotional health matters

Teachers can promote children’s social and emotional health in many ways, for example, by organizing a material-rich environment to stimulate social interactions among children. This article focuses on two of the most important practices: building trusting relationships and conducting intentional teaching.

Establish trusting relationships

Young children develop and learn in the context of relationships. A trusting and caring teacher–child relationship is essential for children’s optimum development (Raikes & Edwards 2009). Children who have trusting relationships with their teachers are, on average, more willing to ask questions, solve problems, try new tasks, and express their thinking than their peers without such relationships (O’Connor & McCartney 2007). In her work supervising student teachers, Ho (the first author) often sees children developing positive social and emotional health as a result of close relationships with their teachers. For example, children learn to use words to express their feelings—such as Amy saying to Emily, “I am sad when you use hurting words!”—and to show empathy—as when Arjun gently pats Brian’s head and says, “Are you okay? Do you want to hold the teddy bear?”

Children benefit socially, emotionally, and academically when teachers intentionally create close, trusting relationships (Palermo et al. 2007). But gaining the trust of every child is not as simple as being nice and engaging. How can teachers create trusting relationships with all of the children? Consistently offering warmth, affection, respect, and caring is essential.

Showing warmth and affection consistently

Warmth and affection—even on bad days and when children are misbehaving—are critical to children’s well-being in early education settings (Ostrosky & Jung 2005). They contribute to developing secure relationships between children and adults, provide models of gentle behavior, and are linked with children’s ability to interact positively with peers (Twardosz 2005). The preschoolers we observed used gentle hands and kind words and positively interacted with peers most of the time. Their social and emotional well-being was nourished by their teachers’ warmth and affection, which is shown in the following examples:

• Ms. Johnson displays a pleasant facial expression throughout the day. She smiles when greeting children in the morning, says goodbye in the afternoon, and acknowledges children’s appropriate behaviors.
• Mr. Logan uses the appropriate tone of voice at all times. His speech is at normal pitch and volume; his tone is relaxed and soft. Even when he has to redirect a child’s behavior, he remains calm and warm to convey that his concern is with the behavior—not the child.
• Ms. Aragon gives appropriate touches when necessary, such as a pat on the back, a handshake, hugs, and brief tickles.
• Ms. Lizama moves physically close to the children and bends or crouches to be at the children’s eye level while talking to them.
• Mr. Sharma often uses loving comments to show he cares: “I am so happy to see you this morning!,” “I missed you yesterday,” “I love seeing your smile!” And he is careful to make such comments to all of the children in his classroom.

Respecting and caring about every child

Showing respect is a key way to connect with children and strengthen positive relationships. It helps children feel more confident and competent to explore and learn (Dombro, Jablon, & Stetson 2011). Ms. Carnes establishes and maintains close personal bonds with every child in her classroom by consistently acting in respectful and caring ways. Specifically, she

• Listens with full attenti on and restates what children say (often also seizing the opportunity to expose the children to new vocabulary).  Jason, a 4-year-old, says, “Look, I made a truck with lots of Legos!” Ms. Carnes replies, “Oh, I see, Jason. You built a truck with dozens of Legos.” Jason adds, “I use this truck to deliver apples and bananas to the grocery store.” Ms. Carnes responds, “Using a truck to deliver nutritious fruits to the grocery store is helpful.” Listening to children attentively and reflectively enhances their self-worth and confidence. When teachers actively listen to children, they convey that they care about what the children have to say, and the children are more likely to share their thoughts, ideas, feelings, and stories.  
• Accepts and reflects children’s feel ings.  Frowning, Jasper says to the teacher, “Michael has all the big blocks!” Ms. Carnes responds, “Jasper, you seem upset that there are no more large blocks to build with right now. It is difficult to wait!” Amy says with enthusiasm, “We are about to go outside!” Ms. Carnes answers, “The sparkles in your eyes tell me you can hardly wait to go outside. You are excited.” When they accept and reflect children’s feelings, teachers exhibit sensitivity and caring in a way children understand. Teachers’ acknowledgments make children feel heard and accepted (Duffy 2008). As a result, children feel safe to express their emotions—and receive support in identifying, labeling, and better understanding their emotions.  
• Spends private, quality time with individual chi ldren through one-on-one activities, such  as story reading and game pla ying.  Emily is sad when her mom leaves. Ms. Carnes reads her a book in a cozy corner with soft pillows and stuffed animals. Afterward, Emily is ready to explore and play in the classroom. Judy complains that no one wants to play with her at the tactile table. Ms. Carnes sits at the table and plays with Judy until another child joins the play. In addition, Ms. Carnes spends quality time with individual children by putting aside other work, moving to the child’s level, and conversing openly with the child. Ms. Carnes keeps track to ensure that she speaks with each child regularly, which deepens their relationship and builds trust (Gartrell 2007). Ms. Carnes finds time for these conversations throughout the day, especially during greeting, free play, snack, lunch, and departure time.

Teach social and emotional skills intentionally

Helping children develop social and emotional skills is the heart and soul of any good program for young children (Gordon & Browne 2014). Teachers (and all caregivers) play key roles in helping children develop social and emotional competence (Kostelnik et al. 2015). Teachers can intentionally support children’s social and emotional health by using children’s books, planning activities, coaching on the spot, giving effective praise, modeling appropriate behaviors, and providing cues.

Warmth and affection—even on bad days and when children are misbehaving—are critical to children’s well-being in early education.

Using children’s books

To connect the characters and situations in the book with the children’s experiences, Ms. Coz plans to read the book at least twice and also add it to the classroom library. During the second reading, she asks meaningful questions: “What do you think the characters are feeling?,” “How would you solve the problem?,” “Can you use words from the story to explain how you feel when you . . .?,” “What could we do differently if this happens in our classroom?” These open-ended questions enable children to talk about their own experiences, learn new vocabulary words, and practice social and emotional skills.

Planning activities

To extend and apply what children learn from reading stories, Ms. Coz plans follow-up activities, such as hands-on crafts, games, and songs. She often uses Book Nook guides, created by the Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning ( http://csefel.vanderbilt.edu/resources/strategies.html#booknook ). These guides help her embed social and emotional development activities into daily routines, including read-alouds. (See “ Activities for Supporting Children’s Social and Emotional Learning ” for some ideas adapted from Book Nook guides.)

Coaching on the spot

When they coach children on the spot, teachers help children realize what they are doing, understand how their actions affect others, and choose positive alternatives (Riley et al. 2008). For example, when Ryan and Ethan build a firehouse in the block area, Ethan grabs the fire truck from Ryan, and Ryan cries. Ms. Coz crouches down at Ethan’s level to look into his eyes; calmly and warmly, she says, “Ryan was still using the truck. When you took it away from him, he got upset. What could you do to make Ryan feel better?” After Ethan says he is sorry and gives back the fire truck, Ms. Coz says, “Next time if you want to play with the toy Ryan is using, could you ask if he will share?” Ms. Coz follows up by observing Ethan and providing immediate positive feedback on his desirable behavior.

Giving effective praise

Meaningful feedback pertinent to the task at hand in the form of effective praise is a powerful strategy for fostering children’s social and emotional development (Kostelnik et al. 2015). To make praise effective, teachers describe specifically what they see—without generalizing, evaluating, or making comparisons. When Emily finishes her drawing, Ms. Coz notices her picture and her smile. Ms. Coz says, “I see a blue sky, a yellow sun, and green grass around the big brown tree. This picture makes you happy, doesn’t it?” This praise is effective because Ms. Coz offers detailed, positive comments immediately after desirable behavior occurs. Noticing Ethan asking Ryan politely for a policewoman figure, Ms. Coz says, “Ethan, you used the magic words  May I plea se?  to ask for that policewoman while you and Ryan were building the firehouse together. Great job!” Smiling, Ethan responds, “We are friends and we can share things.”

Modeling appropriate behavior

Children learn by observing other people, getting ideas about how new behaviors are formed, and using the ideas to guide their actions (Bandura 1977). Many studies have found that modeling—or demonstrating appropriate behaviors—teaches and enhances children’s social and emotional skills (Katz & McClellan 1997; Hyson 2004). This research-based conclusion is evidenced in Ms. Coz’s and Ms. Carnes’s classes. Both teachers implement several noninvasive strategies—including modeling—that their center administrators created to support teachers in promoting socially and emotionally healthy behaviors. They display the strategies on the classroom wall and put them into action by

• Moving closer to children, when needed, as a nonverbal cue to rethink behaviors
• Modeling appropriate warm and respectful behavior throughout the day and at specific moments when a gentle reminder is needed
• Using nonverbal gestures and contact (e.g., nodding the head, giving thumbs-up signs, and touching children gently on the shoulder) to send messages
• Employing simple language (e.g., “Walking feet, please” and “Use gentle hands”) to set expectations and give reminders
• Acknowledging a kind act on the spot or praising a group effort for a job well done
• Placing a hand—gently—on a child’s hand to redirect attention and behavior

When children see teachers demonstrate these noninvasive strategies, they often smile, use their gentle hands, say please and thank you, give hugs and high fives, and use words to express their feelings.

In addition to being role models, the teachers use the children’s appropriate behaviors to model social and emotional skills. They carefully observe and record details about how children apply the target skills, and they share their observations with the children through puppet shows during circle time. Using puppets to demonstrate children’s appropriate behaviors helps children learn social and emotional skills meaningfully.

Providing cues

Providing cues to engage children in appropriate social behavior has been shown over time to improve their social behavior with their peers (Bovey & Strain 2005). Ms. Coz and Ms. Carnes often provide verbal cues to help some children participate in activities. Before playtime, for example, Ms. Carnes asks, “James, who are you going to ask to play with you at center time?” During playtime, she suggests, “Saanvi, can you ask Anna to build an airplane with you?” To teach sharing and turn taking, Ms. Coz asks Steven, who has been waiting to play with a toy dolphin for a while, “What magic words could you use to have a turn with the dolphin John is using?”

Both Ms. Coz and Ms. Carnes prominently display visual cues in their classrooms to assist children’s social and emotional interactions. For example, they provide teacher-made hand puppets to guide children to use quiet voices, helping hands, and walking feet. To help children calm down, they also created a “push wall”—a designated spot on the wall to push anger out—and use puppets to demonstrate the strategy. These puppets, demonstrations, and explanations are essential for clarifying and modeling appropriate behavior—and the visual cues are essential for reminding the children to practice what they have learned. Long-term visual cues function like a third teacher in the sense that children use the cues to remind one another of solutions and appropriate actions.

Children’s Books for Teaching Social and Emotional Skills 

• Can You Be a Friend?,  by Nita Everly 
• Care Bears Caring Contest,  by Nancy Parent, illus. by  David Stein 
• Fox Makes Friends,  by Adam Relf 
• How Do Dinosaurs Play with Their Friends?,  by Jane Yolen and Mark Teague 
• How I Feel Frustrated,  by Marcia Leonard 
• I Can Do It Myself  (a Sesame Street Series), by Emily Perl Kingsley, illus. by Richard Brown 
• I’m in Charge of Me!,  by David Parker, illus. by Sylvia Walker 
• Mouse Was Mad,  by Linda Urban, illus. by Henry Cole 
• My Many Colored Days,  by Dr. Seuss, illus. by Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher 
• Sharing: How Kindness Grows,  by Fran Shaw, illus. by Miki Sakamoto 
• When I’m Feeling Sad,  by Trace Moroney 
• When Sophie Gets Angry—Really, Really Angry,  by Molly Bang

Activities for Supporting Children’s Social and Emotional Learning 

Helping hands chain : Trace and cut out multiple hands for each child. Place them in a pocket or baggie that is easily accessible. As you recognize a child’s helping hand behavior, have the child get a hand from their pocket and connect it to the class’s helping hand chain. The hands can be placed on the wall to wrap around the room. On a regular basis, celebrate how long the helping hand chain is getting! 

Hand puppets : Create character puppets by having children color or paint the pictures, cut them out, and glue them to craft sticks. Once dry, children can bring their puppets to circle time and act out the story while you read the story aloud. Later, they can take the puppets to the story area or puppet center. 

Moving to music : Choose songs with lyrics that encourage movement. Before you start, remind the children that they need to listen closely to the words so they know what actions to take. Classic songs like “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” work well. Many children’s CDs have great songs that involve following directions (try “My Ups and Downs,” and “Hands Are for Clapping,” by Jim Gill). Do the motions with the children as you listen to the songs. After listening to each song several times, children will build confidence and know which motions to do on their own. Point out to the children that they know what to do because they are being such good listeners.

Pass the feeling bag : Place an assortment of scenario picture cards in a bag. As music plays, the children pass the bag. When the music stops, one child picks out a card and identifies it. Have the child talk about how each scenario or item makes him feel and why. Allow children to take turns pulling out picture cards. 

Feeling faces collage : Have children cut out different feeling faces from magazines. Mix nontoxic glue and water together in a small bowl. The children put the pictures on top of a piece of paper, take a paintbrush and dip it in glue solution, and paint over their pictures. They can hang their feeling faces collages on the wall. 

Share box : Create a special share box that is only introduced during circle time. Children can decorate the box with primary colors or with a bold pattern. Inside the box, place items that can be shared, such as musical instruments, a box of chunky sidewalk chalk, playdough, or several sensory bottles.

Singing : After a story about sharing with friends, sing “Share, share, share your toys; share them with a friend. Share, share, share your toys, let’s all play pretend,” to the tune of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.” After a story about feelings, sing “If You’re Happy and You Know It” with a variety of emotions and body gestures. 

Note: Adapted with permission from Book Nook, created by the Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning. To use Book Nook guides at no cost, visit http://csefel.vanderbilt.edu/resources/strategies.html#booknook .

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Photographs: © Getty Images; courtesy of Geneva Day School

Jeannie Ho , EdD, is a professor and early childhood education program coordinator at Montgomery College, in Rockville, Maryland. Her teaching and research focus is teaching practices and children’s social and emotional development.  [email protected]

Suzanne Funk , MSEd, is director of Geneva Day School, in Potomac, Maryland, and is an adjunct professor in early childhood education at Montgomery College. She works with local child center directors to enhance the quality of services available for young children.  [email protected]

Vol. 73, No. 1

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