Lisa Neff

• University of Texas at Austin

The transition to parenthood is characterized by physical changes and altered sexual dynamics that may be associated with a tendency for new parents to underestimate their partner’s physical attraction to them and/or be more attuned to daily changes in their partner’s attraction. To examine this possibility, this study assessed directional bias and...

Expressions of sadness and anger during a romantic relationship conflict can have distinct impacts on partners’ feelings of closeness and perceptions of conflict resolution. For example, previous research with younger couples suggests that expressions of sadness can help partners feel closer to one another, while expressions of anger tend to harm c...

Although prominent theories of intimate relationships, and couples themselves, often conceive of relationships as fluctuating widely in their degree of closeness, longitudinal studies generally describe partners’ satisfaction as stable and continuous or as steadily declining over time. The increasing use of group-based trajectory models (GBTMs) to...

More adults are dating in later life, yet little is known regarding how older adults navigate conflict in their newly formed relationships. Given theories suggesting that older adults are especially skilled in minimizing negativity within their relationships, the current study utilized data from 81 dating couples (age range 30–88) to examine potent...

Stressful life circumstances can destabilize the couples’ relationships by increasing tensions and hindering positive exchanges between partners. Yet, stress may be linked not only to what individuals do in their relationship but also to what they see, as stress can shift individuals’ attentional focus toward negative stimuli. To test this possibil...

The study of romantic partners’ experiences of stress and coping has exploded with nearly 11,000 empirical studies on this topic within the past two decades alone. Despite its prevalence, researchers, clinicians, and policy makers alike are questioning how inclusive is our current knowledge base on partners’ stress and coping? The purpose of this r...

Using a longitudinal dataset of 117 married couples without children spanning the first three years of marriage, we investigated trajectories of sexual satisfaction for both spouses using a novel Dyadic Latent Growth Model approach that distinguishes the communal sexual experience and the systematic differences in experience between partners. It al...

Significance Understanding the factors that explain declines in marital satisfaction is one of the most pressing challenges for relationship science. Yet, several lines of recent research relying on singular theoretical models have questioned our ability to do so. The current research pooled data from 10 independent longitudinal studies of married...

The COVID-19 pandemic created a unique climate for examining the links between stressful conditions and couples’ relationship well-being. According to theories of stress spillover, stressors originating outside the relationship, such as work stress and financial uncertainty, often undermine relationship quality. However, if individuals can easily a...

Although couples’ support exchanges are especially important during times of stress, coping with stress often taxes individuals’ energy and resources and may render it more difficult for partners to provide support to one another. In a daily diary study of 121 married couples, we examined whether spouses’ chronic and daily non-marital stressors wer...

As recent work suggests that global, dispositional forms of optimism may be more adaptive for relationship functioning than more focused, relationship‐specific forms of optimism, the current study utilized observational and daily diary data collected from newlywed couples (N = 171) to determine whether global and specific optimistic expectations wo...

To better understand the antecedents of support provision within relationships, this study examined the potential role of a novel individual difference; spouses' stress mindset (i.e., beliefs about whether stress‐is‐enhancing or stress‐is‐debilitating). As individuals with a stress‐is‐enhancing mindset often underestimate other's stress, we hypothe...

Objectives: Having friends in old age is linked to higher levels of happiness and life satisfaction. Yet, we know little about older adults' emotional experiences when they encounter friends throughout the day. This study examined whether older adults reported (a) more pleasantness, (b) fewer conversations about stressful experiences, and (c) bett...

Throughout a marriage, couples will share countless ordinary moments together, such as laughing together or engaging in leisure activities. Although these moments may seem trivial in isolation, research suggests that accumulating small positive moments together helps couples build emotional capital, which serves as an essential resource for protect...

Throughout their relationship, couples experience a myriad of small positive moments together, such as sharing leisure activities or laughing with one another. Although these moments may seem trivial in isolation, growing research suggests that accumulating positive moments together helps couples build emotional capital, which can buffer them from...

Researchers often seek to synthesize results of multiple studies on the same topic to draw statistical or substantive conclusions and to estimate effect sizes that will inform power analyses for future research. The most popular synthesis approach is meta‐analysis. There have been few discussions and applications of other synthesis approaches. This...

When forming a relationship, romantic partners must develop a conceptualization of their self in the relationship, or an understanding of their couple identity. Drawing from the theory of identity fusion, the current study explored the implications of different types of couple identities for overcoming relationship challenges. Results demonstrated...

The current study examines the longitudinal indirect pathways linking language acculturation to marital quality. Three waves of data were collected from 416 Chinese American couples over eight years (Mage.wave1 = 48 for husbands, 44 for wives). Actor-partner interdependence model analyses revealed that for both husbands and wives, lower levels of l...

This study examined whether the extent to which spouses feel they have available and satisfying support outside their marriage buffers spouses from the potential negative physiological effects of conflict inside their marriage. Newlywed couples (N = 214 spouses) reported occurrences of marital conflict in a daily diary and concurrently provided mor...

Throughout a marriage couples will share countless ordinary moments together that may seem trivial, but which actually have potential to affirm and strengthen relational bonds. According to theories of emotional capital, the accumulation of shared positive moments in a relationship should serve as an essential resource for protecting the relationsh...

Compared to affluent marriages, lower income marriages develop within a context filled with negative stressors that may prove quite toxic for marital stability. The current paper argues that stressful contexts may undermine marital well-being through two routes. First, external stressors create additional problems within the marriage by diverting t...

In a longitudinal data set of married couples, Meltzer, McNulty, Jackson, and Karney (2014) reported that partner physical attractiveness is more strongly associated with relationship satisfaction for men than for women. Although a recent meta-analysis (Eastwick, Luchies, Finkel, & Hunt, in press) provided no support for this sex difference across...

Do optimistic expectations facilitate or hinder adaptive responses to relationship challenges? Traditionally, optimism has been characterized as a resource that encourages positive coping efforts within relationships. Yet, some work suggests optimism can be a liability, as expecting the best may prevent individuals from taking proactive steps when...

Some studies have better external validity than others, but why? Recent studies in the domain of interpersonal attraction have been tackling this question by documenting how people respond differently to hypothetical versus live interactions. In live interactions, people tend to report their experienced emotions, they evaluate others using a low‐le...

Wives are considered more effective support providers than are husbands. As support promotes healthy physiological functioning, husbands should derive greater health benefits from spousal support than do wives. Yet, a growing literature indicates that men are relatively insulated from the physiological consequences of marital interactions, suggesti...

Though people report idiosyncratic desires for particular traits in an ideal romantic partner, few studies have examined whether these ideals predict important long-term relationship outcomes. The present 3.5-year longitudinal study of newlywed couples used survival analysis to investigate whether the match between participants’ ideal preferences a...

Stressful experiences external to a marriage (e.g., work stress, finances) are often associated with poor relationship functioning and lowered marital satisfaction, a phenomenon called stress spillover. To date, however, little attention has been devoted to understanding the specific mechanisms through which stress may lead to maladaptive relations...

As all couples experience stressful life events, understanding how couples adapt to stress is imperative for understanding marital development. Drawing from theories of stress inoculation, which suggest that the successful adaptation to mild stressors may help individuals develop a resilience to future stress, this project examined whether couples...

As all couples experience stressful life events, addressing how couples adapt to stress is imperative for understanding marital development. Drawing from theories of stress inoculation, which suggest that the successful adaptation to moderately stressful events may help individuals develop a resilience to future stress, the current studies examined...

It has been proposed that dispositional optimism is positively associated with treatment program engagement. However, conflicting evidence exists regarding this relationship. We examined whether the importance of a treatment goal moderates this association. In Study 1 (N = 95), individuals high in optimism were more interested in attending a nutrit...

Maintaining a relationship requires that intimates successfully navigate the ups and downs of their daily experiences with their partners. Intimates whose daily global satisfaction is heavily dependent on these experiences exhibit worse relationship outcomes than do intimates whose satisfaction is less sensitive to fluctuating daily experiences. Th...

Physical appearance plays a crucial role in shaping new relationships, but does it continue to affect established relationships, such as marriage? In the current study, the authors examined how observer ratings of each spouse's facial attractiveness and the difference between those ratings were associated with (a) observations of social support beh...

Studies of stress and marital quality often assess stress as an intrapersonal phenomenon, examining how spouses’ stress may influence their own relationship well-being. Yet spouses’ stress also may influence partners’ relationship evaluations, a phenomenon referred to as stress crossover. This study examined stress crossover, and conditions that ma...

Despite the strong positive feelings that characterize newlyweds, many marriages end in disappointment. To understand this shift, the authors argue that although newlyweds' global relationship evaluations may be uniformly positive, not all spouses base their global adoration on an accurate perception of their partner's specific qualities. Two longi...

Spouses often report that wives provide better social support than husbands. Yet studies observing spouses' supportive interactions challenge this perception, finding no differences between husbands' and wives' supportive behaviors. This article offers reconciliation by suggesting that husbands and wives may differ, not in their skill at providing...

Stressors external to the marriage frequently affect the way spouses evaluate their marital quality. To date, however, understanding of the interplay between external stress and internal relationship processes has been limited in two ways. First, research has generally examined only the short-term consequences of stress. Second, the mechanisms thro...

How do couples maintain relationship satisfaction despite specific negative perceptions of their relationships? One way to minimize the global implications of negative perceptions is to attribute differential importance to positive and negative features of the relationship. As those features change over time, satisfied intimates may alter their per...

How do partners in satisfying close relationships perceive each other? Some argue that relationships benefit from each partner having an accurate view of the other, while others maintain that partners benefit when they perceive each other in the most positive light possible. The current paper proposes that each of these benefits operates at a separ...

This edited volume draws together a wide range of exciting developments in the study of marital interaction. A significant feature of the book is its focus, not only on conflict and negative interactions but also on the processes by which couples maintain happy and constructive relationships. The chapters review and integrate the extensive literatu...

How do partners in satisfying close relationships perceive each other? Some argue that relationships benefit from each partner having an accurate view of the other, while others maintain that partners benefit when they perceive each other in the most positive light possible. The current paper proposes that each of these benefits operates at a separ...