
Yuthika U. GirmeSimon Fraser University · Department of Psychology
Yuthika U. Girme
Ph.D.
About
44
Publications
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Introduction
People who have secure and supportive relationships with romantic partners, family, and friends experience better psychological and physical well-being. Yet, navigating close relationships can be challenging and risky. Reconciling the complexities inherent in close relationships and singlehood is at the heart of my research program.
Additional affiliations
October 2016 - present
February 2016 - August 2016
February 2011 - November 2015
Education
January 2012 - December 2015
January 2011 - December 2011
January 2007 - December 2010
Publications
Publications (44)
Although prior research suggests that single people experience lower well-being than those involved in romantic relationships, the effect of relationship status is small. Moreover, relationships can be a source of hurt and conflict, which single people can avoid. The current research examined for whom being involved in a relationship versus being s...
Although attachment security is relatively stable over time, individuals do experience significant within-person variation in their attachment security across time. No research to date, however, has assessed the relational consequences of within-person variation (fluctuations) in attachment security toward a specific attachment figure. Study 1 (N =...
Infant attachment is theorized to lay the foundation of emotion regulation across the life span. However, testing this proposition requires prospective designs examining whether attachment assessed in infancy predicts emotion regulation strategies observed in adult relationships. Using unique data from the Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Risk and A...
Despite widespread acknowledgment that close relationships frequently involve tumultuous and dynamic experiences, most models in relationship psychology focus on linear relationship processes. Modeling nonlinear patterns can, however, be an important way to assess and better understand the complexities inherent in close relationships. In this artic...
Single adults, on average, experience worse well-being compared to coupled adults. But why? The current research bridged interpersonal and intergroup perspectives to examine the influence of social support and social discrimination on single versus coupled adults’ well-being. We drew on a nationally representative prospective study from New Zealand...
The well-being literature reveals that individuals experience increases in well-being leading up to marriage, followed by a return to pre-marriage levels shortly after marriage. In contrast, the relationship/marriage literature suggests that relationship satisfaction may steadily decline across time. However, it is unclear at what point relationshi...
From becoming a teenager to starting university, life transitions are an inevitable part of human existence. While exciting, life transitions can be stressful because they involve changes in identity, routine, and expectations. What can support people during this period of change? Informed by past research demonstrating the emotional benefits of pr...
The fear of being single can put people at risk for worse personal and relational well-being. The current research moves beyond individual-deficit models by exploring whether endorsement of relationship pedestal beliefs—the belief that people need to be in a relationship to be truly happy—is associated with greater fear of being single. Across four...
Objective
Relationship science has developed several theories to explain how and why people enter and maintain satisfying relationships. Less is known about why some people remain single, despite increasing rates of singlehood throughout the world. Using one of the most widely studied and robust theories—attachment theory—we aim to identify distinc...
Do single women and single men differ in their experiences of “singlism”? This mixed-methods research examined whether single women and single men report quantitative differences in amounts of singlehood-based discrimination and explored qualitative reports of stereotypic traits associated with single women and single men. We recruited Canadian and...
As the number of single (unpartnered) individuals continues to rise, researchers across various disciplines have started to pay more attention to single individuals' lives. Yet, compared to the accumulated knowledge about experiences within romantic relationships, there is far less known about various experiences within singlehood. For singlehood r...
Attachment insecurity is characterized by chronic concerns about whether partners can fulfil core relatedness needs, including feeling loved and cared about. In two longitudinal studies, our aim was to extend current evidence that certain relationship conditions buffer attachment insecurity by (1) focusing on the central ingredient—fulfilment of re...
Single people represent a diverse group of individuals; some happy, some not. This article represents a rejoinder to a recent review by Dr. Bella DePaulo of our singlehood review paper. Having our work reflected back to us from that perspective was useful for clarifying our own positions and values in approaching singlehood research, and we wanted...
Singlehood, defined as not being in a romantic relationship, is becoming increasingly common worldwide. Despite this, research on singlehood has not received remotely equivalent research attention as romantic relationships. Well-being research that has explicitly included singles has focused on whether coupled versus single people are more satisfie...
Extant research has demonstrated that higher mean (average) levels of social support often produce robust relational benefits. However, partners may not maintain the same level of support across time, resulting in potential fluctuations (i.e., within-person variations across time) in support. Despite the theorizing and initial research on fluctuati...
Relationship processes often involve fluctuating, variable, or tumultuous dynamics. Yet, close relationship models have traditionally focused on linear processes. The purpose of this Journal of Social and Personal Relationships special issue is to provide examples of how modeling nonlinear effects and dynamics can: (I) test nonlinear theoretical as...
Interpersonal power involves how much actors can influence partners (actor power) and how much partners can influence actors (partner power). Yet, most theories and investigations of power conflate the effects of actor and partner power, creating a fundamental ambiguity in the literature regarding how power shapes social behavior. We demonstrate th...
Intimate relationships are a principal source of emotional support, which fosters recipients' health and well-being. Yet, being in a position to provide support can be stressful, particularly if people are burdened with their own emotional difficulties, and such stress may interfere with people's ability to behave in emotionally supportive ways. Th...
Suppressing the expression of negative emotions tends to undermine individuals' and their partners' wellbeing. However, sometimes expressive suppression may be relatively innocuous given that individuals commonly withhold negative emotions in order to maintain close relationships, and this may be especially the case when expressive suppression is e...
Given the powerful implications of relationship quality for health and well-being, a central mission of relationship science is explaining why some romantic relationships thrive more than others. This large-scale project used machine learning (i.e., Random Forests) to 1) quantify the extent to which relationship quality is predictable and 2) identi...
Given the powerful implications of relationship quality for health and well-being, a central mission of relationship science is explaining why some romantic relationships thrive more than others. This large-scale project used machine learning (i.e., Random Forests) to 1) quantify the extent to which relationship quality is predictable and 2) identi...
Interdependence, Interaction, and Close Relationships - edited by Laura V. Machia June 2020
Cambridge Core - Social Psychology - Interdependence, Interaction, and Close Relationships - edited by Laura V. Machia
Individuals who perceive that their partner is satisfied with individuals’ bodies are more sexually satisfied than those who perceive that their partner is dissatisfied. Using the truth and bias model of judgment, we investigated whether perceptions were based on (a) truth (partners’ actual satisfaction with individuals’ bodies), (b) projection (in...
Greater habitual emotional suppression (ES)-assessed by the suppression subscale of the emotion regulation questionnaire (ERQ-ES; Gross & John, 2003) and the Courtauld emotion control scale (CECS; Watson & Greer, 1983)-is associated with a range of negative outcomes, which are assumed to arise because habitual ES measures capture the tendency to us...
Maintaining autonomy in interdependent relationships is challenging, particularly for people high in attachment avoidance, who prioritize independence. Invisible support involves indirect, subtle behaviors that minimize the salience of dependence and encourage self-driven problem solving and thus should facilitate autonomy. The current research tes...
This study examined whether anticipating interacting with a partner higher in attachment insecurity predicted greater physiological threat in an emotion regulation context. Eighty-eight couples watched an emotionally negative film clip, prepared to discuss the video with their partner, and then engaged in a conversation. One dyad member (regulator)...
People rely on support from others to accomplish mundane and momentous tasks. When asking for assistance, is it beneficial to incentivize a helper by offering a motivated gift (i.e., a gift with the hope of getting support in return)? Six studies (N > 2,500) examine the frequency and potential costs of motivated gifts. In Study 1, a third of Americ...
People rely on support from others to accomplish mundane and momentous tasks. When asking for assistance, is it beneficial to incentivize a helper by offering a motivated gift (i.e. a gift with the hope of getting support in return)? Six studies (N>2,500) examine the frequency and potential costs of motivated gifts. In Study 1, a third of Americans...
Indirect support seeking involves sulking, whining, and/or displaying sadness to elicit social support. Ironically, this strategy tends to backfire by prompting rejection from close others. The current research examines how low self-esteem contributes to the use and relational consequences of indirect support seeking during couples' interactions. R...
Direct and overt visible support promotes recipients’ relationship satisfaction but can also exacerbate negative mood. In contrast, subtle and indirect invisible support can bypass costs to mood, but it is unclear whether it undermines or boosts relationship satisfaction. Because invisible support is not perceived by recipients, its relational impa...
Prior research indicates that emotional suppression exacerbates distress and reduces cognitive performance and self-control. We extend this prior work in the current studies by examining whether emotional suppression in specific goal-relevant contexts impedes people’s goal strivings and progress. In Study 1, participants (N = 146) provided reports...
Two studies examined whether concerns of relational value interfere with the ability of individuals higher in attachment anxiety to provide responsive support to their partner. In both studies, heterosexual couples engaged in 2 video-recorded discussions about each other’s most important personal goal. Support recipients (the person whose goal was...
The interpersonal consequences of reassurance seeking may depend on who is seeking reassurance. This research examined whether greater reassurance seeking during couples’ support-relevant discussions was associated with greater partner support when enacted by more avoidant individuals who typically minimize dependence in their relationships. Three...
How can we get the most out of our close relationships? Research in the area of personal relationships continues to grow, but most prior work has emphasized how to overcome negative aspects. This volume demonstrates that a good relationship is more than simply the absence of a bad relationship, and that establishing and maintaining optimal relation...
People high in attachment avoidance typically respond more negatively to partner support, but some research suggests they can be calmed by high levels of practical support. In the present research, we attempted to reconcile these inconsistencies by modeling curvilinear associations between romantic partners' support and support recipients' outcomes...
One-hundred and ninety-six individuals (Study 1) and 83 couples (Study 2) reported on their shared relationship activities—activities that individuals engage in with their partner to facilitate closeness in their romantic relationships. Couples also reported on the quality of their shared activities and relationships 3 months later (Study 2). Resul...
The current research tested whether individuals high in attachment anxiety react to relationship threats in ways that can help them feel secure and satisfied in their relationship. Individuals higher in attachment anxiety experienced greater hurt feelings on days they faced partner criticism or conflict (Study 1) and during observed conflict discus...
Sixty-one couples engaged in two video-recorded discussions in which one partner (the support recipient) discussed a personal goal with the other partner (the support provider). The support provider's visible and invisible support behaviors were coded by independent raters. Measures of perceived support, discussion success, and support recipients'...