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Personal Relationships, (2014). Printed in the United States of America.
Copyright © 2014 IARR; DOI: 10.1111/pere.12058
Effects of self-disclosure and responsiveness
between couples on passionate love within couples
KEITH M. WELKER,aLYNZEY BAKER,bALEXANDRA PADILLA,bHANNAH
HOLMES,bARTHUR ARON,cAND RICHARD B. SLATCHERb
aUniversity of Colorado Boulder; bWayne State University; and cState University of New
York, Stony Brook
Abstract
Previous work shows that high-self-disclosure interactions between couples can increase feelings of closeness within
couples. We investigated whether couple friendships created in the lab through high-self-disclosure and
closeness-building activities would boost feelings of passionate love. In Study 1, couples randomly assigned to a high
(vs. low) closeness induction task, either alone or with another couple, showed signicantly greater increases in
passionate love when they were highly self-disclosing with other couples. Study 2 showed that the responsiveness of the
other couple mediated the effects of self-disclosure on increases in passionate love following high-self-disclosure
interactions with other couples. The creation of couple friendships may be an additional way to reignite feelings of
passionate love in romantic relationships.
Although the love a couple shares is primar-
ily a bond between two individuals, romantic
relationships are nested within a larger network
of social relations. These relations are cru-
cial in shaping and maintaining romantic rela-
tionships (Agnew, Loving, & Drigotas, 2001;
Milardo, 1982; Sprecher, Felmlee, Orbuch, &
Willetts, 2002). Social networks allow rela-
tionships to change and can provide support
for couples (for a review, see Sprecher et al.,
2002). Additionally, couples with a larger num-
ber of shared friends have more positive and
Keith M. Welker, Department of Psychology and Neuro-
science, University of Colorado Boulder; Lynzey Baker,
Alexandra Padilla, and Hannah Holmes, Department of
Psychology, Wayne State University; Arthur Aron, Psy-
chology Department, State University of New York, Stony
Brook; Richard B. Slatcher, Department of Psychology,
Wayne State University.
Portions of this research were funded by a grant from
the Fetzer Institute. We thank Kevin Keuhn, Danya Alawie,
and Deborah Latsch for assistance with data collection and
Heidi Kane for feedback on an early draft of this article.
Correspondence should be addressed to Keith M.
Welker, University of Colorado Boulder, Department
of Psychology and Neuroscience, Boulder, CO 80309,
e-mail: Keith.Welker@Colorado.edu.
enduring relationships (Agnew et al., 2001;
Milardo, 1982; Sprecher et al., 2002).
Recent work extending these ndings
shows that the creation of couple friendships
in the lab through activities involving high
levels of self-disclosure can increase closeness
between romantic partners relative to pairs of
couples in a low-self-disclosure control group
(Slatcher, 2010). The process of forming an
interpersonal bond with another couple may
increase closeness for multiple reasons. First,
close interactions between couples allow cou-
ples to self-disclose, or reveal information,
thoughts, and feelings about themselves to
one another (Collins & Miller, 1994; Greene,
Derlega, & Mathews, 2006; Laurenceau, Bar-
rett, & Pietromonaco, 1998). Self-disclosure is
an important factor for engendering closeness
(e.g., Aron, Melinat, Aron, Vallone, & Bator,
1997; Derlega, Metts, Petronio, & Margulis,
1993) and for creating relationship satisfac-
tion in couples (Laurenceau et al., 1998), and
is considered a principal factor in intimacy
processes (Laurenceau, Rivera, Schaffer, &
Pietromonaco, 2004; Reis & Shaver, 1988).
1
2K. M. Welker et al.
This concept is in part based on self-expansion
theory (Aron & Aron, 1986, 1996; Aron,
Aron, & Norman, 2004), which holds that as
individuals self-disclose and become close
to each other, their self-concepts expand to
include each other.
Additionally, high-self-disclosure interac-
tions also allow couples to respond positively
and validate the other couple’s thoughts and
feelings. Responsiveness, or the extent to
which people empathically validate others’
thoughts and feelings, is an important determi-
nant of relationship outcomes (Reis & Patrick,
1996; Reis & Shaver, 1988), and is thought
to be an important core organizing principle
for romantic relationships (Reis, 2012). When
individuals are responsive to each other, they
believe that both partners supportively attend
and react to central dening features of each
other’s selves (Reis & Clark, in press; Reis,
Clark, & Holmes, 2004). In being responsive,
individuals effectively address the needs,
wants, actions, and disclosures of others they
interact with (Miller & Berg, 1984).
Close interactions between couples may
also improve relationship outcomes within
couples by presenting a novel, positive expe-
rience for romantic partners. Broadly, novel,
positive experiences are important for boosting
passionate love and relationship satisfaction
(Aron, Norman, Aron, McKenna, & Heyman,
2000; Coulter & Malouff, 2013; O’Leary,
Acevedo, Aron, Huddy, & Masek, 2012;
Strong & Aron, 2006). In part, these increases
in perceived relationship quality from novel,
positive experiences are due to increases in
positive affect (Aron et al., 2000; Coulter &
Malouff, 2013; Slatcher, 2010; Strong & Aron,
2006). Slatcher (2010) showed that the for-
mation of a bond between two couples in the
lab is a novel and positive activity that leads
to increases in feelings of closeness to one’s
own romantic partner and that this effect is at
least in part mediated by increases in positive
affect.
Despite showing that the creation of friend-
ships between couples can increase intimacy
within couples, there are questions that remain
to be answered from emerging research on
dual-couple interactions (Slatcher, 2010). It is
important to examine whether close, positive
interactions within and between couples can
affect relationship outcomes other than close-
ness. We argue that close, positive interactions
between couples can also increase passion-
ate love, or “a state of intense longing for
union with another” (Hateld & Walster,
1978, p. 9). The nding that close interactions
between couples could increase passionate
love is an important one, as meta-analytic
evidence suggests that passionate love and
love in general tend to decrease over time in
relationships (Graham, 2011). Despite this
decline, a small, but growing body of research
suggests that for a subset of people, passionate
love can persist in relationships (Acevedo &
Aron, 2009; Acevedo, Aron, Fisher, & Brown,
2011), particularly for couples that share novel
and exciting activities (O’Leary et al., 2012).
O’Leary and colleagues (2012) report that
approximately 40% of U.S. individuals mar-
ried over a decade still report intense love in
their relationships. Thus, although passionate
love declines across time for most couples, this
decline does not appear to be inevitable for all
couples. In fact, previous work suggests that
increases in closeness between couples can
increase passionate love between individuals
(Baumeister & Bratslavsky, 1999; Rubin &
Campbell, 2012). Additionally, novel and
exciting activities increase positive affect,
which in turn leads to increases in perceived
relationship quality (Aron et al., 2000; Coulter
& Malouff, 2013; Graham, 2008; Strong &
Aron, 2006). The formation of an interper-
sonal bond with another couple, due to its
ability to make romantic partners feel close
and be a positive, novel experience, may
also increase passionate love for romantic
partners.
Previous research on predictors of pas-
sionate love and relationship satisfaction have
focused primarily on processes within couples
(e.g., Acevedo & Aron, 2009; Hendrick, 1988;
Keelan, Dion, & Dion, 1998; O’Leary et al.,
2012), not processes between couples. On a
practical level, showing that self-disclosure
and responsiveness between couples increases
passionate love and relationship satisfaction
will give couples a new way to increase their
satisfaction and passionate love in their rela-
tionship. On a theoretical level, this research
Couple friendships and passionate love 3
can reveal that positive interactions with others
are also important contributors to increases in
passionate love and will also shed new light
on the larger role of outside friendships for
couples. Importantly, this research also could
reveal a new way in which responsiveness
can affect relationship outcomes: By testing
whether responsive interactions with other
couples can affect relationship outcomes
within couples, the present research extends
the understanding of the role of responsiveness
as an organizing, unifying principle in rela-
tionship research (Reis, 2012) to also connect
interactions within couples to how couples
interact in a larger network of individuals.
Having other individuals responsively validate
one’s own relationship, self, and romantic
partner may positively impact perceptions of
one’s own relationship and partner, such as
increasing passionate love.
Although Slatcher (2010) found that
high-self-disclosure interactions between cou-
ples increased closeness within couples, it is
worthwhile to examine how the intimacy pro-
cesses of self-disclosure and responsiveness in
interactions between couples might affect pas-
sionate love. The interpersonal process model
of intimacy (Reis & Shaver, 1988) holds that
intimacy grows when one person self-discloses
and when this self-disclosure is met with
another person’s validating responsiveness.
Thus, the responsiveness of others mediates
the effects of self-disclosure on intimacy. In
interactions that foster intimacy, as one person
reveals emotional, personal information to
another, the other person responds in a validat-
ing manner, communicating that they under-
stand and support the person self-disclosing.
Longitudinal daily diary research reveals that
self-disclosure and responsiveness jointly
contribute to intimacy and marital satisfaction,
whereby the responsiveness of one couple
member mediates the effects of another’s
self-disclosures on the couples’ intimacy
(Laurenceau, Barrett, & Rovine, 2005).
Although research indicates that the joint inu-
ence of self-disclosure and responsiveness is
important for intimacy and relationship satis-
faction within couples, interpersonal processes
are not only specic to couples, but embed-
ded in a broader network of social relations
(Agnew et al., 2001; Milardo, 1982; Sprecher
et al., 2002), and interpersonal processes with
other couples also fosters intimacy between
couples (Slatcher, 2010). No research, to this
point, has examined how the interpersonal pro-
cesses of self-disclosure and responsiveness
between couples contribute to the feelings of
passionate love within couples. Exploring this
possibility is both theoretically and practically
important.
Overview
The goals of the present research were to inves-
tigate whether the formation of a friendship
between couples can increase passionate love
within couples and also to investigate whether
the intimacy processes of self-disclosure and
responsiveness are related to feelings of pas-
sionate love during interactions with other cou-
ples. Based on previous research that novel
and arousing activities and high-self-disclosure
interactions increase relationship quality, we
hypothesized that high-self-disclosure interac-
tions with another couple would increase feel-
ings of passionate love. Additionally, because
self-disclosure with one’s own romantic part-
ner and one’s own partner’s responsiveness
are positively linked to perceived relation-
ship quality (Laurenceau et al., 1998; Reis &
Shaver, 1988), we expected that perceptions of
self-disclosure and responsiveness with other
couples would be positively related to feelings
of passionate love within the couple. We also
included measures of relationship satisfaction
before and after the interactions to test whether
the positive effects of interactions between
couples would be specic to passionate love or
also extend to satisfaction.
These hypotheses were investigated in two
studies. In Study 1, couples were assigned to
engage in an interaction designed to elicit high
levels of self-disclosure and group cohesion or
a low-self-disclosure interaction either alone as
a couple or while paired with another couple.
This design allowed us to investigate whether
this type of interpersonal bonding activity with
another couple—not a similar activity with
one’s own romantic partner or just a small-talk
interaction with another couple—leads to
increased feelings of passionate love and
4K. M. Welker et al.
relationship satisfaction toward the romantic
partner.
In Study 2, we focused on examining
the specic effects of responsiveness and
self-disclosure with other couples on changes
in passionate love within couples. Here, we
assigned a larger sample of pairs of couples to
have interactions of the type used in Study 1
designed to elicit high levels of self-disclosure
and group cohesion. We then statistically
modeled the effects of self-disclosure and
responsiveness between couples on passion-
ate love and relationship satisfaction within
couples. Specically, in line with the current
theorizing on the role of perceived responsive-
ness (Reis, 2012), we investigated whether
perceptions of the other couple’s respon-
siveness mediated the effects of perceived
self-disclosure between couples on increases
in relationship quality within the couples.
We also measured perceived responsiveness
of romantic partners, which allowed us to
test whether the other couple’s responsive-
ness mediated the effects of perceptions of
self-disclosure on increases in passionate
love and relationship satisfaction, above and
beyond the effects of perceived romantic
partner responsiveness.
Study 1
Study 1 utilized a 2 ×2 experimental design, in
which couples were assigned to either engage
in an interaction designed to elicit high lev-
els of self-disclosure and group cohesion or a
low-self-disclosure task with another couple or
alone. Participants completed a pretest mea-
sure of passionate love before the experiment
and posttest measures of passionate love, rela-
tionship satisfaction, and self-disclosure fol-
lowing the experiment.
Method
Participants and design
Participants were 88 couples (50.6% men,
48.9% women)1recruited through the
1. The difference in males and female ns was due to one
couple being a same-sex couple and one participant that
did not disclose his or her gender.
psychology subject pool, yers around the
university, and a Facebook advertisement
(Mage =23.79, SD =6.28), who had been
dating for at least 1 year (mean relationship
length =2.86 years, SD =2.38). The sample
was diverse: 29.7% Black, 40.3% White,
13.7% Indian/Middle Eastern, 4.5% Asian,
and 11.3% Other, Multiracial, or unreported.
Participants were compensated with an hono-
rarium of $35 or partial course credit if they
were recruited from the psychology subject
pool. Couples were randomly assigned to a
2 (fast friends vs. small-talk condition) X 2
(group composition: alone vs. with another
couple) factorial design. Fifteen couples par-
ticipated in the single-couple fast friends
condition and 15 couples participated in the
single-couple small-talk condition. Addi-
tionally, 15 pairs of couples were assigned
to the group small-talk condition and 14
pairs were assigned to the group closeness
induction condition. When asked, no couples
said they knew the other couple with whom
they were paired. One couple was identi-
ed by a researcher as not actually being
in a relationship and was removed from the
analyses.
Procedure and materials
Pretest survey. Before the experimental
session, participants completed a brief pre-
liminary online questionnaire assessing demo-
graphic information and passionate love. To
assess passionate love, participants completed
the Eros Scale of Passionate Love (Hendrick
& Hendrick, 1986). This scale was chosen due
to its relatively short length of seven items,
which made it adequate for inclusion in a brief
online survey. This scale asks participants to
rate the extent to which they agree with state-
ments about their romantic partner, including,
“My lover and I really understand each other”
and “My lover and I have the right physical
‘chemistry’ between us” on 5-point scales
(1 =strongly agree,5=strongly disagree;
Cronbach’s α=.86, M=1.91, SD =0.86).2
2. The pretest also included measures of commitment
(Sternberg, 1986) and relationship closeness strength
(RCI Strength subscale; Berscheid, Snyder, & Omoto,
Couple friendships and passionate love 5
Laboratory session. Participants arrived in
the lab and were introduced to the other couple
they were paired with if they were in the group
condition. Regardless of condition, partici-
pants completed one discussion-oriented task
and a game (see below). Participants in the
closeness induction condition engaged in tasks
geared to elicit high levels of self-disclosure
and played a game of JengaTM, a game where
players remove blocks from a tower of blocks,
attempting to not let the tower collapse. Par-
ticipants were also informed that they were
competing as a team against all other groups
participating in the study for a cash prize of
$50 and were given the opportunity to invent
a name for their team. The JengaTM task was
chosen to build solidarity between couples
and within couples by having them engage
in mutual activities, which would help them
feel closer to each other (Wright, Aron, &
Tropp, 2002). Participants assigned to the
small-talk condition engaged in a nonemo-
tional small-talk task and had to sort shufed
decks of cards. Unlike those in the “fast
friends” condition, these participants were told
that they would each be entered in a drawing to
win $50.
Closeness induction “fast friends” condition.
We had participants complete the closeness
induction “fast friends” task developed by
Aron and colleagues (1997). In this task, over
three 15-min blocks (for a total of 45 min),
participants took turns answering questions
on slips of paper drawn from an envelope that
gradually increased in their required levels
of self-disclosure (e.g., “Given the choice of
anyone in the world, whom would you want
as a dinner guest?” [Block 1], “What is the
greatest accomplishment of your life?” [Block
2], “If you could go back in your life and
change any one experience, what would it
be and why?” [Block 3]). After participants
elected a group member to begin the task
1989). These variables were not included as covari-
ates in the main text because they are not conceptu-
ally equivalent to passionate love and relationship sat-
isfaction. However, controlling for these variables did
not change the signicance of any effects presented in
Study 1.
and open the slips of paper, the participant
opening the slips of paper rst read a question,
and then each member took a turn answering
the question. Once all group members had
answered the question, the participant with
the slips of paper pulled out another slip of
paper from the envelope, and the process
repeated. After 15 min passed in each trial,
the experimenter entered the room and gave
the participants a new envelope of questions,
telling participants to nish their current ques-
tion and then move on to the new questions.
After completing all three trials, all partici-
pants in the fast friends condition played the
JengaTM game.
Small-talk condition. Participants in the
small-talk condition took turns asking and
answering nonemotional small-talk questions
(e.g., “When was the last time you walked
for more than an hour?”) across three 15-min
blocks. Following this task, participants
engaged in a task where they had to sort
shufed card decks for 15 min. This task was
chosen because it was expected to be relatively
unexciting, compared to the JengaTM game.
Posttest measures. Participants were then
seated in separate cubicle desks to complete
the posttest questionnaires of self-disclosure,
passionate love, and relationship satisfaction
(in that order).
As a manipulation check, self-disclosure
was measured using three self-report items ask-
ing participants how much they had disclosed
“facts” about themselves, their “thoughts,”
and their “feelings” during the experimental
session (Laurenceau et al., 1998) on 5-point
scales (1 =very little,5=a great deal;α=.92,
M=3.91, SD =1.08). Participants also com-
pleted measures of how novel their experience
was and how much knowledge they gained
about their partner. Novelty was measured
using a 5-item scale (e.g., “This interaction
was a very novel experience for my romantic
partner and me,” “I’ve never done anything
like this with my partner before”) ranging
from 1 (not true)to9(denitely true). Due
to the acceptable internal consistency of this
scale (α=.74), these ve items were aver-
aged into one measure of perceived novelty
6K. M. Welker et al.
(M=6.54, SD =1.86). Participants responded
to the question, “To what extent do you feel
as though you gained new knowledge about
your partner today?” on a 9-point Likert scale
(1 =not at all,9=a great deal).
Participants then completed the 15-item
short form of the Passionate Love Scale
(Hateld & Sprecher, 1986), which asks
participants to indicate their agreement with
statements about their partner, including
“I sense my body responding when _____
touches me” and “______ always seems to be
on my mind” (1 =not at all true,9=denitely
true;α=.90, M=7.49, SD =1.17).
Participants also completed the 16-item
Couples Satisfaction Index (CSI-16; Funk &
Rogge, 2007) as an index of relationship sat-
isfaction. Sample items include, “In general,
how often do you think that things between you
and your partner are going well?” (answered
with a 6-point scale ranging from 0 =never
to 5 =all the time) and “Our relationship is
strong” (answered with a 6-point scale ranging
from 0 =not at all true to 5 =completely true).
This scale had excellent internal consistency
(α=.95).
Statistical analyses
Because the groups and couples in our data
violated the independence assumption of typ-
ical parametric tests, multilevel linear model-
ing (with SPSS Mixed) was used to analyze
our data. We carefully followed the recom-
mendations of Kenny, Kashy, and Cook (2006)
for dyadic analysis, but our groups were com-
posed of either two or four members, being
either groups of one or two couples. In particu-
lar, the analyses used a three-level multilevel
model, with individuals nested within cou-
ples, which were in turn nested in experimen-
tal groups. Fast friends/small talk and group
composition were effect coded for all analysis
(−1=small talk,+1=fast friends;−1=one
couple,+1=pair of couples). Type III Ftests
from multilevel modeling were used for means
comparisons. Interactions were probed using
the tools provided by Preacher, Curran, and
Bauer (2006), which test simple slopes in
accordance with the procedures recommended
by Aiken and West (1991).
Results
Self-disclosure
As a manipulation check, we investigated
whether our experimental manipulations
affected levels of self-disclosure with 2
(fast friends/small-talk condition) ×2 (group
composition) factorial multilevel models.
There were signicant main effects for both
the fast friends condition, F(1, 82.72) =13.
90, p<.001, and group composition, F(1,
82.72) =5.44, p=.022, and no signicant
Fast Friends ×Group Composition interaction,
F(1, 82.72) =.06, p=.81. As expected, partic-
ipants disclosed more in the fast friends task
(M=4.29, SE =.12) than in the small-talk
task (M=3.68, SE =.11), conrming our
manipulation check for disclosure. Partici-
pants also self-disclosed more when just with
their romantic partners (M=4.17, SE =.13),
compared to the participants in the couple
pairs groups (M=3.79, SE =.10), which is not
surprising, given that there are more opportu-
nities to self-disclose within 45 min for two
people compared to four.
Novelty
We then tested to see how novel participants
found each condition using a similar 2 ×2
factorial mixed model. This model revealed
that individuals found the small-talk condi-
tiontobemorenovel(M=6.75, SE =.21)
than the fast friends condition (M=6.00,
SE =.21), F(1, 83.00) =6.33, p=.014, and
that the dual-couple condition was perceived
as more novel (M=6.92, SE =.18) than
the individual-couple condition (M=5.83,
SE =.24), F(1, 83.00) =13.36, p<.001.3
However, these main effects were qualied by
a signicant Group Condition ×Fast Friends
Condition interaction, F(1, 83.00) =9.43,
p=.003, whereby the novelty of the small-talk
condition did not differ between individ-
ual couples and pairs of couples, b=.09,
3. We speculate that the small-talk condition may have
been perceived more novel because of the card sorting
task. Although participants likely have played games
and had conversations with their romantic partner and
others, participants were less likely to have spent a
degree of time sorting decks of cards as a group.
Couple friendships and passionate love 7
Figure 1. Effects of experimental conditions on passionate love and relationship satisfaction
(Study 1). Error bars represent standard errors.
SE =.24, t(83) =.36, p=.72, but pairs of
couples in the fast friends condition found
the condition more novel (M=7.00, SE =.25)
than individual couples in the fast friends
condition (M=4.99, SE =.34), b=1.00,
SE =.18, t(83) =5.73, p<.001. Task novelty
was unrelated to posttest passionate love and
relationship satisfaction (ps≥.37).
Knowledge gained about romantic partners
Knowledge gained about romantic part-
ners did not differ in the small-talk and fast
friends conditions (p=.62), but there was a
marginally signicant effect of group condi-
tion, F(1, 83.00) =2.86, p=.095, whereby
individual-couple partners showed greater
self-reported knowledge gain (M=4.92,
SE =.37) than individuals in the dual-couples
condition (M=4.15, SE =.27). The Group
Type ×Self-Disclosure Condition interaction
was nonsignicant (p=.103). Knowledge
gained was also unrelated to passionate love
and romantic satisfaction (ps≥.73).
Effects on passionate love
To test effects on passionate love, a 2×2 fac-
torial multilevel model similar to the previous
analyses was conducted on posttest passion-
ate love. There was a marginally signicant
main effect of the fast friends condition, F(1,
83.00) =3.67, p=.059,4where those in the
4. The main effect of self-disclosure condition on pas-
sionate love was statistically signicant when the
fast friends condition felt marginally higher
passionate love (M=7.68, SE =.13) compared
to those in the small-talk condition (M=7.33,
SE =.13). The main effect of group compo-
sition was nonsignicant, F(1, 83.00) =.05,
p=.83, indicating that group composition
had no effect on self-reported passionate love.
Although the Fast Friends ×Group Compo-
sition interaction effect was nonsignicant,
F(1, 83.00) =2.15, p=.15, the planned com-
parisons (depicted in Figure 1, left panel)
were as hypothesized: Passionate love was
signicantly higher in the group fast friends
condition (M=7.79, SE =.15) compared to
the group small-talk condition (M=7.17,
SE =.15), b=.31, SE =.13, t(83.00) =2.38,
p=.019. Within the individual couples,
posttask passionate love did not signicantly
differ between the fast friends condition
(M=7.57, SE =.21) and small-talk condi-
tion (M=7.48, SE =.21), b=.04, SE =.13,
t(83.00) =.32, p=.75. Controlling for the
pretest passionate love Eros scores did not
change the signicance of the interaction
(p=.21), main effect of fast friends (p=.058),
main effect of group condition (p=.97), or
previous planned comparisons: The effect
of being in the fast friends condition was
signicant in pairs of couples (p=.008), not
individual couples (p=.68). The presence
of the signicant effects of the fast friends
Self-Disclosure Condition ×Group Type interaction
was not included in this model, F(1, 84.00) =6.13, p
=.015.
8K. M. Welker et al.
manipulation in pairs of couples on increases
in passionate love after controlling for pretest
passionate love indicates that the process of
forming an interpersonal bond with another
couple through self-disclosure and a group
cohesion task (Jenga™) leads to increases
in passionate love, relative to simply engag-
ing in small talk with other couples. Despite
the nonsignicant interaction effect, these
results show that the effects of the fast friends
condition on passionate love are specic to
interactions with other couples, but not similar
interactions within couples.
Effects on relationship satisfaction
We also examined whether our experimental
conditions affected self-reported relationship
satisfaction. A nal 2 ×2 factorial multilevel
model found a signicant main effect of fast
friends condition, F(1, 83.00) =4.99, p=.028.
Individuals in the fast friends condition
had higher posttest relationship satisfac-
tion (M=4.83, SE =.09) than those in the
small-talk condition (M=4.53, SE =.09; see
the right panel of Figure 1). The main effect of
group composition, F(1, 83.00) =.14, p=.71,
and the Group Composition ×Fast Friends
Condition interaction, F(1, 83.00) =.05,
p=.83, were nonsignicant. Examining the
conditional effects of the fast friends manip-
ulation revealed that the effects of being in
the fast friends condition on romantic sat-
isfaction were of similarly positive, albeit
nonsignicant, magnitudes within individ-
ual couples, b=.13, SE =.09, t(83) =1.43,
p=.16, and pairs of couples, b=.16, SE =.09,
t(83) =1.73, p=.09. In summary, although
the fast friends manipulation increased rela-
tionship satisfaction across individual couples
and pairs of couples, self-disclosure between
couples uniquely increased passionate love.5
5. Relationship length was not signicantly related to the
amount of participants’ self-reported self-disclosure,
pretest passionate love, relationship satisfaction, or
posttest passionate love. Although women showed
higher posttest passionate love and relationship satis-
faction than men (ps≤.018), controlling for gender did
not change the signicance of any effects on posttest
passionate love. Additionally, men and women did not
signicantly differ in self-disclosure or pretest passion-
ate love (ps≥.12).
Discussion
Study 1 demonstrated that fast friends
closeness-induction interactions with other
couples lead to increased passionate love
within couples, whereas similar interactions
alone with one’s partner did not. Because
these effects remained signicant after con-
trolling for baseline passionate love, having
a fast friends interaction with another couple
changed feelings of passionate love from base-
line. Whereas Slatcher (2010) found that pairs
of couples who went through the fast friends
procedure together increased in feelings of
closeness toward their romantic partner rela-
tive to small-talk interactions between pairs of
couples, our ndings extend that research in
two key respects. First, our study demonstrates
experimentally, and for the rst time with
any method, that the process of forming a
friendship with another couple can increase
feelings of passionate love. Second, we found
that this effect on passionate love is specic
to pairs of interacting couples, not individual
couples alone.
Study 2
Having established that positive,
high-self-disclosure interactions with other
couples can be effective for increasing feelings
of passionate love within couple members, we
sought to examine mechanisms of this effect
within a larger sample of couple pairs. Study 2
examined the role of perceived self-disclosure
and the responsiveness of other couples in
affecting passionate love when unacquainted
pairs of couples engaged in a fast friends task.
Method
Participants and design
Participants were 62 couples (Mage =
23.48 years, SD =6.26), 53.2% female, 48.4%
African American, 51.6% Caucasian6who
were randomly assigned into pairs (mean
relationship length =2.76 years, SD =2.82).
Participants were compensated with a sum
6. One couple in Study 2 was a same-sex couple.
Couple friendships and passionate love 9
of money between $10 and $50 each.7Par-
ticipants rst completed an online pretest
assessing their passionate love before coming
into the laboratory to engage in the same fast
friends task in pairs, identical to the pairs
of couples in the fast friends condition in
Study 1.8Unless noted, participants’ gender
and relationship length did not moderate any
results.
Materials
The 15-item short-form Passionate Love Scale
(Hateld & Sprecher, 1986) was again used
to assess participants’ feelings of passionate
love toward their partner, in which partic-
ipants rate statements about their partner.
Similar to Aron and colleagues (2000), the
scale was split for the pretest and posttest,
with the rst 7 items given pretest (α=.72,
M=7.60, SD =11.12), and last 8 items given
posttest (α=.85, M=7.70, SD =11.13).
Similar to Study 1, participants completed
the 16-item CSI (Funk & Rogge, 2007) as
a measure of relationship satisfaction in the
posttest (α=.85). Participants also completed
a pretest measure of relationship satisfaction,
the 7-item Relationship Assessment Scale
(α=.81; Hendrick, 1988). All items used a
5-point Likert-type scale, and sample items
included, “How well does your partner meet
your needs?” (1 =poorly,5=extremely well)
and “How many problems are there in your
relationship?” (1 =very few,5=very many;
reverse coded).
The degree to which participants
self-disclosed during the fast friends task
was assessed using the same three items from
Study 1 (Laurenceau et al., 1998; Cronbach’s
α=.87). Then, participants indicated the
perceived responsiveness of their romantic
partners as well as the perceived respon-
siveness of the two other couple members
7. This sum of money varied across our period of data
collection because we increased the sum of money to
aid in recruiting participants.
8. Study 2 was part of a larger study investigating the
effects of cross-group couple friendships on reducing
prejudice. The other paper from this data set focuses
on the effects of interpersonal processes on intergroup
attitudes and does not overlap at all with the ndings
presented here (Welker, Slatcher, Baker, & Aron, 2014).
using three items for each of the three other
individuals. Responsiveness from one’s own
romantic partner and members of the other
couple was examined separately to assess
whether responsiveness specically from
the other couple—not just from romantic
partners—was responsible for variability in
passionate love. Participants indicated on
5-point scales (1 =very little,5=a great deal)
how much they felt “understood,” “validated,”
and “cared for” (Laurenceau et al., 1998) by
their romantic partner and then each of the
two other couple members in the experiment
on three separate three-item scales for each
of the other participants they interacted with;
all αvalues ≥.80. The items for the other two
couple members’ responsiveness were aver-
aged into one composite variable representing
the other couple’s overall responsiveness for
each participant (all items had loadings ≥.71
on one factor that explained 65.83% of the
variance, α=.90), and participants’ ratings
of their partner’s responsiveness were also
averaged into a composite.
Procedure
Participants completed the online pretest
measure of passionate love, relationship sat-
isfaction, and a demographic questionnaire.
Similar to the fast friends condition of Study
1, pairs of couples engaged in the three blocks
of high-disclosure questions of the fast friends
task for 45 min and then played a game of
JengaTM. Following the fast friends task and
JengaTM game, participants then rated their
self-disclosure and the responsiveness of their
partner and the other couple members, and
completed the posttest measure of relationship
satisfaction and passionate love (in that order).
Finally, participants were debriefed.
Statistical analyses
Similar to Study 1, we used multilevel mod-
eling with SPSS Mixed to account for the
interdependence among couples. Our effects
were reported as regression weights from
multilevel modeling. We hypothesized that
the other couple’s responsiveness would sig-
nicantly predict changes in passionate love.
We tested this hypothesis with a three-level
10 K. M. Welker et al.
multilevel model testing the effects of the
other couple’s responsiveness, romantic part-
ner responsiveness, and self-disclosure on
posttest passionate love, controlling for pretest
passionate love. Because examining mea-
sures related to the participants’ interaction
(e.g., self-disclosure and responsiveness) in a
model simultaneously may mask any effects
due to shared variance (e.g., suppression and
mediation), we also examined the effects of
our process variables separately. Lastly, we
also examined whether responsiveness of
the other couple and one’s partner mediated
the effects of self-disclosure on changes in
feelings of passionate love. For these analyses,
we used Selig and Preacher’s (2008) Monte
Carlo utility for testing mediation in multilevel
modeling (with 20,000 resamples).
Results
Individual effects of self-disclosure
and responsiveness
We rst examined the individual effects of
our predictors by examining their relations in
bivariate multilevel models, with and with-
out controlling for our pretest measure of
passion. Self-disclosure was a signicant
predictor of passionate love, b=.26, SE =.11,
t(120.30) =2.36, p=.020, and remained
marginally signicant after controlling for the
effects of pretest passionate love (p=.053).
Both the responsiveness of the other couples,
b=.47, SE =.11, t(118.93) =4.36, p<.001,
and romantic partners, b=.88, SE =.15,
t(111. 54) =5.74, p<.001, were signicant,
positive predictors of passionate love when
examined alone. Controlling for pretest pas-
sionate love did not change the signicance
of other couples’ responsiveness or romantic
partners’ responsiveness on passionate love
(both ps<.001).
Gender signicantly moderated the link
between self-disclosure and posttest passion-
ate love, b=.26, SE =.11, t(110.08) =2.31,
p=.023. Simple effects tests (Preacher
et al., 2006) indicated that this interaction
occurred because the relationship between
self-disclosure and passionate love was
signicant for women, b=.47, SE =.14,
t(110.08) =3.34, p=.001, but not men,
b=−.05, SE =.17, t(110.08) =−.26, p=.80.
Aside from this nding, gender did not signif-
icantly moderate any other reported results.
Effects on passionate love
Having examined the individual effects of
self-disclosure and the responsiveness of
romantic partners and other couples in our indi-
vidual effect models, we then turned to inves-
tigate the effects of these predictors together
in a larger multiple predictor model. This
approach allowed us to examine the unique
contribution of each predictor to passionate
love while controlling for all other predictors.
The results of this analysis are displayed in
Table 1. After controlling for the effect of
pretest passionate love (b=.45, p<.001), we
found that the responsiveness both of romantic
partners and of the other couples uniquely
predicted posttest passionate love (b=.56,
p<.001 and b=.29, p=.007, respectively).
Self-disclosure, however, did not predict pas-
sionate love in this model (b=−.06, p=.56).
These results suggest that the responsiveness
of one’s romantic partner and the responsive-
ness of the other couple contributed uniquely
Table 1. Effects of self-disclosure, partner responsiveness, other-couple responsiveness, and
pretest passionate love on passionate love following a fast friends interaction with another couple
(Study 2)
b(SE)t(df )p
Pretest passionate love .45 (.07) 6.45 (113.94) <.001
Self-disclosure −.06 (.10) −0.58 (108.35) .564
Responsiveness of other couple .29 (.10) 2.76 (113.79) .007
Responsiveness of romantic partner .56 (.15) 3.77 (105.02) <.001
Couple friendships and passionate love 11
to increases in passionate love following the
interaction. The effects of self-disclosure, on
the other hand, did not uniquely contribute
to passionate love, suggesting that the effects
of self-disclosure on passionate love may be
mediated by romantic partner responsiveness
and/or the other couple’s responsiveness.
We then tested whether perceived romantic
partner responsiveness and the responsiveness
of the other couple each separately mediated
the effects of self-disclosure on feelings of pas-
sionate love. To illustrate the direct and total
effects of this mediation, we ran three separate
multilevel models: (a) the total effect model,
modeled by regressing passionate love on
self-disclosure; (b) the other couple’s respon-
siveness regressed on self-disclosure; and (c)
passionate love regressed on the other couple’s
responsiveness. The results of these analyses
are presented in Figure 2. As is displayed, and
consistent with previous analyses, the total
effect of self-disclosure on passionate love
was signicant. Additionally, the direct effects
from self-disclosure to the other couple’s
responsiveness and from the other couple’s
responsiveness to passionate love were signif-
icant. Similar to previous analyses, the effects
of self-disclosure on passionate love were
nonsignicant when controlling for the other
couple’s responsiveness. We then tested
the signicance of the indirect effects of
self-disclosure through the responsiveness
of the other couple on passionate love. The
95% Monte Carlo condence signicantly dif-
fered from 0 (.09 and .34, did not include 0),
indicating that other couple’s responsiveness
mediated the effects of couple members’
self-disclosure on couple members’ passionate
love. This mediation remained signicant after
controlling for romantic partner responsive-
ness (95% CI [.09, .32]). Further, controlling
for pretest passionate love did not change
the signicance of the indirect effect of
self-disclosure through the responsiveness of
the other couple on passionate love (95% CI
[.006, .20]).
We then examined whether romantic part-
ner responsiveness also mediated the effects
of self-disclosure on passionate love. We
performed analyses similar to our previous
second and third multilevel models, this time
with romantic partner responsiveness as the
mediator. The rst, total effect model, being
redundant with our previous analyses, was
not performed. Self-disclosure positively
predicted romantic partner responsiveness,
b=.13, SE =.06, t(110.81) =2.37, p=.020.
When self-disclosure and romantic partner
responsiveness were examined as predictors
of passionate love in the same model, the
effect of self-disclosure was nonsignicant,
b=.11, SE =.10, t(108.29) =1.08, p=.28, but
romantic partner responsiveness signicantly
predicted passionate love, b=.84, SE =.16,
t(116.80) =5.31, p<.001. Mediation analyses
indicated that romantic partner responsive-
ness mediated the effects of self-disclosure
on passionate love (95% CI [.02, .23]) and
controlling for pretest passionate love did not
change the signicance of the indirect effects
of romantic partner responsiveness (95% CI
[.002, .17]). However, when controlling for
Figure 2. Other couples’ responsiveness mediation of the effects of self-disclosure on passionate
love (Study 2). Other couples’ responsiveness signicantly mediated the effects of self-disclosure
on passionate love (95% CI [.09, .34]).
*p<.05. ***p<.001.
12 K. M. Welker et al.
other couple’s responsiveness, this mediation
was nonsignicant, (95% CI [−.08, .09]).
Thus, the mediating effect of the other cou-
ple’s responsiveness, not romantic partner
responsiveness, was primarily responsible
for the effect of self-disclosure on increases
in passionate love following the fast friends
interaction with the other couple.
Effects on relationship satisfaction
Similar to Study 1, to determine whether the
effects of self-disclosure and responsiveness
had different effects on relationship satisfac-
tion compared to passionate love, we tested
similar models to the above analyses, con-
trolling for pretest relationship satisfaction.
Unlike the above analysis, self-disclosure was
only marginally signicantly associated with
relationship satisfaction, b=.11, SE =.06,
t(116.09) =1.95, p=.054. However, a sepa-
rate model (without self-disclosure) revealed
that responsiveness of the other couple was
a signicant predictor of relationship satis-
faction, b=.17, SE =.06, t(115.35) =2.91,
p=.004. Similar to our analysis for passionate
love, when these two predictors were entered
in the same model, responsiveness of the other
couple remained a signicant predictor of
relationship satisfaction, b=.16, SE =.06,
t(110.10) =2.46, p=.016, but self-disclosure
did not, b=.02, SE =.06, t(99.74) =.38,
p=.71. As is displayed in Table 2, when
romantic partner responsiveness was added to
this model, b=.41, SE =.09, t(111.41) =4.56,
p<.001, both self-disclosure and other couple
responsiveness were nonsignicant predictors
of relationship satisfaction (ps≥.33).
Similar to previous analyses, we tested
whether responsiveness of the other couple
and romantic partner responsiveness mediated
the effects of self-disclosure on passionate
love. The effects of self-disclosure on relation-
ship satisfaction were mediated by romantic
partner responsiveness (95% CI [.01, .14]),
but not other couple responsiveness (95%
CI [−.005, .07]). These indirect effects were
nonsignicant when both mediators were
controlled for and included in the same models
(95% CIs [−.05, .06] for romantic partner
responsiveness, 95% CI [−.02, .08] for other
couple responsiveness).
Discussion
Hypotheses on the effects of self-disclosure
and the responsiveness of other couples on
feelings of passionate love were supported.
Study 2 demonstrated that within fast friends
interactions, the other couple’s responsive-
ness was an important factor in leading to
increased feelings of passionate love after
getting to know the other couple, controlling
for the perceived responsiveness of one’s own
romantic partner. Additionally, the effect of
self-disclosure on passionate love was medi-
ated by the other couple’s responsiveness.
These results suggest that relationship pro-
cesses between couples are responsible for
changes in passionate love within couples and
that responsiveness from other couples is an
important mechanism underlying the effects
of self-disclosure on increases in couples’
feelings of passionate love.
Table 2. Effects of self-disclosure, partner responsiveness, other-couple responsiveness, and
pretest relationship satisfaction on relationship satisfaction following a fast friends interaction
with another couple (Study 2)
b(SE)t(df )p
Pretest relationship satisfaction .51 (.09) 5.81 (112.84) <.001
Self-disclosure .01 (.06) 0.21 (104.69) .835
Responsiveness of other couple .06 (.06) 0.98 (114.77) .328
Responsiveness of romantic partner .41 (.09) 4.56 (111.41) <.001
Couple friendships and passionate love 13
General Discussion
Broadly, the present research suggests that
positive, high-self-disclosure fast friends inter-
actions between pairs of couples can lead
to increased feelings of self-reported pas-
sionate love toward one’s partner. Although
fast friends interactions across individual and
pairs of couples increased relationship satis-
faction, self-disclosure with another couple
was uniquely responsible for increases in
passionate love. Study 1 provided experimen-
tal evidence that the process of forming
a friendship with other another couple
through self-disclosure and group cohe-
sion activities can increase passionate love
relative to small-talk interactions, whereas
high-self-disclosure/group cohesion interac-
tions in general (alone with one’s partner or
with another couple) can increase relationship
satisfaction. Study 2 extended these ndings
by examining mediating processes within
high-self-disclosure interactions between cou-
ple pairs who are responsible for increases in
passion, nding that self-disclosure to the other
couple and the other couple’s responsiveness
were responsible for increasing passionate
love, whereas a romantic partner’s respon-
siveness was related to increased relationship
satisfaction.
These ndings suggest that having posi-
tive, supportive interactions with other couples
can increase passionate love. The implications
of these ndings are both theoretically and
practically important. Practically, these nd-
ings reveal a simple way to boost passionate
love, which can wane over time in a relation-
ship (Hateld, Pillemer, O’Brien, & Le, 2008;
Hateld & Walster, 1978; Karney & Bradbury,
1995; Tucker & Aron, 1993). By having a
“double date” with another couple, disclosing
personal, emotional information about them-
selves, and having the other couple respond
in a caring, validating, and understanding way
to that information, couples may increase their
sense of desire and excitement in their romantic
relationships.
Previous work shows that activities that are
both novel, exciting, and arousing can increase
passionate love, such as physical exercise and
comedy videos (White, Fishbein, & Rutsein,
1981), along with fun, physically engaging
activities (Aron et al., 2000). The activities in
the current research are unlikely to reach these
levels of physiological arousal and excitement.
However, these ndings suggest that instead,
close, responsive interactions with another
couple, and potentially other individuals, are
an additional mechanism by which passionate
love can increase.
Several possibilities have been suggested
for the decline of passionate love in a rela-
tionship, including boredom (Aron & Aron,
1986; Tsapelas, Aron, & Orbuch, 2009), a
lack of evolutionary purpose past child-rearing
(Buss, 1989), having children (Baumeister &
Bratslavsky, 1999), and a lack of increases
in intimacy later in relationships (Baumeister
& Bratslavsky, 1999). By revealing that pos-
itive interactions with others are important
for increasing passionate love, the present
research also suggests another possible mech-
anism for the decline of passionate love over
the course of a relationship: dyadic with-
drawal, or the tendency for couples to decrease
interactions in their social networks as roman-
tic involvement increases (Johnson & Leslie,
1982). It is possible that if other couples
and individuals are a source of increasing
passionate love for couples, couples’ absten-
tions from social interactions with others
may conversely lead to declines in passion.
From the perspective of self-expansion theory
(Aron & Aron, 1986, 1996; Aron et al., 2004),
which holds that as individuals become close
they expand their self-concepts to include
each other, rapid self-expansion is impor-
tant for increasing passionate love early in
relationships. However, as a relationship per-
sists, couple members become increasingly
familiar with each other and self-expansion
is less likely to occur. Although the initial
self-expansion that occurs at the onset of a
relationship coincides with increases in pas-
sionate love, the current research suggests that
self-expansion experiences with other couples
also can increase passionate love. Thus, it is
possible that self-expanding activities with
other couples in the presence of one’s partner
may enhance self-expansion in the later stages
of a relationship.
14 K. M. Welker et al.
Typically, self-disclosure and responsive-
ness are conceptualized as characteristics
within a relationship that shape intimacy and
closeness. However, our ndings suggest
that self-disclosing in the presence of one’s
romantic partner, and having other couples
react responsively to that self-disclosure, can
affect passionate love. Thus, the interpersonal
process model (Reis & Shaver, 1988) can
be extended to include individuals outside
one’s relationship as additional sources of
developing passionate love for a relationship
partner. Broadly, responsiveness is thought
to be an organizing principle in relationship
research that can explain a wide variability
in relationship outcomes (Reis, 2012). A
large amount of research has investigated the
role of responsiveness in conjunction with
intimacy outcomes within couples (see Reis
et al., 2004, for a review), but research has
not examined how responsiveness affects pas-
sionate love, with the exception of Birnbaum
and Reis (2012), who reported that respon-
siveness from a stranger can pique sexual
attraction. The current research adds to
this literature by showing that responsive-
ness from a zero-acquaintance couple can
increase feelings of passionate love within
couples.
Our ndings in Study 1 suggest that exper-
imentally manipulated self-disclosure for an
established couple interacting with each other
by themselves has little if any effect on pas-
sionate love within the couple. However, it is
important to note that a wide variety of liter-
ature suggests that self-disclosure has positive
effects on other aspects of relationship quality,
including couples’ intimacy and relationship
satisfaction (e.g., Laurenceau et al., 1998;
Mitchell et al., 2008). Indeed, the current
research conrms these ndings, showing
that self-disclosure with romantic partners,
whether or not another couple is present,
increases relationship satisfaction. However,
in addition to these ndings, self-disclosure
with another couple and that other couples’
subsequent responsiveness uniquely increased
passionate love.
The current research adds to a growing
body of research suggesting social networks
and other couples can inuence outcomes and
perceptions of one’s own relationship (e.g.,
Agnew et al., 2001; Milardo, 1982; Slatcher,
2010; Sprecher et al., 2002). Although the
current studies examined interactions with
other couples, couples can have a wide variety
of interactions with many different types of
individuals in different contexts. Therefore,
future research is needed to determine how
passionate love develops and uctuates within
the context of other individuals and the greater
context of social networks as a whole. Existing
research has shown that passionate love both
rises rapidly at the onset of a relationship
and declines over time, and appears to be
stimulated by positive novel experiences (such
as self-disclosing to other couples, according
to the present research). Because of this, social
networks may be important beyond setting up
the interactions and shaping the opportunities
and support that allow relationships to be
formed and maintained, but may also provide
couples with bursts of passionate love that
rejuvenate the spark in relationships.
Although initial positive interactions with
other couples may increase passionate love,
what happens when two couples become famil-
iar with each other after repeated interactions?
Does the novelty wear off, and if so, does the
effect of positive interactions with the other
couple no longer increase passionate love?
Research by Larson and colleagues (Larson &
Bradley, 1988; Larson, Mannell, & Zuzanek,
1986) nds that individuals report their peak
levels of daily positive affect when engaging
in activities with spouses and friends together,
compared to being alone or with either only
spouses or only friends. Although no other
studies have examined how friendships with
others affect passionate love, the nding that
individuals report their highest levels of pos-
itive affect when with familiar others suggests
that the familiarity with other couples and indi-
viduals does not moderate the effects of inter-
actions between couples on passionate love.
However, future research is needed to examine
this possibility.
One limitation of Study 2 is that the respon-
siveness of the other couple was not manipu-
lated. Experimentally manipulating this vari-
able would allow for causal inferences to be
made about the effect of the responsiveness of
Couple friendships and passionate love 15
other couples on passionate love within rela-
tionships. Future research could benet from
manipulating other couple responsiveness by
having a confederate couple either behave or
not behave in a responsive manner to a par-
ticipant couple’s self-disclosures (e.g., Bur-
goon, et al., 1998; Forest & Wood, 2011).
An additional limitation to our research was
our lack of a signicant interaction between
self-disclosure condition and group type in
Study 1. Typically, larger sample sizes are
required to have the power to detect moderation
(Aiken & West, 1991), a goal that can be dif-
cult to achieve given the more extensive effort
required to recruit and conduct experimental
research with groups and couples.
Another limitation of the current research
is that the fast friends procedure in both Study
1 and Study 2 included two components: the
self-disclosure manipulation and the coop-
erative game (e.g., JengaTM vs. card sorting
task). Thus, the effects of self-disclosure are
potentially confounded by the effects of the
cooperative game task. Because Study 2 found
that higher levels of perceived self-disclosure
following the fast friends task was linked
to higher levels of passionate love, it seems
plausible that the self-disclosure manipulation
in Study 1 was responsible for the increases
in passionate love found between pairs of
couples, not the game tasks. Additionally,
because the cooperative game was relatively
short in length (10 min) compared to the
self-disclosure manipulation (45 min), the
self-disclosure manipulation is more likely
to have impacted posttask self-reported pas-
sionate love and relationship satisfaction. It
is also important to note that among couples
self-disclosing within and between each other
for 45 min, pairs of couples afford less oppor-
tunity for each individual to self-disclose. It
is possible that if individuals are given more
opportunities to self-disclose in a pair of cou-
ples, couple members may experience even
stronger increases in passionate love.
Future research will benet from examining
the mechanisms behind how responsiveness
from another couple is linked to increased
passionate love. Responsiveness from other
couples and individuals in couples’ social
networks may provide couples with social
support, which will lead individuals to feel
more positive about their romantic partners
(e.g., Blair & Holmberg, 2008). Addition-
ally, responsiveness from other couples may
increase positive affect, which has been found
to be responsible for the effects of novel inter-
actions (Strong & Aron, 2006) and dual-couple
interactions (Slatcher, 2010) on relationship
satisfaction.
Conclusions
Relationships do not occur in isolation but
are embedded within broader social networks.
Accordingly, passionate love appears to be
continually shaped by novel and exciting expe-
riences, which can include interactions with
other couples. These interactions may shape
not only the opportunities and social forces
that create, preserve, and destroy relationships
(Sprecher et al., 2002), but also the excitement
and sparks that can keep passionate love alive.
Indeed, positive, high-self-disclosure interac-
tions between couples not only create feel-
ings of closeness (e.g., Slatcher, 2010), but,
as evidenced by the current research, can also
increase feelings of passionate love as well.
At the center of these processes is respon-
siveness, thought to be a factor important to
organizing and unifying research and theory
in relationships (Reis, 2012). Broadly, respon-
siveness itself may not only affect relationships
and well-being within the bounds of individual,
person-to-person relationships, but may also
affect relationships and well-being across mul-
tiple relationships and social networks.
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