Susan Sprecher’s research while affiliated with Illinois State University and other places

Objective The goal was to determine if time spent in specific Healthy Marriage Initiative program components (relationship education courses, supplemental activities, and family support services) was associated with future relationship satisfaction and to examine if effects differed depending on the degree of economic disadvantage. Background Healthy Marriage Initiatives (HMI) generally have small, short‐term positive effects on relationship outcomes. It remains unclear, however, which programming components are responsible for those effects and for whom programming is most effective. Method Using two waves of data from over 2,000 lower‐income couples in the Supporting Healthy Marriages study, we conducted path models and a multigroup model to address our research aims. Results Time spent in family support services was the only component positively associated with future satisfaction, controlling for the influence of other program components, initial relationship satisfaction, and expectations of the program's effectiveness. Economic disadvantage did not moderate any of these associations. Conclusion Results suggest that many HMI programs may potentially be beneficial to relationship functioning because of the provision of supplementary support services that partially aim to alleviate external stressors and provide personalized assistance to families. Implication s Practitioners should not only consider how relationship education programming may influence intimate bonds, but also how complementary programs may also factor into program efficacy.

Listening and being responsive to another's turns at disclosure are essential processes that occur at all stages of a relationship, including and perhaps particularly at the formation stage. This article discusses research on the role of responsiveness and listening in contributing to positive outcomes from getting-acquainted interactions. Integral to listening and responsiveness in the getting-acquainted process is asking questions, which is also discussed in this article. Because getting-acquainted interactions can occur in different communication modalities and also with artificial intelligence (AI), variation in the degree to which listening and responsiveness occur as a function of the context will be considered. Although listening skills and responsiveness are desired in a romantic partner, these skills are difficult to assess in online profiles and dating apps, which have become common ways for meeting partners.

Singular risk factors elicit negative relational outcomes for couples, yet the accumulation of risk factors can be especially detrimental to relationship functioning. Few studies, however, have explored the long-term effects of cumulative risk exposure on intimate relationships as well as examined whether relationship education (RE) protects couples from adverse effects of cumulative risk exposure. Accordingly, the present study examined the long-term association between cumulative risk and relationship satisfaction, potential interaction effects between cumulative risk and exposure to singular risks, and if RE protected couples from the effects of cumulative risk exposure. Participants included 6298 couples in the Supporting Healthy Marriages Project. Lagged regression analyses of the participants in the control condition who did not receive relationship education ( n = 3160) indicated that men and women under greater cumulative risk exposure experienced greater decreases in relationship satisfaction 2.5 years later. The impact of singular risk factors on relationship satisfaction did not consistently differ as a function of cumulative risk exposure. A multi-group analysis indicated that RE did not protect against the adverse effect of cumulative risk on later relationship satisfaction. Results highlight the long-term detrimental consequences of cumulative risk exposure for relationship satisfaction. Future efforts to enhance relationship functioning may benefit from addressing the accumulation of factors that erode relationship functioning.

Many departments in colleges and universities require a capstone course that involves the students conducting a research project. This author has had over 20 years of experience teaching such a capstone course and describes a flexible research method for student research projects – the vignette study (an experiment embedded in a survey). She also has teams of undergraduate students working in her lab for research credit make progress on a vignette design as one of several research activities. The vignette study can be used for students across many majors, including but not limited to sociology, psychology, criminal justice, nursing, social work, and marketing. Detail is provided on how to teach a capstone course using this flexible research method.

People report positive moods and enhanced well-being when they socialize with friends and other close ties. However, because most people routinely have more encounters with acquaintances and strangers (social connections known as weak ties) than with close friends or kin ( strong ties), we deemed it important to examine whether interaction with weak ties also enhances happiness and well-being. This investigation, which analyzed data from two laboratory procedures, examined whether participants’ positive affect (PA) increased and negative affect (NA) decreased, from before to after a getting-acquainted interaction with a stranger. We also considered whether any benefits of the interaction were moderated by the participants’ level of shyness. Participants ( N = 270; 135 dyads) from a U.S. university completed mood indices before and after a getting-acquainted task. Their PA significantly increased and their NA significantly decreased from before to after the interaction. Shy participants experienced greater NA both before and after the getting-acquainted interaction (relative to less shy participants), but the shyness level of our participants did not moderate the pattern of change in their PA and NA. Shy participants experienced increases in PA and decreases in NA that were similar to those of less shy participants. We discuss implications of the results regarding the important role of weak social connections for increasing one’s daily mood, including for those who are shy.

The multidisciplinary field of personal relationships has focused primarily on strong ties (romantic relationships, friendships, family relationships). However, acquaintances (weak ties) are pervasive in people's lives, contribute to well‐being, influence strong ties, and can become strong ties over time. This review article synthesizes several areas of literature about the role of acquaintances (weak ties) in the web of relationships and about the formation of acquaintanceships. The terms acquaintances and weak ties are used interchangeably in this article to refer to the type of relationship that exists in the peripheral layers of social networks. In the first section, I discuss the literature on factors associated with the size of people's acquaintance network, needs met by acquaintances (compared to those of closer ties), health and happiness benefits of interaction with acquaintances, and the dark side of acquaintances including having unwanted acquaintances. In the second section, I discuss how acquaintanceships are formed, and particularly the type that can develop into a closer tie. This section summarizes research from the literatures on friendship formation, relationship initiation, attraction, and first interactions of dyads at zero‐acquaintance. I end the article by identifying several research topics on acquaintances that could be studied by the next generation of scholars.

This study examined college students' judgments of the physical attractiveness of an interaction partner after a getting‐acquainted interaction, including in comparison with other benchmarks (e.g., an experimenter rating, a self‐rating). With data combined from several past laboratory studies, we found that participants (particularly women who were interacting with another woman) overall rated their interaction partner after a brief interaction to be more attractive than three benchmarks: (1) how the partners were judged by more neutral experimenters who had less interaction with them; (2) how the partners rated themselves; and (3) the participants' own self‐ratings of physical attractiveness. Evidence was found for a prediction derived from interaction appearance theory – ratings of the quality (enjoyment) of the interaction were positively associated with ratings of the partner's physical attractiveness. We also explored whether participants' ratings of the physical attractiveness of their interaction partner were affected by factors about the participant (own physical attractiveness, relationship status) and about the context of their communication (modality, type of get‐acquainted task). Despite prior work suggesting that physical attractiveness ratings of others are malleable depending on a host of other factors, personal and contextual variables considered in this study were generally not associated with how the participants rated the physical attractiveness of their interaction partner.

The romantic dyad is emphasized in society, which leads to the question of whether single (non-partnered) adults in emerging adulthood perceive pressure from their social network members to become partnered. The first purpose of this study was to examine the degree of pressure to enter a relationship that single (unattached) men and women perceive that they receive from two social networks (parents/family and friends) and whether there is a gender difference in this degree of pressure to partner. The second purpose was to examine how social pressure to partner is associated with the fear of being single (FOBS). A sample of 616 single (unpartnered) adults ages 18 to 30, primarily from the U.S., reported some degree of network pressure to enter a relationship on average. Greater pressure to become partnered was perceived from parents/family than from friends. Women scored higher than men on an index of social pressure from parents/family to enter a relationship and also higher on an index measuring FOBS. Social network pressure to enter a relationship was associated with a greater FOBS for both men and women.