The present research sought to expand upon previous research demonstrating that individuals shift their attitudes to match the attitudes of their romantic partner. This research examined whether attitude alignment is influenced, in part, by belonging threats. Participants reported their attitudes about social issues and were randomly assigned to receive a belonging threat (or acceptance) in the form of feedback about their future relationships prior to discussing issues about which they disagreed with their partner. Partners discussed issues that were central to self - peripheral to partner and peripheral to self - central to partner. Attitude alignment was measured following discussion and at a one-week follow-up. Attitude alignment was expected to vary as a function of belonging threat, centrality of issue, and strength of unit relationship. Results did not support hypotheses, but did reveal noteworthy points to be considered for future work in this area.

Would you like a stranger more who shifts his/her attitudes to more closely align with yours? How would you feel if he/she aligned with everyone as opposed to just you? In Experiment 1, participants discussed with a partner disagreed upon social issues and received false feedback about whether the partner engaged in attitude alignment (shifted his/her attitude toward the participant’s attitude) following discussion. Participants also received false feedback about proportion of similarity (25%, 50%, or 75%) to the partner. Participants reported greater attraction toward partners who engaged in attitude alignment and who were more similar. However, similarity only predicted attraction in the absence of attitude alignment. Additionally, partner attitude alignment led to participant attitude alignment, and perceived reasoning ability marginally mediated the attitude alignment-attraction relationship. Similar to Experiment 1, participants in Experiment 2 received attitude alignment feedback, but they also received feedback about whether the partner engaged in attitude alignment with no others besides the participant (selective) or with many others besides the participant (unselective). Participants reported greater attraction toward partners who engaged in attitude alignment with them regardless of the partners’ attitude alignment with others. Perceived reasoning ability again mediated the attitude alignment-attraction relationship, and appeared to be more important in explaining this relation than cognitive evaluation or inferred attraction. Finally, participants reported greater trust and respect for partners who engaged in attitude alignment, but were no more willing to help those partners. This work extends our understanding of attitude alignment and its potential to affect interpersonal relationships, and it considers the influence of judgments about individuals outside of the dyad (i.e., alignment with others relative to alignment with the self).