Research has demonstrated that self-reported relationship commitment is positively associated with behaviours that help to maintain relationships. One of these, accommodation, refers to an individual's willingness to respond constructively, rather than destructively, to his or her partner's transgressions. Until now, commitment has been measured using mainly self-report methods. This study sought to show that cognitive accessibility of commitment may also be able to predict the relationship maintenance behaviour of accommodation. Participants either encountered the relationship threat of an attractive opposite-sex confederate or encountered no threat. They then complete measures of the accessibility of commitment and accommodation. Results revealed that for women only, the accessibility of commitment was a significant predictor of accommodation in both conditions, independent of self-reported commitment. The implications for understanding relationship maintenance processes and commitment, as well as the study of romantic relationships are discussed.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.33274 |
| Date | January 2000 |
| Creators | Burton, Kimberly, 1976- |
| Contributors | Lydon, John (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Arts (Department of Psychology.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001781971, proquestno: MQ70584, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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