The Unbearable Automaticity of Being . . . in a Close Relationship

A recent surge in research on automatic processes in close relationships has revealed new insights into how people form and update relationship evaluations as well as the implications of these evaluations for their relationship outcomes. We begin by summarizing this research within the framework of interdependence theory—the predominant theory of how people evaluate and make decisions about their close relationships. In doing so, we review evidence that implicitly assessed automatic partner attitudes reflect pleasant and unpleasant experiences involving the partner and predict subsequent relationship outcomes, sometimes better than more deliberative judgments. Next, we describe several dual-process perspectives that suggest how and when these attitudes shape such outcomes, and we conclude by highlighting the potential benefits of examining automatic partner attitudes for theories of relationship science and beyond