Commitment in close romantic relationships: Correlates and processes associated with commitment phenomena

Abstract

This study measured affective tone, conflict responses and outcomes, trust, cognitive interdependence, satisfaction, and personal and constraint commitment in dating, engaged, and married couples, as well as in a group of individuals who had recently broken up from a dating relationship. At the research laboratory, participants completed a brief graphing procedure of how their commitment to their relationship developed and changed over time, a self-report measure of conflict responses and outcomes, satisfaction, trust, and personal and constraint commitment, as well as participating in an Oral History Interview. Consistent with expectations, the three groups of intact couples differed significantly from the group of broken up individuals on all but one of the variables of interest. Comparison of the three groups of intact couples revealed that they were quite similar, however, there were differences in both personal and constraint commitment, with increases associated with more advanced relationship stages. As hypothesized, results of this study indicated that positive affective tone, positive conflict responses and outcomes, trust, cognitive interdependence, and satisfaction were positively associated with personal commitment, and that trust and interesting sex difference emerged from the findings, in that while trust was significantly predictive of both types of commitment for females, it was not predictive of either type of commitment for males. Additionally, post hoc analyses revealed that personal commitment mediated the relationship between satisfaction and constraint commitment.