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Dependence on a Partner and Relationship Maintenance Effort: Experimentally Manipulated Dependence Promoted Ingratiation but Not Guilt

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Abstract

Dependence on a partner facilitates various types of relationship maintenance effort. In this paper, we report on two experiments in which the level of dependence was manipulated. Study 1 tested whether dependence promotes other enhancement (a form of ingratiation, whereby the likeability of the partner is positively distorted). Study 2 tested whether dependence amplifies a sense of guilt after inadvertently committing a mild form of transgression against the partner, and whether amplified guilt facilitates self-punishment. In both experiments, dependence was manipulated in a conceptually similar manner: Participants’ experimental rewards were partially determined by their partner’s decision. Dependence promoted other enhancement (Study 1) but did not amplify guilt, and failed to promote self-punishment (Study 2). Possible reasons for the contradictory findings of the two studies are discussed.

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Notes

  1. The imbalance in the sample sizes is due to the original design of the experiment: originally, the intention was to investigate the targets’ resource allocation in the dictator game as well as the evaluators’ use of other enhancement in the first task. The no dependence condition consisted of two separate conditions associated with the dictator game. However, the dictator game yielded little difference across conditions for the ceiling effect. As the two conditions were completely identical in terms of how the evaluation task was conducted, we collapsed the two conditions into the no dependence condition in this report. No variables reported in the Result section differed significantly between the collapsed two conditions.

  2. The difference in the evaluators’ ratings may simply reflect some difference in the contents of the targets’ self-introduction essays. To preclude this interpretation, we had 17 new participants rate the essays with the same five items (i.e., the three other enhancement items and the two filler items). Each participant in this follow-up study rated about half of the essays. Since eight or nine participants rated each target’s essay, these new ratings were aggregated for each target. The ratings did not significantly differ as a function of the condition in the original study: 5.82 (SD = .90) and 5.94 (SD = .90) in the dependence and no dependence conditions, respectively, t(58) = 0.48, ns. Therefore, the difference in the evaluations in the original study is not attributable to possible differences in essay contents.

  3. Similar self-punishment experiments were previously conducted in Japan (e.g., Ohtsubo et al. 2014; Tanaka et al. 2015; Watanabe and Ohtsubo 2012). The materials and procedures used in Study 2 were adapted from these studies, and were readily applicable to the sample in Study 2 (i.e., Japanese undergraduate students).

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Asami Kogire, Megumi Suzuki, and Haru Taniguchi for their assistance in conducting the research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Letters, Department of Psychology, Kobe University, Kobe, 657-8501, Japan

    Yohsuke Ohtsubo, Ayano Yagi, Koji Kandori & Asami Matsumura

Authors
  1. Yohsuke Ohtsubo
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  2. Ayano Yagi
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  3. Koji Kandori
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  4. Asami Matsumura
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Correspondence to Yohsuke Ohtsubo.

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Funding

This study was funded by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (KAKENHI No. 21683006 & No. 26590132).

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed Consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Conflict of Interest

Yohsuke Ohtsubo declares that he has no conflict of interest. Ayano Yagi declares that she has no conflict of interest. Koji Kandori declares that he has no conflict of interest. Asami Matsumura declares that she has no conflict of interest.

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Ohtsubo, Y., Yagi, A., Kandori, K. et al. Dependence on a Partner and Relationship Maintenance Effort: Experimentally Manipulated Dependence Promoted Ingratiation but Not Guilt. Curr Psychol 38, 676–683 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-017-9642-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-017-9642-4

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