Downstream Consequences of Perceived Partner Responsiveness in Social Life
Abstract
Extensive research has documented people’s desire for social partners who are responsive to their needs and preferences, and that when they perceive that others have been responsive, they and their relationships typically thrive. For these reasons, perceived partner responsiveness is well-positioned as a core organizing theme for the study of sociability in general, and close relationships in particular. Research has less often addressed the downstream consequences of perceived partner responsiveness for cognitive and affective processes. This gap in research is important because relationships provide a central focus and theme for many, if not most, of the behaviors studied by social psychologists. This chapter begins with an overview of the construct of perceived partner responsiveness and its centrality to relationships. We then review programs of research demonstrating how perceived partner responsiveness influences three core social-psychological processes: self-enhancing social cognitions, attitude structure, and emotion regulation. The chapter concludes with a brief overview of how deeper incorporation of relationship processes can enhance the informativeness and completeness of social psychological theories.
What It Means to Be Heard: Listening and Power in Israeli Communication Contexts.
Rave R , Itzchakov G , Weinstein N , Moin T
Listening
What does it mean to listen, and what enables people to do it well? This study examines the cultural foundations, conditions, expressions, and outcomes of listening through a qualitative analysis of 20 semi-structured interviews with Israeli participants. Using reflexive thematic analysis, we identified five interrelated themes showing how listening is shaped by relational closeness, emotional safety, internal motivation, behavioral expression, and emotional impact. Participants described listening as an intentional and emotionally effortful process, grounded in trust, cultural norms, and personal willingness to remain present. It was experienced not only through visible behaviors but through authentic emotional presence and attunement. Crucially, listening was described as the most vulnerable and most revealing in contexts of conflict, emotional strain, or power asymmetries, where relational and ethical demands intensify. These findings highlight listening as a culturally situated, interpretive practice shaped by collective norms, emotional intensity, and social hierarchy. This study contributes to context-sensitive models of listening with implications for interpersonal relationships, organizational leadership, and intercultural communication, particularly in high-conflict or culturally diverse environments where listening serves as a key relational and managerial resource.
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Feeling torn and fearing rue: Attitude ambivalence and anticipated regret as antecedents of biased information seeking
Guy Itzchakova, Frenk Van Harreveld
Attitudes
Theoretical work on attitudinal ambivalence suggests that anticipated regret may play a role in causing
awareness of contradictions that subsequently induce a feeling of an evaluative conflict. In the present paper we empirically examined how the anticipation of regret relates to the association between the simultaneous pre-
sence of contradictory cognitions and emotions (objective ambivalence), and the evaluative conflict associated with it (subjective ambivalence), in the context of decision-making. Across three studies (Ns = 204,127,244), manipulating both objective ambivalence and regret, we consistently found that when a dichotomous ambiva-
lent choice had to be made, (objectively) ambivalent attitude holders for whom feelings of anticipated regret were made salient reported higher levels of subjective-attitude ambivalence than participants in the other
conditions. Moreover, in Studies 2 and 3 we found that the effect of anticipated regret on subjective ambivalence
had consequences on information processing. Specifically, anticipating regret made ambivalent participants
search for attitude-congruent information. This effect was mediated by the increase in subjective ambivalence. This work provides the first empirical evidence for the role of regret in the association between objective-and-
subjective attitude ambivalence, and its consequences.
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