LOVE & RELATIONSHIPS

Think You Love Your Valentine?/ continued from page 19 unambiguously good or bad in meaning, such as sunshine or garbage. Participants’ task is seemingly simple: ignore the first word and classify the second “target” word as good or bad.

Even though people are told to ignore flower, they can’t. Thinking of flowers brings to mind not just specific objective features – flowers have petals, a stem –but also feelings and attitudes about them – flowers are beautiful, good.

As a result, after seeing a positive word like flower, most people are faster at classifying targets, such as sunshine, as “good,” and slower at classifying targets, such as garbage, as “bad.” In fact, research shows that the first word, flower, triggers a motor response towards the “good” response. So, if the target word is also “good,” like sunshine, seeing flower facilitates the correct classification. But, when the target word is “bad,” like garbage, there is what psychologists call response competition; since flower triggers a motor response towards “good,” people need to override it to correctly classify a “bad” target.

Of course it works in the other direction too. If, instead of flower, the first word has negative connotations, such as cockroach, people are faster at classifying garbage as “bad” and slower at classifying sunshine as “good.”

Mixed emotions

We used this type of indirect method to assess the feelings that spontaneously come to mind when people think about their partners. So, instead of flower, imagine that the first word flashed was your nickname for your sweetheart.

Not surprisingly, people tend to be faster at classifying positive target words after seeing their partner’s name. But something very interesting happened when the second word was negative –people were also faster at classifying negative targets after seeing the name of their partner.

This boost in response speed to the negative targets was almost as big as when thinking about a cockroach! It’s as though thinking of one’s partner sponta- neously brought to mind a negative evaluation.

So while the mere thought of a romantic partner whom you love is enough to spark a nonconscious positive evaluation, we also found that it may simultaneously elicit a nonconscious negative evaluation. Perhaps when thinking about romantic partners, people can’t help but think about both the good and bad.

Research like our study is just beginning to reveal the complexity of these nonconscious feelings toward partners. Why might someone simultaneously hold such conflicting emotions?

Our findings fit with both theory and intuition. Even in the most satisfying and secure relationships, partners experience disagreements, frustrations and misun- derstandings. And even the most supportive and responsive partners aren’t always available. Experiencing a negative emotion or interaction is not necessarily an issue. In fact, it seems to be a normal part of relationships.

Psychologists have long considered ambivalence to be pathological, characterized by anxiety and internal conflict, experienced only by a troubled few. Such consciously experienced ambivalence may well be problematic. But the sort of nonconscious ambivalence revealed by our research does not seem pathological. Rather, it appears typical and may occur even when you very much love your partner.

Research has found that positive nonconscious partner evaluations can predict relationship quality and stability. Now we need to figure out how negative nonconscious partner evaluations work.

So if you are feeling at some level a tinge of ambivalence towards your partner, know that you are far from alone. Perhaps on this Valentine’s Day, consider honoring your relationship by fully embracing the complexity of your feelings.l