Sliding vs Deciding: Scott Stanley's Blog: Some Links about Asymmetrical Commitment

Monday, January 28, 2019

Some Links about Asymmetrical Commitment

My colleagues and I have published a number of articles about asymmetrical commitment in relationships--especially in unmarried romantic relationships. I have argued in many places that asymmetrical commitment is likely an increasingly common phenomena of romantic relationship development. The reason is that there are fewer steps and stages--less clarity about signals of commitment--in current patterns of dating and mate selection.

I will not state all the particulars here, but, instead, want to provide some links to the body of work we have around this important concept.

1. A short video of me explaining asymmetrical commitment and its association with ambiguity between partners about the nature of the commitment in their relationship, using the illustration of a teeter-totter (or, if you rather, a see-saw). CLICK HERE.

2. A theoretical overview and review of key findings on the concept in a digestible blog article by me and Galena Rhoades. CLICK HERE.

3. A paper of ours showing that there are greater levels of asymmetrical commitment among couples who lived together before either marrying or having clear, mutual plans to marry--and that the asymmetry does not abate at all, years into marriage:

Rhoades, G. K., Stanley, S. M., Markman, H. J. (2006). Pre-engagement cohabitation and gender asymmetry in marital commitment. Journal of Family Psychology, 20, 553-560.

4. A paper of ours showing that asymmetrical commitment is associated with lower relationship quality, even controlling for levels of commitment between partners:

Rhoades, G. K., Stanley, S. M., & Markman, H. J. (2012). A longitudinal investigation of commitment dynamics in cohabiting relationships. Journal of Family Issues, 33(3), 369-390.

5. A paper of ours examining associations between asymmetrical commitment and a) various dimension of relationship quality (e.g., relationship adjustment, aggression), b) relationship characteristics (e.g., cohabitation, plans for marriage), and c) break-up among unmarried couples in serious relationships:

Stanley, S. M., Rhoades, G. K., Scott, S. B., Kelmer, G., Markman, H. J., & Fincham, F. D. (2017). Asymmetrically committed relationships. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 34, 1241–1259. Advance online version published in 2016.
[This paper has a pretty detailed literature review of the research by various scholars on asymmetrical commitment. Full word-doc, author version, available here.]

6. A paper of ours on the characteristics of individuals who are in asymmetrically committed relationships, including variables such as alternative quality and attachment dynamics:

Stanley, S. M., Rhoades, G. K., Kelmer, G., Scott, S. B., Markman, H. J., & Fincham, F. D. (2018). Unequally into “Us”: Characteristics of individuals in asymmetrically committed relationships. Family Process.

A blog entry summarizing the findings of this article above. CLICK HERE.

A video abstract about this same article. CLICK HERE.

Why Sliding vs. Deciding?

Sliding vs. Deciding is a theme that comes out of my study of commitment and my work with my major colleague in this area, Galena Rhoades, and the work of other scholars on how couples go through important relationship transitions. I believe “sliding vs. deciding” captures something important about how romantic relationships develop. The core idea is that people often slide through important transitions in relationships rather than deciding what they are doing and what it means, especially regarding commitment. An important paper by Wendy Manning and Pamela Smock (2005) was influential in our thinking about how couples transitioned into living together. They conducted a qualitative study of cohabiting couples and found that over one half of couples who are living together didn’t talk about it or make any decision, but simply slid into doing so. Another paper having a large influence on this thinking was written by Jo Lindsey (2000). She found that the cohabiting couples she interviewed could not articulate how they came to be living together. In fact, as she puts it, it seemed like they had no agency in how it happened. Lindsay concluded that the fundamental characteristic of cohabitation was ambiguity, a theme we often discuss. Manning and Smock, Lindsay, and other researchers have noted that, for most couples, moving in together was nothing like a clear decision about what the couple was doing. Thus, it very often is not anything like a how people form a clear commitment. In one of our quantitative studies of cohabitation, we have found that most cohabiters report a process more like sliding into cohabitation than talking about it and making a decision about it.

We believe this sliding vs. deciding dynamic which is quite obvious in how couples come to live together is common in many important relationship transitions, including pregnancy, having children, work, as well as in how couples drift into regular patterns of who does what. In contrast to sliding, commitments that we are most likely to follow through on are based in decisions. In fact, commitment is making a choice to give up other choices. A commitment is a decision. Do we always need to be making a decision about things? I hope not. But when something important in life is at stake, I believe that deciding will trump sliding in how things turn out.

One of the most important implications of the concept of sliding vs. deciding is when this theme is married to our work and thought on the depths of ambiguity in relationship formation these days and our ideas about inertia. What people are often now seeing is that they are sliding through relationship transitions that cause them to increase constraints and lose options before (or without) noticing that they have just entered a more constrained pathway. As a result, we believe that many people are too often giving up options before they have made a choice. That is far from making a choice to give up other choices. That's losing options because one is not noticing an important, or even potentially high cost slide, is not what solid commitment formation is about.

Three theory papers written by me and Galena Rhoades are accessible above at the links: "Sliding vs. Deciding: Inertia and the Premarital Cohabitation Effect", "Commitment: Functions, Formation, and the Securing of Romantic Attachment," and the link labeled "SvD Transition and Risk Model."

Sliding vs Deciding: Scott Stanley's Blog

Monday, January 28, 2019

Some Links about Asymmetrical Commitment

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