FIGURE 5.1 The Belongingness Balance
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Three years into Skyler and Walt’s marriage, they had their first child, a son, Alex. Before Alex was born, Skyler had always had such faith in Walter. She believed that there was nothing he wouldn’t do for her. After Alex was born, Skyler realized that there was actually a long list of things that Walt would only do very grudgingly. Diapers, late-night feedings, and early-morning conversation were at the top. Stressed, sleep-deprived, and physically unstable, balancing a baby on her hip, Skyler first started to wonder whether she could really count on Walt. The husbands of her Facebook friends seemed so much more engaged in being fathers and Walt just seemed to be spending more and more time at work. Skyler did not like feeling shaky and uncertain about Walt, but she could not entirely convince herself that she was wrong to feel this way either.
Alex’s birth rocked Skyler and Walt’s marriage because it changed the structure of dependence. The situational landscape shifted right beneath their feet. Before Alex was born, Walt depended on Skyler to meet his needs just as much as she depended on him. They treated one another as confidants, put tons of time and energy into their careers, enjoyed going out with friends, and happily shared the domestic responsibilities they could not hire someone else to perform. Once Skyler became a stay-at-home mom, this dependence structure shifted. She now had to depend on Walt more than he had to depend on her. Walt was her sole ticket to time for herself and the world of adult conversation, but it seemed so easy for him to beg off, saying he couldn’t get up with Alex or spend a few extra minutes chatting in the morning because he had to work.
With her world fundamentally shaken, safety and value became painfully competing goal pursuits for Skyler. Struggling to feel as safe as she used to feel trusting Walt, she was starting to lose sight of what she used to value most about him. Even though Skyler did not like feeling so conflicted, she couldn’t help but wonder whether the qualities she most loved in Walt, like his passion for his career, were more vice than virtue. She also couldn’t stop herself questioning whether she was ever right in excusing Walt’s jealousy as a quirk of his affection rather than a symptom of immaturity. As Alex got older and Walt worked still more, her doubts only compounded.
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This chapter explores how changes in the situational landscape can precipitate shifts in the motivational tension between safety and value goal pursuits. In the first part of this chapter, we set the stage for motivational competition by revealing that safety and value are necessarily interconnected goal pursuits. Because safety and value function as part of a goal system, they cannot be pursued autonomously. The pursuit of safety informs the pursuit of value and the pursuit of value reciprocally informs the pursuit of safety (Murray, Holmes, & Collins, 2006). We draw on evolutionary and interdependence theories to position safety and value as goals in a natural state of opposition. Much as a balance only sets at rest with equal weight on both sides, safety and value goal pursuits must flexibly shift in relative priority to best satisfy the belongingness imperative.
The pursuit of safety and value so naturally operate in reciprocal tandem that managing a threat to one goal pursuit immediately constrains the opposing goal pursuit. For instance, pursuing the goal to be safe from physical harm can actually push people to sacrifice the goal to see value in nurturing behavior. To pose an embodied threat to safety, Forest and colleagues asked experimental participants to sit at a shaky table, stand on one foot, or sit on an uneven cushion (Forest, Killie, Wood, and Stehouwer, 2015). Control participants sat or stood on even surfaces. Then they measured perceptions of safety (through perceptions of physical instability and predictions for the relationship’s longevity) and value in nurturing behavior (through behavioral displays of affection). Participants in unstable bodily positions not only felt physically shaky; they also expected their relationships to end sooner than participants in physically stable positions. Feeling psychologically unsafe in the relationship, physically unstable participants then put valuing their partner on the psychological backburner. They withdrew physical affection, preemptively blunting the pain of a potential break-up by acting as though their partner was not worth nurturing.
In the second part of the chapter, we turn to research on the risk regulation model to highlight the motivational sway safety often holds over value. This model asserts that people need to feel safe and invulnerable to hurt before they can truly believe they are in the “right” relationship with the “right” person (Murray et al., 2006). Functionally, this goal constraint means that Skyler needs to be safe before she can bestow kindnesses on Walt with any real degree of conviction in the “rightness” of her actions. Experientially, this goal constraint means that progress in the pursuit of safety limits progress in the pursuit of value. In other words, trust constrains conviction. This chapter will reveal that Skyler is not unique in her existential dilemma. When safety is a struggle, value is often too ambitious a goal to pursue. We draw on literatures examining attachments to God, parents, siblings, friends, and romantic partners to show how markers of trust and safety automatically constrain both the means available to pursue value goals and the desired end-state of experiencing an unconflicted basis for relationship-promotive action.
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In the third section of the chapter, we apply the risk regulation model to explain why relationships so often frustrate the belongingness needs of people most in need of romantic connection. We focus on the role that low self-esteem plays in amplifying risk regulation dynamics because it has been central to our research program (Murray, Holmes, & Griffin, 2000). In Skyler’s case, low self-esteem left her relatively ill equipped to bounce back from Walt’s disappointing performance as a father because some part of her expected him to disappoint her eventually. We conclude the chapter with a discussion of self-fulfilling prophecies and the effects that one partner’s goal pursuits and priorities have on the other partner’s goal pursuits. By making our discussion of goal systems more dyadic and interconnected, we set the stage for the next chapter’s discussion of how the pursuit of value can sometimes come to take precedence over the pursuit of safety.
The Motivational Tension: Naturally Opposing States
The proverbs “you can’t have it both ways” and “you can’t have your cake and eat it too” capture a natural challenge to goal pursuit. It is difficult to simultaneously and successfully pursue two opposing goals (Orehek & Vazeou-Nieuwenhuis, 2013). The road not taken is lost, and the cake, once eaten, is gone. Having the cake, while still eating it, requires a delicate balancing act, one where the competing goals to possess and consume the cake (or any other desired end) keep each other in check.
Finding a sense of belonging is tantamount to having one’s cake and eating it too. From an evolutionary perspective, the goals for safety and value exist in a natural state of opposition across relationship interactions. Nurturing and valuing the peer, familial, romantic, and group relationships we need to survive and reproduce directly increase our exposure to the multiplicity of pathogens and diseases that we must avoid to survive long enough to reproduce (Mortensen, Becker, Ackerman, Neuberg, & Kenrick, 2010; Sacco, Young, & Hugenberg, 2014). Because nurturing and valuing interpersonal connection impede steering clear of germs and disease in social life, simultaneously pursuing both goals would invite behavioral conflict. People would be left stuck in an approach-avoidance conflict, telling others to both “come here” and “go away.” For people to have their belongingness cake and eat it too, evolutionary theorists reason that safety and value goals have to be pursued alternately (Mortensen et al., 2010; Sacco et al., 2014). The pursuit of one goal necessarily comes at some cost to the pursuit of the competing goal.
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The Belongingness Goal Balance
Mortensen and colleagues (2010) and Sacco and colleagues (2014) shed light on the nature of the goal co-regulation involved in the pursuit of belongingness. The mechanics of a physical balance probably best illustrate our take on the logic of their experimental predictions. Figure 5.1 depicts a balance at rest. The weights on each end of the balance capture the goals to be safe from physical harm (on the left) and perceive value in caring, communal, and responsive interaction (on the right). In social life, safety and value are equally strong, but opposing goal pursuits. The “even” or level balance depicted in Figure 5.1 captures a state of goal conflict. In this standoff, no movement toward either goal is possible until something happens to tip the balance. Imagine safety and value goals as children playing on a seesaw. Seesaws only work if one child descends, allowing the other to ascend; if both children kept their feet firmly planted to the ground, neither would go anywhere. The same is true for progress in safety and value goal pursuits. Actionable goal progress cannot be made until something in the situation tips the balance in favor of pursuing one of these two competing goals.
In the belongingness balance, situations that make disease salient tip the balance in favor of restoring safety, whereas situations that put the value of pursuing interpersonal connection into question tip the balance in favor of restoring value. Tipping the balance in favor of one goal is not enough to leverage goal pursuit in its favor though. The balance also needs to be tipped against the other goal pursuit. Safety and value goals operate like ends of a seesaw. As one goes “up” in priority, the other must go “down” in priority for measurable progress to be made in the pursuit of the prioritized goal.
Tipping the Balance Toward Safety
FIGURE 5.1 The Belongingness Balance
In interpersonal life, encountering threats to physical health, such as a coughing, sneezing, and infectious colleague, threaten the potential for physical harm. Thus, threats to physical health tip the belongingness balance in favor of restoring safety over pursuing value. Namely, situations that make contagious disease salient prioritize safety goal pursuits, pushing their activation upward and necessitating a proportionate decrease or offset in the urgency of value goal pursuits.
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Making the risk of disease salient motivates people to question the value and meaning of nurturing interpersonal connections. Mortensen and colleagues (2010) and Sacco and colleagues (2014) tipped the balance toward safety goal pursuits by showing experimental participants slideshows highlighting germs and contagious diseases. Control participants either viewed negative or innocuous slides. Then they measured the value people attached to nurturing interpersonal connection through self-reports of extraversion, the need to belong, and automatic approach and avoidance arm motions in response to human faces. Participants threatened with disease sacrificed value for progress in the pursuit of safety. Disease-threatened participants reported weaker needs to belong (Sacco et al., 2014) and less extraverted personalities (Mortensen et al., 2010, Experiment 1) than control participants. The prospect of interpersonal connection even seemed to physically repulse disease-threatened participants. They were quicker to withdraw from pictures of human faces than control participants (Mortensen et al., 2010, Experiment 2). Disease-threatened participants essentially traded value for the physical safety interpersonal distance afforded them. Thus, situations that tip the balance in favor of safety goal pursuits elicit a proportionate offset in the pursuit of value goals.
Tipping the Balance Toward Value
Threats to the value of seeking interpersonal connection should conversely tip the belongingness balance in favor of value over safety goal pursuits. Namely, situations that make enacting caring, communal, and responsive interaction seem questionable thwart value goal pursuits, heightening their activation and necessitating a proportionate offset or decrease in the activation of safety goal pursuits.
Threatening the meaning and integrity of existing social connections does indeed result in people eschewing concerns about physical safety. Sacco and colleagues (2014) tipped the balance toward value goal pursuits by making efforts to nurture interpersonal connections seem questionable. Experimental participants described a time when they had been unjustifiably rejected by others (Experiment 1) or suffered an inexplicable rejection at the hands of virtual Cyberball players (Experiment 2). Control participants experienced relative acceptance. They then measured worries about contracting physical illnesses (Experiment 1) and affinity for “healthy” symmetrical over “unhealthy” asymmetrical faces (Experiment 2) as markers of the priority participants put on preserving physical safety. Experimental participants sacrificed physical safety for the chance to restore value and meaning to nurturing interpersonal connections. They not only reported less concern about catching contagious diseases from others, such as a cold or flu, but they were just as drawn to “unhealthy” asymmetric faces as they were to the “healthy” symmetric ones. Rejected participants automatically traded off the goal to be physically safe from harm for the chance to restore more meaningful connections.
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The Risk Regulation Balance
The ideas behind the belongingness balance resonate with the logic of our risk regulation model in many ways (Murray et al., 2006). Just as safety and value goals are in a state of natural opposition across social relationships, we think of safety and value goals being in a state of natural opposition in the context of a singular relationship. Skyler is torn about her marriage right now because she hasn’t been able to have her cake and eat it too. She wants to feel like she used to feel about Walt, but valuing Walt in the same way she once did only makes it hurt more when he rejects or disappoints her. But, rather than limiting safety to a physical state, the risk regulation model broadens the definition of safety to include a psychological state. The two are naturally bound together in romantic relationships. In fact, people fend off worries about their own mortality (the ultimate physical safety peril) by exaggerating the security of their partner’s acceptance and affection (Cox & Arndt, 2012). When it comes to the pursuit of safety in romantic relationships, not being hurt encompasses more than not being infected by disease. The psychological transcends the physical. This broader conceptualization of safety makes all the difference in its co-regulation with value goals.
Imagine Walt has the flu. If Skyler exposes herself to his germs to comfort him when he’s sick, trading her physical safety for value comes with little future cost to psychological safety. Risking the flu does not make Skyler more unilaterally dependent on Walt and more vulnerable to being hurt. However, trading psychological safety for value does make a partner’s non-responsiveness more likely and more painful because this goal trade-off increases dependence and vulnerability. If Skyler forgives Walt for missing his son’s soccer game, it sets her up for being hurt again (McNulty, 2010a).
The logic of our risk regulation model builds on this distinction. Although value and safety are evenly traded in the belongingness balance, they are not evenly traded in the risk regulation balance. Pursuing value in connection over staying safe from disease cannot make the flu one might contract any more serious and grievous a threat to physical safety. There is actually considerable evidence to suggest the opposite is the case; social bonds increase resilience against infection (Baumeister & Leary, 1995)! However, when Walt disappoints or rejects Skyler, defending her conviction that he is the “right” person can compound threats to her psychological safety by making Skyler more dependent on Walt. When it comes to goal regulation in a specific relationship, prioritizing value over safety is going “all in” in gambling parlance. Valuing Walt above others makes Skyler more vulnerable to him, giving him greater power to hurt her and pose more frequent and grievous threat to her psychological safety. Because prioritizing value over safety “doubles down” on dependence, it sets Skyler further back in her future pursuit of safety.
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FIGURE 5.2 The Risk Regulation Balance
For this reason, the risk regulation balance depicted in Figure 5.2 diverges from the belongingness balance in two ways. The first divergence is visible: The equilibrium point of the balance is offset to the left and shifted toward safety. Metaphorically, this means that safety goal pursuits generally have greater leverage or “teetering” power than value goal pursuits. Situations that threaten safety goal pursuits have greater power to deactivate value goal pursuits than situations that threaten value goal pursuits have to deactivate safety goal pursuits. Functionally this means that safety goal pursuits usually come first. In the risk regulation balance, people only let themselves risk valuing and nurturing a specific partner when they first feel safe in the knowledge that their partner will also nurture and value them (Murray, Holmes, MacDonald, & Ellsworth, 1998; Murray, Holmes, & Griffin, 2000; Murray, Holmes, Griffin, Bellavia, & Rose, 2001; Murray, Rose, Bellavia, Holmes, & Kusche, 2002; Murray et al., 2006). For instance, people only include their partner in their self-concept when they believe their partner’s self-concept already includes them (Tomlinson & Aron, 2013). Safety can even determine whether a relationship comes into existence at all. Even the subtlest cues that a partner might be safe to approach, such as the use of similar pronoun usage in conversation, can move people from acquaintances to relationship partners (Ireland et al., 2011).
Why would psychological safety be such a monopolizing goal? Research into goal systems provides some insights. Individual means of goal fulfillment become more important to a goal (and more behaviorally monopolizing) when there are fewer other means available to achieve the same goal (Kruglanski et al., 2002). The goal to feel safe from harm probably has fewer means associated with its fulfillment than the goal to perceive value and meaning in action. Essentially, safety is a less flexibly satisfied goal. For instance, Knowles and colleagues tested whether people could “make up” for the safety threat posed by being hurt by others by affirming their intelligence and efficacy (Knowles, Lucas, Molden, Gardner, & Dean, 2010). Affirming value in personal action was no substitute for safety. The only way people could make themselves feel better in the face of such interpersonal hurts was to directly affirm others would care for them. In relationships, the power of dissonance gives people many means to satisfy value goals. They can ignore a partner’s faults, embellish virtues, whitewash the past, change ideals, minimize sacrifices, derogate alternatives, and the list goes on (Brickman, 1987). However, minimizing dependence is the only surefire means to satisfy the goal to be safe from being hurt or let down by a partner, giving this means–goal association greater activation potential and priority.
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The second divergence is not visible in Figure 5.2. It has to do with the actual movement of the risk regulation balance. The belongingness balance focuses on how thwarted goals tip the balance in favor of their own pursuit. Priming disease prioritizes safety goal pursuits and motivates people to eschew social connection to keep germ-free (Mortensen et al., 2010; Sacco et al., 2014). Conversely, priming fruitless attempts to pursue connection prioritizes value goal pursuits and motivates people to eschew physical safety to keep themselves caringly connected to others (Sacco et al., 2014).
However, satiating a goal can have just as strong an effect on goal regulation as thwarting a goal. In a goal system, satiated goals become deactivated, which can have powerful downstream effects on the pursuit of competing, non-focal goals. Namely, satiating a goal allows competing goals to come online and take motivational center stage (McCulloch, Aarts, Fujita, & Bargh, 2008; Shah, Friedman, & Kruglanski, 2002). In the risk regulation balance, situations can quench as well as thwart safety goals. Once safety is satiated, it can then tip the motivational balance back in favor of pursuing unquenched value goal pursuits. Being safe essentially releases people to put value into relationship-promotive action, both literally and figuratively (Murray et al., 2006).
The Imprint of Risk Regulation in Approach and Avoidance
Keeping these two unique features of the risk regulation balance in mind, let’s now turn to the literature to see whether such goal co-regulation occurs. We first illustrate the generality of risk regulation by showing its imprint on general behavioral systems for approach and avoidance. Once we demonstrate that safety’s imperial control over value has such a large footprint, we then turn to the specifics and examine how safety’s regulation of value affects the daily lives of couples like Skyler and Walt.
Tipping the Balance Toward Safety
If safety regulates value through general systems for regulating approach and avoidance behavior, threatening psychological safety should tip the goal balance in favor of avoidance and against approach. Specifically, situations that threaten safety – situations that make dependence, vulnerability, and the potential to be hurt by a partner salient – should increase the activation of avoidance goals and necessitate a proportionate decrease or offset in approach goal strength.
When the possibility of being hurt by a significant other is salient, people prioritize avoidance over approach. Thwarting safety goals activates avoidance and suppresses approach motivations, making the safety-conscious less engaged in vigorously pursuing anything of value at all. In two experiments, Cavallo, Fitzsimons, and Holmes (2010) activated the goal to be safe by leading experimental participants to believe their partner would eventually discover their dark secrets and then become disaffected. Control participants were given no such worry. Then they measured general motivations to approach vs. avoid the social world. They assessed reaction times to approach (e.g., “progress,” “eager”) and avoidance (e.g., “safety,” “prevent”) words (Experiment 1) and performance on a gain- versus a loss-framed anagram task (Experiment 2). When the possibility of being hurt was made salient, participants were faster to identify avoidance than approach words in a lexical decision task; they also solved more anagrams when they were instructed not to fail than when they were instructed to succeed.
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Putting safety at issue also suppresses approach motivations when the threat to safety is largely symbolic. Subliminally priming a picture of maternal rejection changes the content of sexual fantasies. People primed with such reason to feel unsafe and insecure fantasize about having more distant, detached, and less affectionate sex than people primed with pictures of maternal caring (Birnbaum, Simpson, Weisberg, Barnea, & Assulin-Simhon, 2012). Reading biblical passages that highlight the possibility of being rejected and ostracized by God also decreases people’s willingness to seek others out to provide care (van Beest & Williams, 2011). People also reactively devalue those who betray them in trust games, seeing less evidence of their own facial features in defectors than cooperators (Farmer, McKay, & Tsakiris, 2014). Women who have been rejected by an attractive potential suitor even derogate the unattractive suitors they have every chance of attracting and catching (MacDonald, Baratta, & Tzalazidis, 2015).
Tipping the Balance Toward Value
If safety regulates value through systems for regulating approach and avoidance behavior, satiating the goal to be psychologically safe should also tip the goal balance in favor of approach over avoidance. Specifically, situations that make the general possibility of being accepted and included by others salient should quench avoidance goal pursuits, deactivating them (at least for the time being), allowing the competing goal to approach to take motivational center stage.
When ongoing situations make interpersonal acceptance certain, people embrace the pursuit of value in behavior. Switching off safety goal pursuits effectively unleashes approach motivations that underlie the capacity to act with force, drive, and conviction. For the religiously inclined, thinking of a loving and accepting God increases (non-moral) risk taking (Chan, Tong, & Tan, 2014; Kupor, Laurin, & Levav, 2015). People primed with God report greater interest in high-adrenaline behaviors like alpine skiing, rock climbing, and skydiving than controls (Kupor et al., 2015). People primed with God are also more likely to keep pumping air into balloons that are about to burst in the hope of gaining financial reward (Chan et al., 2014). God-primed people approach risks that others avoid precisely because thinking of God turns safety into a non-focal goal; they feel safe, so they can act with abandon and decisiveness (Kupor et al., 2015). Being included by actual people can also switch off safety goal pursuits and unleash value goal pursuits. For instance, being included by others in a lab setting piques interest in finding attractive people to date and mate (Brown, Young, Sacco, Bernstein, & Claypool, 2009).
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Risk Regulation Live! Its Dynamics in Daily Relationship Life
The evidence that safety regulates value through general systems for regulating approach and avoidance behavior gives safety wide powers to regulate value within romantic relationships. In specific situations, progress in the pursuit of safety goals should control willingness to nurture the partner and relationship. Frustrating safety should disable value goal pursuits, making it difficult to be nurturing, whereas quenching safety should enable value goal pursuits, making it easy to be nurturing. We highlighted an embodied version of this dynamic at the beginning of this chapter. People in physically shaky positions withdrew affection from their partners. In so doing, they sacrificed value for safety by reducing dependence on partners and relationships that might rock their worlds even more precipitously (Forest et al., 2015).
In the risk regulation model, the acute experience of trust “tips” the motivational balance between safety and value goal pursuits. Figure 5.3 captures the role such situational trust plays as goal-regulating agent (Murray et al., 2006). Having reason (whether bodily, behaviorally, or introspectively) to question a partner’s caring and commitment “tips” the balance toward safety and away from value. Conversely, having reason (whether bodily, introspectively, or behaviorally) to expect a partner’s caring and commitment “tips” the balance toward value and away from safety.
FIGURE 5.3 Trust as a Leveling Agent
When researchers study risk regulation dynamics in context, they often focus on the “risky” situations we examined in Chapter 3 because these situations strain or test trust. “Risky” situations are ones where Skyler is more dependent on Walt than he is on her because she needs something, such as attention, support, sacrifice, or forgiveness, that Walt might not be willing to provide. Expecting a partner not to be available or caring in such situations tips the goal balance toward safety and away from value goal pursuits. In such situations, Skyler needs to take some action to reduce her vulnerability to Walt.
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Skyler is safest from being hurt by Walt when she needs him no more than he needs her (see Chapter 3). This basic requirement for safety makes dependence the currency of goal prioritization in the risk regulation model. Skyler can put safety first by altering the currency of her own dependence. In the risk regulation model, people can directly satisfy safety goals by relying on their partner’s care and nurturing less (Murray et al., 2006). Skyler can physically distance herself from Walt by not soliciting his support or sacrifices because he cannot as readily hurt her if she asks little of him. She can also directly push Walt away by withdrawing her affection, criticizing him, or precipitating fights because he cannot as readily disappoint her if he cannot get close to her. But this is not the only means of safety pursuit open to Skyler. In the risk regulation model, people can also satisfy safety goals indirectly by suppressing the pursuit of value. Skyler can reduce her dependence symbolically by psychologically distancing herself from Walt. By giving meaning and purpose to her actions, valuing Walt makes Skyler more invested in her relationship and more dependent on Walt. Questioning Walt’s value and the meaning of nurturing and caring for him provides Skyler with a game-stopper route to safety. Walt cannot hurt her nearly as readily if Skyler has already started to question her convictions and entertain the thought that Walt is no longer right for her.
Just as it takes two to tango, it takes satisfying both safety and value goals to satisfy belongingness needs in relationships. For interactions to be consistently responsive, Skyler needs to be safe enough to put her outcomes in Walt’s hands and value Walt enough to be responsive to him (see Chapters 1 and 2). For the co-regulation of safety and value goals to satisfy the need to belong, moving closer to safety should deactivate its pursuit, allowing the opposing pursuit of value to be situationally activated. Being safe with Walt gives Skyler permission to value him when the unexpected trials and frustrations of relationship life make him costly to her. It in no way guarantees that Skyler will value Walt when unexpectedly costly situations threaten conviction. It simply helps ensure there are no obvious impediments to Skyler finding meaning and value in caring and nurturing Walt when these actions seem questionable to her.
In sum, questioning a partner’s availability and commitment tips the goal balance toward the pursuit of safety and against value. When safety is threatened in specific situations, the regulation of dependence should follow suit. Prioritizing safety over value could take the form of support not solicited, affection not provided, value not perceived, or closeness not sought. When safety is threatened across multiple situations in the relationship, its chronic activation should chronically suppress value goals, eroding the relationship’s capacity to satisfy belongingness needs. Indeed, when people perceive their partner as less available, caring, and responsive in daily interaction, they report less satisfaction concurrently and over time (Sadikaj, Moskowitz, & Zuroff, 2015).
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A Selective Sampling of Risk Regulation Dynamics
Our first empirical look at risk regulation dynamics was straightforward. We tested the hypothesis that trust in a partner’s availability and caring regulates positive illusions in samples of dating and married couples (Murray, Holmes, & Griffin, 2000). We started here because trust marks progress in the pursuit of safety and positive illusions about a partner’s “rightness” mark success in the pursuit of value (Chapter 4).
Because feeling valued by one’s partner provides an important basis for trusting in their responsiveness (Murray & Holmes, 2009, 2011), we measured trust by asking participants to describe how they believed their partner saw their interpersonal qualities, (e.g., “My partner sees me as . . . ‘kind and affectionate’; ‘open and disclosing’; ‘intelligent’; ‘critical and judgmental’; ‘lazy’; ‘demanding’”). We measured positive illusions by asking participants to describe themselves and their partner on these same qualities. Skipping over the data analytic detail, safety seemed to constrain value. People who felt safer because they believed their partner saw them more positively were more likely to possess positive illusions about their partner. Conversely, people who felt less safe because they believed their partner saw them more negatively hedged their bets; they could not quite let themselves believe that their partner really was quite “right” for them. Since we conducted this initial study, a growing corpus of research has provided much richer demonstrations of safety’s priority over value. We highlight some favorites among these studies next.
On the Edge of a Cliff
In the virtual world, partners can be made to be unavailable and rejecting or available and accepting with a few lines of computer code. Kane and colleagues took advantage of virtual-reality technology to create a situation where one partner needed support the other either did or did not provide (Kane, McCall, Collins, & Blascovich, 2012). While immersed in a virtual world, the participant took a walk along a high, high cliff overlooking a canyon. While the participant walked along this visibly perilous path, the participant’s partner, represented as an avatar, looked on. The researchers varied the behavior of this virtual partner to manipulate vulnerability and risk. In the “attentive and available” condition, the avatar partner clapped, waved, and oriented its body toward the stressed participant. In the “inattentive and unavailable condition,” the avatar ignored the stressed participant and looked off into the distance.
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The virtual partner’s attentiveness and availability tipped the balance between safety and value goals. Inattentive and unavailable partners frustrated the goal to be safe. Participants experienced the cliff walk as less safe, less secure, and more fraught with risk when their partner ignored than applauded and encouraged them. Struggling to restore safety, participants then vigilantly monitored the behavior of partners who ignored them for further signs of rejection. Participants in the “inattentive and unavailable” partner condition kept looking to see where their partner’s gaze was affixed, whereas participants in the “attentive and available” partner condition did not need to look. They simply trusted their partner’s gaze was on them. Having had the experience of their partner ignoring them once when they really needed them, participants in the “inattentive and unavailable” partner condition then kept greater physical distance from their partner on a subsequent task. They literally kept themselves out of harm’s way, sacrificing their partner’s value as a source of support (Kane et al., 2012).
On the Verge of Criticism
In the actual world, there is no end to the situations in which partners can be perceived to be unavailable and unresponsive. Walt’s observation that Skyler could stand to be a little less critical (or lose a little weight) can be all it takes to make her worry his support might not always be forthcoming. Perceiving his disapproval or disappointment could then tip Skyler’s goal pursuits toward safety and away from value. In fact, when people think their partner is trying to change them, they worry they are falling short of their partner’s ideals. This worry then motivates them to psychologically withdraw from their partner and they defensively reduce closeness over time (Overall & Fletcher, 2010; Overall, Fletcher, & Simpson, 2006). Falling short thus motivates people to trade the value they could see in their partner for the safety that comes from needing their partner’s approval less (Overall & Fletcher, 2010).
At the Margin of Ingratitude
Partners do not even have to do anything as obviously untoward as being critical or unsupportive to threaten safety. The simple act of doing nothing when they are expected to do something can generate distrust and tip the goal balance. In the initial months after her son was born, Skyler made excuses for Walt’s absences. She knew he had to work more given the loss of her salary. But these excuses started to wear thin once Skyler started wondering whether Walt really appreciated everything she did for him. In her case, Walt’s seeming ingratitude made him seem unavailable and tipped her goal balance toward safety. Skyler is not alone in this respect. Feeling unappreciated generally results in people distancing themselves from their ungrateful partner. In daily interactions, people who feel less appreciated by their partner reciprocate such ingratitude by finding less to value and appreciate in their partner over time (Gordon, Impett, Kogan, Oveis, & Keltner, 2012). Not feeling as special in a partner’s eyes essentially diminishes the partner in one’s own eyes. Divesting dependence in this way definitely makes Skyler safer, but it comes with a significant cost to her motivation to take care of Walt. Over time, people who feel less appreciated by their partner become less likely to nurture and care for their partner (Gordon et al., 2012). Feeling unappreciated results in people trading the value they once saw in their partner for the safety to be had in needing their partner’s gratitude less.
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On the Cusp of Deception
Research on the deleterious effects of concealment further illustrates how a partner’s inactions can threaten safety goal pursuits (Finkenauer, Kerkhof, Righetti, & Branje, 2009; Uysal, Lin, & Bush, 2012). In longitudinal studies, people who perceive a partner to be concealing secrets report increased feelings of exclusion (Finkenauer et al., 2009) and diminished feelings of trust over time (Finkenauer et al., 2009; Uysal et al., 2012). By undercutting trust, the perception that a romantic partner is hiding something then tips the goal balance toward safety and away from value. Consequently, people who fear they are not privy to their partner’s secrets divest themselves of the partner and relationship over time. They start to keep more secrets themselves (Uysal et al., 2012), engage in more conflict (Finkenauer et al., 2009), and see less reason to be happy in the relationship (Finkenauer et al., 2009).
In the Fear of Stigma
Even if Walt had been a more involved father, Skyler’s shift in identity from professional career woman to stay-at-home mom might still have made it difficult for her to trust in Walt’s availability and care. People with stigmatized social identities experience a less safe, less equitable world (Crocker & Major, 1988). For people who already question their relationship’s safety and stability, like Skyler, social identity threats may turn into relationship threats. Doyle and Molix (2014) made this point by priming the social stigma attached to being female (Experiment 1) or African-American (Experiment 2). When people already had reason to question their partner’s availability (because they were in shorter-term relationships), making a stigmatized social identity salient tipped the goal balance toward safety and away from value. Stigmatized people in shorter-term relationships divested dependence when their worlds were made to feel more unsettled. They reported being involved in less intimate and satisfying relationships when their stigmatized social identity was primed than when it was not primed. Sadly, people kept themselves safe from partners who had done nothing at all wrong when the world was made to seem all the more unsafe and hostile toward them.
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An Accumulation of Insecurities
These various findings suggest that “risky” situations tip the goal balance toward safety and away from value. Whether the threat to safety comes from a failed support attempt, a critical word, an unspoken secret, a forgotten thank you, or a stigmatized social identity, activating safety goal pursuits deactivates value goal pursuits. The sheer diversity of these effects suggest that the safety over value trade-off likely insinuates itself into relationship life more broadly. Indeed, when concerns about a partner’s availability and caring transcend any one specific context or situation, the consequences for dependence should be particularly cataclysmic. The fates of less trusting newlyweds are emblematic of the eventual costs of persistently prioritizing safety over value.
When newlyweds have trouble trusting their partner, it sets them up for a lifetime of protecting against hurts. Derrick and colleagues examined how trust regulates the state of dependence across nine years of marriage (Derrick, Leonard, & Homish, 2012). Being generally uncertain of a partner’s availability and caring predicted subsequent declines in dependence – as captured by reduced intimacy, diminished self-disclosure, and decreased satisfaction. In fact, less trusting newlyweds were eventually more likely to divorce because they had so consistently divested dependence.
The imperial power safety holds over value is not unique to romantic relationships or Western cultures either. It is evident in relationships that blood ties presumably secure. People actually distance themselves from family members, like parents and siblings, on days when they are less certain of their acceptance (Overall & Sibley, 2009b). It is also evident across cultures. In Eastern cultures, people not only need to trust in their partner’s availability to risk dependence. They also have to trust that their family members will be there to support the relationship (MacDonald & Jessica, 2006).
One caveat before we proceed. The “resistance” situations we discussed in detail in Chapter 4 do not get a free pass from safety’s influence. “Resistance” situations are ones where Skyler is less dependent on Walt than he is on her because he needs something from her. For instance, Skyler encounters “resistance” situations in her marriage when Walt needs her to give him a reprieve from childcare duties so he can spend an evening with friends. Such sacrifice situations test or strain Skyler’s conviction in Walt and automatically tip the goal balance in favor of value to ensure that Skyler will be responsive to Walt. Although valuing Walt moves Skyler closer to its desired end of unconflicted action, it also moves her further away from safety. With every unexpected cost of interdependence that increases Walt’s value to her (through the basic processes of dissonance reduction we saw in Chapter 4), Skyler becomes all the more invested and dependent on Walt. For this reason, the pursuit of safety can sometimes subvert the pursuit of value in “resistance” situations as well (Murray, Derrick, Leder, & Holmes, 2008; Murray, Holmes et al., 2009). We will see reversals in goal priorities play out next as we turn to the role that self-esteem plays in regulating the tension between safety and value goal pursuits.
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Tipping the Balance: Self-Esteem and Safety
We have been acting as though situations are the only force that tips the goal balance to build the empirical case that risk regulation is a general or normative principle of relationship life. But anyone who has ever spent time on a seesaw knows that the partners on the seesaw control its potential for precipitous swings. In the risk regulation balance, each partner’s chronic goal priorities can similarly “weigh in” and tip the goal balance in the direction opposite to the situationally prioritized goal.
Let’s go back to the belongingness balance taking the perspective of someone who never fears getting sick. The threat of catching a cold or flu poses a less serious threat to physical safety for people who feel invulnerable to illness than it does for the hypochondriacs among us. For the fearless, activating the situational goal to be safe offers less opposition to value because safety is a less personally “weighty” goal. It’s akin to the physics of a lighter child trying to hold a heavier child up on a seesaw. The weightier goal will tip the balance back just like the heavier child. Chronic goal priorities similarly “weigh in” on safety’s regulation of value goal pursuits. For instance, people who feel invulnerable to disease put less weight on safety; they value others just as much when the threat of disease is salient as they do when it is absent (Mortensen et al., 2010).
In relationships, less trusting people who chronically question their partner’s availability and commitment are the relationship equivalents of hypochondriacs. Just as hypochondriacs feel especially vulnerable to illness, the less trusting feel especially vulnerable to being hurt by their partner. People who chronically trust in their partner’s availability and caring are akin to those intrepid, resilient souls who never worry about being sick. The more trusting rarely seriously question their partner’s availability and responsiveness. In any ongoing situation, such divergent expectations of partner availability make safety a “weightier” goal pursuit for less trusting people (Murray et al., 2006). The risk of being hurt pushes less trusting people much further away from the goal to be safe because they are already handicapped in its pursuit (Murray, Griffin, Rose, & Bellavia, 2003). By contrast, highly trusting people can afford to pursue safety less vigilantly because resilient expectations of acceptance better allow them to roll with the proverbial punches. If safety is a more pressing goal for the especially safety-conscious, less trusting people should put the restoration of safety at a greater premium than highly trusting people. They do. In the aftermath of being hurt, people who chronically feel less valued by their partner treat their partner with hostility, effectively pushing him or her away. However, people who chronically feel more valued by their partner better resist this inclination (Murray, Bellavia, Rose, & Griffin, 2003, see Chapter 3).
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The power not being safety-consciousness has to reverse goal priorities can be understood by taking our goal systems logic one step further. Safety and value goals are interconnected goals in memory (Murray et al., 2008). However, the strength of opposition between safety and value goals likely differs as a function of each person’s overall progress toward safety. The further Skyler is from the goal to be safe overall, the weightier her situational goal to be safe, and the greater power it has to inhibit value goal pursuits. Conversely, the closer Walter is to the goal to be safe overall, the less weighty his situational goal to be safe, and the less power it has to inhibit value goal pursuits.
Self-Esteem and Safety
This brings us finally to why low self-esteem people have particular trouble in relationships. Low self-esteem people are not only less likely to idealize their partner than high self-esteem people (Murray, Holmes, & Griffin, 1996a, 1996b), but they are also less likely to nurture and care for their partner with conviction (Murray et al., 2006). Preoccupied by safety goal pursuits, low self-esteem people seem to act as though they are waiting for the evidence that finally proves their partner really was not the “right” person after all. Why does this happen?
In the sociometer model, self-esteem functions to forecast one’s esteem in the eyes of others (Leary & Baumeister, 2000; Leary, Tambor, Terdal, & Downs, 1995). Because high self-esteem people can easily point to qualities they value in themselves, they expect others to be accepting and valuing of them. However, low self-esteem people assume that others will see them in the same relatively negative light as they see themselves (Swann, Hixon, & De La Ronde, 1992). Consequently, low self-esteem people underestimate how positively their partner regards them (Murray et al., 2001) and how much their partner loves them (Murray et al., 2001) even after their marriages have already lasted a decade.1
Struggling to explain their partner’s commitment to them, low self-esteem people are more likely than high self-esteem people to slip into the role of the relationship hypochondriac. For instance, trying to take another’s perspective and see things through their eyes is usually a relationship good. But it backfires for low self-esteem people. Taking their partner’s perspective on a day’s events preoccupies low self-esteem people with negative thoughts about what their partner sees in them (Vorauer & Quesnel, 2013). Similarly, when low self-esteem people overestimate how clearly they communicated their support needs, they misinterpret their partner’s perfectly understandable lack of support provision as rejection (Cameron & Robinson, 2010). However, high self-esteem people can more readily afford to be a bit slipshod in their pursuit of safety because they are so much further along in its pursuit (Cameron, Stinson, Gaetz, & Balchen, 2010). In our thinking, different rates of safety goal progress impose different constraints on the activation and inhibition of safety and value goals. It is these goal system constraints that make it so much more difficult for low than high self-esteem people to sustain the connection needed to secure their relationship’s future. In the next few pages, we first sketch out the hypothesized nature of these goal constraints for low and high self-esteem people. We then describe the empirical research that has provided some promising initial support for these hypothesized goal constraints.
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Safety reigns supreme in the goal system of a low self-esteem person like Skyler. In such a safety-conscious goal system, safety occupies the position of a superordinate goal that limits pursuit of the subordinate goal for value. Situations that activate safety goals strongly inhibit value goals (to remove any impediment to safety’s unconflicted and unabashed pursuit). In turn, situations that activate value goals can often also activate safety goals, creating acute motivational tension or conflict (Murray et al., 2008). Such tension serves to remind a less trusting, low self-esteem Skyler to guard against being overly dependent on Walt. Safety does not reign supreme in the goal system of a high self-esteem person like Walt. In such a value-conscious goal system, value instead competes for priority as the superordinate goal. Situations that activate value goals strongly deactivate safety goals (to remove any impediment to value’s unconflicted pursuit). In turn, situations that activate safety goals can also activate value goals, creating acute motivational tension or conflict. Such tension serves to remind a more trusting, value-conscious Walt to guard against cutting his losses too soon.
Because the source of acute motivational tension differs for low and high self-esteem people, the situations that motivate reversing goal priorities also differ. For low self-esteem people, it is the threat of valuing their partner too much in a “resistance” situation that supplies the reverse motivation to be safe and distanced. But, for high self-esteem people, it is the threat of trusting their partner too little in a “risky” situation that supplies the reverse motivation to nurture and care. In either case, goal reversal is not likely to happen without an available opportunity and executive resources for self-regulation (Olson & Fazio, 2008). So how does all this speculation about goal constraints stand up against the literature?
Reversing Goals in “Risky” Situations
“Risky” situations are ones where Skyler is more dependent on Walt than he is on her (see Chapter 3). Skyler often finds herself in such “risky” situations in her marriage when she wants Walt’s undivided attention after he has had a tiring day at work. “Risky” situations test or threaten trust because they heighten the potential to be hurt and disappointed. Thus, such situations automatically activate the goal to impose a safer distance (see Chapter 3). In risky situations, reducing dependence and moving away from the partner should be an unconflicted automatic intention for low self-esteem people because safety is a personally weightier goal than value. However, for high self-esteem people, value is a personally weightier goal than safety. Therefore, reducing dependence and moving away from the partner should be a more conflicted automatic intention for high self-esteem people. Consequently, in risky situations, high self-esteem people should reverse goal priorities and pursue value when they have an opportunity available to do so (Cavallo, Holmes, Fitzsimons, Murray, & Wood, 2012).
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In a series of three experiments, we first threatened safety goals by leading experimental participants to believe their partner was upset with them. Control participants had no such apprehension. We then measured the inhibition (vs. activation) of value goal pursuits through self-reports of partner idealization and closeness (which, given their explicit nature, afford the opportunity to self-regulate goal pursuits). Low self-esteem people pursued the safety goal the situation automatically prioritized. Low self-esteem people idealized their partner less and reported feeling less close to their partner in the safety threat than control conditions. However, threatening safety actually furthered value goal pursuits for high self-esteem participants. They drew closer to their partner in the safety threat than control conditions (Murray, Rose, Bellavia, Holmes, & Kusche, 2002).
Subsequent research made this point even more persuasively. High self-esteem people actually approach and embrace risky bets when they think their partner might be upset with them, whereas low self-esteem people make safe bets (Cavallo, Fitzsimons, & Holmes, 2009). Similarly, high self-esteem people approach and draw closer to God when the threat of partner rejection is salient, whereas low self-esteem people avoid this source of connection (Laurin, Schumann, & Holmes, 2014). High self-esteem people so efficiently reverse safety goals pursuits that they automatically turn attention away from their partner’s negative qualities when safety is threatened (Lamarche & Murray, 2014).
Reversing Goals in “Resistance” Situations
“Resistance” situations, such as ones where Skyler needs to sacrifice for Walt, test her conviction in Walt’s “rightness” for her. Thus, such situations automatically activate the goal to construct compensatory value in relationship-promotive action (see Chapter 4). Pursuing value in resistance situations should be an unconflicted automatic inclination for high self-esteem people because value is a personally weightier goal pursuit than safety for high self-esteem people. However, valuing the partner should be a conflicted automatic inclination for low self-esteem people because being more attached and dependent moves low self-esteem people further away from their personally weightier goal to be safe. Consequently, low self-esteem people should reverse goal priorities and pursue safety over value when they have the opportunity available to correct.
In one of our favorite experiments, we threatened value goal pursuits by leading experimental participants to focus on all the ways in which their partner interfered with their personal goals. Control participants simply focused on ways in which their goals had been thwarted (through no fault of their partner). We then administered both implicit and explicit measures of partner valuing, with the assumption that the explicit measures could give low self-esteem people the opportunity to reverse goal priorities (Murray, Holmes, et al., 2009). High and even low self-esteem participants primed with the ways in which their partner interfered with their goals automatically compensated. Cost-primed participants were quicker to identify positive qualities in their partner than controls regardless of self-esteem (as we saw in Chapter 4). But, on the explicit measure of positive illusions, low self-esteem people reversed goal priorities. Low self-esteem people consciously reported valuing their partner less when primed with the ways in which their partner thwarted their goals (as compared to control participants). Even in the harried day-to-day course of married life, high self-esteem people still manage to compensate. In our daily diary study of newlyweds, high self-esteem people valued their partner more on days after their partner thwarted more of their goals. However, low self-esteem people failed to compensate for such infringement, which then made it harder for them to nurture and care for their partner (Murray, Holmes, et al., 2009). Sadly, low self-esteem people are so practiced in reversing value in favor of safety that they consciously report feeling less close to their partner when the goal to approach is subliminally primed (Murray et al., 2008).
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Transactive Goal Pursuits: Safety and Self-Fulfilling Prophecies
With Skyler on the brink in her marriage, it is time to consider Walt’s role in the current dilemma. Though it is easy to cast him as the villain (heartlessly leaving Skyler at home while he goes off to live life like he did before they had children), it would not be fair. While not blameless, Walt is not entirely at fault either. He was deliriously happy when Alex was born and hated that he had to miss out on time with him to work. He only put in extra hours on weekdays to avoid getting called into work on the weekend. He made special efforts to be attentive and generous to Skyler, getting her new books, music, and movies, because he knew that being home alone with a baby was hard on her. He wanted to do more with their son, but Skyler seemed to get so irritated with him when he didn’t do things the “right” way. He thought he was listening and being supportive; he kept gently reminding Skyler to focus on all the great things they had going for them, but it seemed like so much of what he said and did went unnoticed. For a long while, he stayed focused on everything he loved about Skyler. But lately it has gotten harder. He really wants to be there for her still, but he needs her to be there for him too. For the first time ever he’s started to question what he wants out of his marriage.
Walt’s side to this story reveals that the co-regulation between safety and value involves more than one partner’s goal pursuits. In relationships, goal pursuit is transactive (Fitzsimons, Finkel, & van Dellen, 2015). Partners facilitate, impede, and catch one another’s goals interacting as two parts of an interdependent whole. This transactive reality makes the pursuit of safety a dyadic rather than solitary enterprise. Skyler’s pursuit of safety limits the progress Walt can make in his pursuit of value just as his pursuit of value limits the progress Skyler can make in her pursuit of safety.
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It is probably easiest to illustrate how partners can facilitate, impede, and catch one another’s safety and value goals by reviewing how Skyler and Walt got to where they are now. Low in self-esteem, Skyler always had inklings of doubt, wondering if she could really trust Walt, and her son’s birth finally gave voice and validity to her concerns. When Walt started working so much more, she could not help but wonder whether he was trying to avoid her. She just assumed he was feeling guilty when he brought her home books and movies and she did not understand why he kept trying to brush off her concerns with his optimistic words that all would be well once Alex got a little older. She gets impatient and irritated with him more readily now and usually forgets to check whether he needs comfort or support. High in self-esteem, Walt has really tried to be reassuring when she got upset, but what he said or did seemed to not make any difference. After months of trying, he is starting to feel defeated. Skyler just never seems happy when he tries to give her support and he cannot help but keep much of what he is thinking to himself for fear he might inadvertently say or do something that would upset Skyler.
In pursuing safety, Skyler secured the very outcome she wanted to avoid. Walt is now less invested in taking care of her needs than he was before. Skyler’s safety goal pursuits deactivated Walt’s value goal pursuits just as they deactivated her own value goal pursuits. Partners can catch one another’s goal priorities because one partner’s actions (and reactions) limit the degrees of freedom the other partner has to pursue and satisfy goals for both safety and value. Motivated cognition is situated after all.
The first constraint on goal pursuit comes from the pragmatics of self-perception. It is hard to see behavior as efficacious and meaningful when it seems to have no discernable effect. Similarly, for someone stuck with the Sisyphusian task of trying to make a less trusting partner feel safe, it is difficult not to question the value of nurturing and caring behavior. For instance, the partners of low self-esteem people face constant frustrations providing support. They try to prop low self-esteem people up and get them to see the half-full glass, but low self-esteem people insist on seeing it as half-empty (Marigold, Cavallo, Holmes, & Wood, 2014). The partners of low self-esteem people also have to constantly censor themselves, being careful to avoid saying anything that could be construed as negative or hurtful (Lemay & Dudley, 2011). The partners of low self-esteem people cannot even share the joys and accomplishments that make their life meaningful without fear of low self-esteem people raining on their parade (MacGregor & Holmes, 2011). Given Walt’s many fruitless attempts to comfort and nurture Skyler, it is no wonder that he has started to question whether caring for her really does make sense.
The second, likely more powerful, constraint comes in how self-fulfilling prophecies foreclose one’s behavioral options. In a self-fulfilling prophecy, the perceiver’s expectations for an interaction shape his or her behavior, which in turn pushes the partner to behave in a way that confirms the perceiver’s expectations (Murray et al., 2003; Snyder & Stukas, 1999). For instance, rejection-sensitive women expect their partner to reject them so they treat their partner hostilely, which limits their partner’s capacity to do anything other than reject them in return (Downey, Freitas, Michaelis, & Khouri, 1998).
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Relationships may be especially vulnerable to safety goal contagion because of the power insecurity has to perpetuate itself. As we introduced in Chapter 3, feeling safe is not the same as being safe. However, it is feeling safe (i.e., trust) that tips the balance toward the pursuit of value. Skyler’s post-baby cynicism made her objectively safer because she asks very little of Walt now that she expects the worst from him. However, being objectively safer and less dependent did not make her feel any safer. Instead, it left her feeling more uncertain of his caring because she gave Walt so few opportunities to show his caring (Holmes & Rempel, 1989). In this way, the steps vulnerable people take to progress toward safety may backfire and chronically activate safety goal pursuits. Because safety and value exist in a natural state of opposition, being preoccupied with safety too often puts defending the value of caring and nurturing behavior on the psychological backburner. Unfortunately, the kind and nurturing behaviors feeling unsafe motivates Skyler to withhold are the very behaviors needed to help Walt feel safe and satisfy his safety goal pursuits in the face of their current stressors (Wieselquist et al., 1999). Seeing so little evidence of Skyler’s acceptance essentially pushed Walt into safety concerns of his own; this then motivated him to start questioning the kindnesses he had bestowed without thinking. In this way, vulnerable people’s preoccupation with safety can confirm their fears (Stinson, Cameron, Wood, Gaucher, & Holmes, 2009).
Conclusion
We opened this chapter with the idea that situations can rock relationships, potentiating the natural opposition between safety and value goals. We then explored goal system dynamics that tip the motivational balance back and forth between the pursuit of safety and value. In so doing, we highlighted the tyranny safety generally holds over value and the trouble prioritizing safety can cause in relationships. But we neglected one important consideration. Value can sometimes take precedence over safety too. In the next chapter, we see exactly when, why, and for whom this goal reversal happens.
Note
1 Low self-esteem people are especially trust-disadvantaged when their conscious beliefs about their partner’s availability, caring, and responsiveness are assessed. However, as we will see in Chapter 6, low self-esteem people may be uniquely trust-advantaged when their automatic attitudes toward their partner are assessed.