Research Interests
The Contextual Nature of Interpersonal Processes
My early work illuminated the importance of the broader context of the relationship for the implications of basic social psychological processes by showing that qualities of people’s relationships, personalities, and partners determine the extent to which various psychological traits and processes are associated with stable or unstable social beliefs. In doing so, I helped resolve a number of theoretical debates regarding the implications of cognitive and behavioral processes for belief change. Various theoretical perspectives in social psychology, such as those that account for processes of perceptual and behavioral confirmation, suggest that intimates should remain happiest to the extent that they engage in benevolent psychological processes, such as holding optimistic expectations and high standards, behaving kindly, making benevolent attributions, and validating and forgiving one another. Yet, these perspectives do not sufficiently account for the interdependent nature of social relationships. Indeed, other theoretical perspectives can be used to argue that these same processes may sometimes be detrimental because they may prevent intimates from successfully managing and resolving the problems that will inevitably arise due to interdependence dilemmas. My research demonstrates that which psychological processes are associated with the most stable marital satisfaction depends on various qualities of the partners and relationship.
McNulty, J. K. (2016). Highlighting the contextual nature of interpersonal relationships. In J. M. Olson & M. P. Zanna (Eds.) Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Vol. 54) (pp. 247-315). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
McNulty, J. K., & Fincham, F. D. (2012). Beyond positive psychology? Toward a contextual view of psychological processes and well-being. American Psychologist, 67, 101-110.
McNulty, J. K., & *Russell, V. M. (2010). When “negative” behaviors are positive: A contextual analysis of the long-term effects of problem-solving behaviors on changes in relationship satisfaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98, 587-604.
McNulty, J. K. (2010). When positive processes hurt relationships. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 19, 167-171.
McNulty, J. K. (2008). Forgiveness in marriage: Putting the benefits into context Journal of Family Psychology, 22, 171-175.
McNulty, J. K., *O’Mara, E. M., & Karney B. R. (2008). Benevolent cognitions as a strategy of relationship maintenance: “Don’t sweat the small stuff”…but it is not all small stuff. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94, 631-646.
McNulty, J. K. & Karney, B. R. (2004). Positive expectations in the early years of marriage: Should couples expect the best or brace for the worst? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 86, 729-743.
Implicit Social Cognition
Recently, I have been examining the role of automatic social processes in close relationships. Whereas people’s explicit, deliberative and self-reported attitudes appear to be quite susceptible to motivated processes, their more automatic attitudes appear to more accurately track their specific affective experiences with their partner. Accordingly, people who encounter negative experiences over the course of a relationship should inevitably develop more negative automatic attitudes. Although their strong motivations to preserve the relationship may allow them to think and behave relatively positively at the explicit level despite such negative automatic sentiments when they have sufficient cognitive resources, automatic attitudes guide attention, construal and behavior when such resources are depleted. And over the course of a long-term close relationship, people will inevitably encounter contexts that leave their cognitive resources depleted. Accordingly, automatic attitudes may forecast the ultimate trajectory of people’s explicit relationship beliefs.
McNulty, J. K., Olson, M. A. Jones, R. E., & Acosta, L. (in press). Automatic associations between one’s partner and one’s affect as the proximal mechanism of change in relationship satisfaction: Evidence from evaluative conditioning. Psychological Science.
McNulty, J. K., & Olson, M. A. (2015). Integrating automatic processes into theories of relationships. Current Opinion in Psychology, 1, 107-112.
McNulty, J. K., *Baker, L. R. & Olson, M. A. (2014). Implicit self-evaluations predict changes in implicit partner evaluations. Psychological Science, 25, 1649-1647.
McNulty, J. K., Olson, M. A., Meltzer, A. L., & *Shaffer, M. J. (2013). Though they may be unaware, newlyweds implicitly know whether their marriage will be satisfying. Science, 342, 1119-1120.