Article How Do Relationship Maintenance Behaviors Affect Individual Well-Being? A Contextual Perspective

How do relationship maintenance behaviors affect individual well-being? Given that people who invest time and effort toward achieving important goals see their outcomes as more reflective of their skills and abilities than do people who invest less time and effort, engaging in relationship maintenance behaviors may lead people to experience increased individual well-being when those behaviors appear to be successful but decreased well-being when they appear to be unsuccessful. A diary study of romantic rela-tionships, a diary study of friendships, and a longitudinal study of newlyweds provided support for this prediction. In all three stud-ies, relationship maintenance behaviors were negatively associated with depressive mood when followed by relatively high relationship quality, but positively associated with depressive mood when followed by relatively low relationship quality. Accord-ingly, relationship maintenance processes are not inherently beneficial or harmful; their intrapersonal implications depend on the context in which they occur. Keywords relationship maintenance, interdependence, depression, marriage, conflict Remaining satisfied with a close relationship requires engaging in a variety of relationship maintenance behaviors. Partners in close relationships will inevitably disagree with one another and need to compromise, hurt one another and need to forgive, experience distress and need to support one another, and be angry at one another and need to accommodate. Indeed, a robust body of research indicates that behaviors such as for