Personal Relationships, 20 (2013), 69–83. Printed in the United States of America. Copyright © 2012 IARR; DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-6811.2012.01397.x Predictors of friend approval for romantic

Three studies (1 correlational and 2 experiments) applied the investment model to explain social network approval for others ’ romantic relationships. Study 1 supported the prediction that friends ’ perceived satisfaction and perceived alternatives were predictive of their approval for target relationships, while perceived investments was not a significant predictor. Studies 2 and 3 employed experimental manipulations of perceived satisfaction to test its causal impact on relationship approval, and in these studies, perceived satisfaction was a significant predictor of relationship approval. Taken as a whole, these findings supported the prediction that perceived relationship satisfaction is a causal factor influencing friends ’ approval of target romantic relationships. The daily activities of romantic couples take place within larger social networks of friends, family, and acquaintances, and these social networks influence those embedded roman-tic relationships (Etcheverry & Agnew, 2004; Leslie, Huston, & Johnson, 1986). Much of the extant research on romantic relation-ships has taken an individualistic or dyadic approach to understand romantic relationship functioning. However, scholars have begun to recognize that to fully understand roman-tic relationship functioning, it is necessary to consider social network influence (Berscheid, 1999; Sprecher, Felmlee, Orbuch, & Wil