ABSTRACT
Assuming close relationship partners—friends, romantic partners, and family members—care about one another’s welfare and wish their partners to care for their own welfare, people certainly do behave in baffling ways at times. In the face of partner needs, some people reduce rather than increase the support they provide (Campbell et al., 2001; Simpson, Rholes, and Nelligan, 1992) and increase rather than reduce their own anger (Rholes, Simpson, and Orina, 1999). Some people respond to their partner’s negative moods not with care but with feelings of (unjustified) self-rejection (Bellavia and Murray, 2003; Murray et al., 2003) and hurtful behavior just when a partner most needs support (Murray et al., 2003). When faced with information that their partner sees a problem in the relationship, some people do not address the problem but, instead, derogate and pull away from that partner (Murray et al., 2002). People have been shown to support friends less than strangers at times (Tesser and Smith, 1980) and to feel bad when a close friend performs well (Tesser, 1988; Tesser and Collins, 1988; Tesser, Millar, and Moore, 1988). Sometimes when one member of a close relationship commits a faux pas or encounters difficulty, that person’s close partner not only fails to provide support but also distances himself or herself from the partner (Tesser, 1988).
