ABSTRACT
Initial research on romantic relationships largely focused on traits, behaviours, and experiences that threaten those relationships. While such negative processes greatly affect romantic relationships, recent research has begun to reveal the importance of positive processes (e.g., forgiveness, gratitude, love), and researchers are beginning to better understand how these positive processes impact relationship quality and satisfaction. In this article, we review research addressing the implications of six positive processes: gratitude, optimistic expectations, positive illusions, forgiveness, love, and positive self-beliefs. Each of these bodies of research suggest that positive processes, on average, tend to benefit romantic relationships; however, there are important contexts in which each of these positive processes may instead harm romantic relationships.
