The (mental) ties that bind: Cognitive structures that predict relationship resilience

It is proposed that the cognitive structures that help sustain relationship s depend on individuals embellishing the significance of virtues and minimi zing the significance of faults within hierarchical, integrated representat ions of their partners. As a means of measuring representation structure, d ating individuals were asked to write narratives describing their relations hips and their partners' greatest faults and to complete card-sort descript ions of their pacers. The results revealed that satisfied individuals find redeeming features in their partners' faults, construct "yes, but" refutati ons that minimize specific faults, and link virtues to faults within integr ated, more general mental models. Moreover, these structural effects emerge d in analyses that controlled for representation content. Impressively, the very stability of relationships depended on individuals forming such integ rative mental ties in their representations of their partners.