Evaluative Conditioning and Relationship Satisfaction

Evaluating the Efficacy of a Marital Enhancement Application

The overall objective is to evaluate the efficacy of a novel computerized learning procedure to enhance marital well-being among military members and their partners.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Relationship, Marital
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Evaluatively conditioning participant to like partner; Behavioral: Evaluatively conditioning partner to like participant

Detailed Description

Large bodies of research indicate that people's health, occupational performance, and job satisfaction depend critically on their marital well-being. Nevertheless, several challenges associated with military service, such as increased stress and physical separation from one's partner, can threaten marital well-being. Prior research by our team highlights the important marital implications of automatic partner attitudes, or the immediate affective reactions experienced when thinking about or interacting with one's partner. Most couples strengthen these partner attitudes through enjoyable experiences together, but servicemembers who are separated from their partners must forego such activities, and job-related stress can minimize the positivity of any joint activities that do occur. Evaluative Conditioning (EC) offers a way to strengthen automatic partner attitudes without direct experience with the partner through simple pairings of photos of the partner with positive words and images. Our pilot study of civilian couples demonstrated that couples randomly assigned to view photos of their partners paired with positive stimuli for 6-7 minutes every three days for six weeks experienced enhanced automatic partner attitudes and thus marital satisfaction over eight weeks relative to control couples.

The proposed research would use a RCT to test (a) the feasibility and efficacy of EC procedure among active duty servicemembers and (b) whether there is an additional benefit to having the partner also complete the EC procedure. Regarding the first objective, the investigators predict that people who view their partner paired with positive stimuli will demonstrate enhanced automatic partner attitudes and therefore higher levels of marital satisfaction and more positive relationship behaviors relative to people who view their partner paired with neutral stimuli. Regarding the second objective, the investigators expect that EC will be more effective when the partner also completes it, though the investigators suspect it will be effective even among servicemembers whose partners do not complete the procedure.

The aim of the proposed research is to conduct an RCT to determine (a) whether evaluative conditioning can enhance automatic partner attitudes and thereby marital satisfaction and behavior in a sample of active duty servicemembers and (b) whether any benefits of EC depend on whether one or both members of the couple complete the procedure.

The investigators will recruit a sample of 500 active-duty servicemembers and their partners from Naval Medical Center at Portsmouth, VA. Half of all servicemembers will be randomly assigned to complete our EC procedure that pairs their partner with positive stimuli whereas the other half will be randomly assigned to complete a control procedure in which their partner is paired with neutral stimuli. Crossed with this manipulation, and also by random assignment, the partners of half the servicemembers will complete our EC procedure whereas the partners of the other half will complete the control procedure. Both members of the couple will complete assessments of automatic partner attitudes and marital satisfaction at baseline and then again every two weeks for eight weeks. Couples will also engage in recorded marital discussions at baseline and the 8-week follow-up to assess behavior.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 144
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • Florida
    • Tallahassee, Florida, United States, 32306
      • Florida State University

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: Adult; Older Adult
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• one member of the couple is active-duty US military
• couple is married
• both couple members are at least 18 years old
• both couple members are proficient readers and speakers of English

Exclusion Criteria:

-

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Supportive Care
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Factorial Assignment
• Masking: Single

Number of Arms

4

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Servicemember and partner paired with positive stimuli; Both the servicemember and the partner of the servicemember see their partner paired with positive stimuli	Behavioral: Evaluatively conditioning participant to like partner; The intervention is a computerized learning task that leads the participant to associate the partner with positive stimuli; Behavioral: Evaluatively conditioning partner to like participant; The intervention is a computerized learning task that leads the partner to associate the participant with positive stimuli
Experimental: Servicemember partner paired with positive stimuli, servicemember paired with neutral stimuli; The servicemember sees the partner paired with positive stimuli and the partner sees the servicemember paired with neutral stimuli	Behavioral: Evaluatively conditioning participant to like partner; The intervention is a computerized learning task that leads the participant to associate the partner with positive stimuli
Experimental: Servicemember partner paired with neutral stimuli, servicemember paired with positive stimuli; The servicemember sees the partner paired with neutral stimuli and the partner sees the servicemember paired with positive stimuli	Behavioral: Evaluatively conditioning partner to like participant; The intervention is a computerized learning task that leads the partner to associate the participant with positive stimuli
No Intervention: Servicemember and partner paired with neutral stimuli; Both the servicemember and the partner of the servicemember see their partner paired with neutral stimuli

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Partner Evaluative Priming Procedure (McNulty et al., 2013)	Modeled after the evaluative priming task developed by Fazio et al. (1995), the task implicitly measures participants' automatically activated partner attitudes by measuring RTs to positive and negative words following exposure to primes of the partner. Primes will be photos primes of the partner appearing in one of four orientations in each photo: (a) a frontal view of the face, (b) a profile view of the face, (c) a frontal view of the entire body while standing, and (d) a frontal view of the entire body while sitting.	Every two weeks for eight weeks
Couples Satisfaction Index (Funk & Rogge, 2007)	Questionnaire to assess self-reported satisfaction with the relationship	Every two weeks for eight weeks
Verbal Tactics Coding Scheme (Sillars, 1982)	Qualitative coding scheme designed to identify direct and indirect oppositional statements during problem-solving discussions	Eight weeks
Suicidality subscale of the Depressive Symptom Index (Metalsky & Joiner, 1997	a well-validated measure that assesses the fre- quency and controllability of suicidal thoughts as agreement with four sets of four statements that increase in severity	Every two weeks for eight weeks

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Florida State University
• Collaborators: United States Naval Medical Center, Portsmouth

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): July 22, 2024
• Primary Completion (Actual): August 31, 2025
• Study Completion (Actual): August 31, 2025

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: August 19, 2024
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: August 20, 2024
• First Posted (Actual): August 21, 2024

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Estimated): September 15, 2025
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: September 9, 2025
• Last Verified: September 1, 2025

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Other Study ID Numbers: REL00000176

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No