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Mutual Cyclical Growth

Jennifer Wieselquist and her colleagues developed a model of mutual cyclical growth to explain the across-partner associations among commitment, prorelationship behavior, and partner trust. The model combines concepts identified by Caryl Rusbult and her colleagues in their work on commitment with concepts identified by John Holmes and his colleagues in their work on trust. These analyses are complementary, in that both models rest on the principles of Interdependence Theory. This entry reviews the mutual cyclical growth model, explaining an important aspect of relationship regulation—how close partners influence one another during extended involvement, with each person's motives and behaviors in turn affecting the other's motives and behaviors. Key variables in the model are dependence, commitment, prore-lationship behavior, and trust.

Dependence, Commitment, and Prorelationship Behaviors

According to Rusbult's investment model, people develop increasing dependence on their relationships as a function of (a) high satisfaction level—to the extent that their most important needs are gratified in the relationship (e.g., companionship, security, sexuality); (b) poor quality of alternatives—to the extent that their most important needs could not be gratified independent of the relationship (e.g., by a specific partner, the general field of eli-gibles); and (c) high investment size—to the extent that they invest numerous important resources in the relationship, either directly or indirectly (e.g., time, effort, shared friendship network, joint material possessions).

As people become dependent, they develop feelings of commitment to the relationship. Commitment level represents long-term orientation toward a relationship, including intent to persist and feelings of psychological attachment. Strong commitment entails motivation to “make a relationship work” not only by persisting in the relationship, but also by engaging in prorelationship acts such as (a) accommodation—when a partner enacts a potentially destructive behavior (e.g., criticism, irritability), committed individuals inhibit the impulse to react destructively in turn and instead behave in a constructive manner; (b) sacrifice—when partners' interests conflict, committed individuals engage in otherwise undesirable behaviors or forgo otherwise desirable behaviors for the good of the partner and relationship; and (c)   affirmation—committed individuals work to elicit the best in their partners, even when doing so is effortful or costly. Many of the behaviors that people enact so as to sustain a relationship—including accommodation, sacrifice, and affirmation—are termed prorelationship acts, in that such behaviors to some degree are costly or effortful, yet promote the well-being of a partner or relationship.

Diagnostic Situations, Trust, and Dependence

Situations that call for prorelationship acts—for example, situations in which a partner “behaves badly,” or situations in which partners' interests conflict—have been termed diagnostic situations. Dilemmas of this sort are “diagnostic” in that the manner in which people behave in such situations is indicative of their motives. For example, when John sacrifices a long-awaited opportunity to go out with his friends and instead helps Mary plan an upcoming party, Mary can discern the strength of his commitment, in that he has placed her needs and interests above his own. According to Holmes's model of trust, people develop increased trust when they observe a partner behave well in diagnostic situations—when they observe the partner enact costly or effortful prorelationship acts. Trust is thus relationship-specific and represents the strength of one's conviction that a partner will be responsive to one's needs, now and in the future. As such, Mary's trust in John reflects the strength of John's commitment to Mary.

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