Interdependent Partners Experience Stronger Affective Responses to Simultaneous Positive and Negative Social Feedback

Social rejection and acceptance are typically investigated from the perspective of individuals receiving, or observing, such information independent of others. However, experiences of rejection and acceptance often unfold in dyadic contexts, and can have implications for how partners interact, relate, and support each other. Employing a novel dyadic task, we examined affective responses to simultaneous social feedback among cohabiting couples (Nparticipants = 168). Consistent with preregistered hypotheses, participants reporting higher relational interdependence were more likely to experience their partner’s social feedback as a personal reward or loss. This pattern emerged even when participants received incongruent social feedback (e.g., receiving negative feedback while a partner received positive feedback). Moreover, positive affect for a partner’s social feedback was associated with higher perceived partner support, and perceived capitalization attempts. Together, findings suggest that a key signature of relational interdependence may manifest as responding sensitively to a partner’s rewarding and aversive information (e.g., feeling a partner’s social feedback as one’s own), and being responsive to a partner’s outcomes (e.g., providing support during times of need, showing enthusiasm during positive events).