Development and Validation of the Need for Cognition about Behavior in Relationships (NCBR) Scale

Relationship Cognitive
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Development and Validation of the Need for Cognition about Behavior in Relationships (NCBR) Scale
Background and significance
People are social animals (Baumeister & Leary, 1995) and as such, generally engage in much thought about their interpersonal relationships. As social animals, humans tend to seek connections with those that they interact with in their environment (Vrticka, 2013). The society is made up of the social connections and thus the name that indicates social connection (Shultz, Opie, & Atkinson, 2011). The variation that tends to be associated with the connections is of paramount importance to help with the establishment of the reasons underlying. Understanding the primary tendencies relative to the cognitive elements and abilities of the parties involved is crucial to unearthing the basic premise of various relationships despite their variance. Every other relationship is unique to the parties that are involved. However, there are variables that can be established relative to the basic mechanisms that people relate to one another. It is common that relationships will have certain mechanisms when it comes to reacting to certain stimuli in their environment. It is most crucial to establish how different parties’ cognitive abilities in light of their relationship varies (Relationshipspecialists.com, 2016). Understanding the cognitive behavior in relationships is a crucial aspects and helps better understand relations with more finality (Cacioppo, Petty & Kao, 1984).
To what extent do individuals differ in their tendency to habitually examine or enjoy thinking about their relationships, and is such a difference related to interpersonal competency or mental health? It is crucial to draw the line between where elements of thinking about a relationship and the aspects that could be closely related to mental health come out differently. Mental health can be associated with aspects such, obsessive compulsive disorder (Kirkova, 2014). In this case a partner continuously obsess over their relationship with someone in a manner that could easily lead to unhealthy tendencies in the relationship (Hagen, 2016). However, in the case of thinking about a relationship, one may constantly or often reflect on a relationship that they have with a given person and how it affects each of the parties involved. This is a healthy elements and is a common aspect among most people that emotionally mature. However, of importance in the paper are some of the variables that the cognition mechanisms (Cacioppo, Petty & Kao, 1984). The Relational Cognition Complexity Instrument (RCCI; Martin, 1991) conceptualized relational cognition as a distinct domain of social cognition, likely unrelated to an individual’s understanding of people in general and likely a ‘relatively enduring’ individual difference. We feel that relational cognition is an important and interesting individual difference that should be examined for a variety of purposes. The RCCI, however, is open-ended and requires trained coders to analyze the responses. We also suspect relationship cognition can be "induced" as a temporary state given the right circumstances. The present studies demonstrate the development of the self-report NCBR scale and provide support for its measurement validity and internal consistency.
We characterized relationship cognition as trait or state motivation to analyze and interpret behavior in interpersonal interactions, especially behavior which is ambiguous, surprising, or troubling. It is distinct from a generalized need for cognition Petty & Caccioppo, 1982), or a tendency to engage in and preference for difficult problem-solving. The trait NCBR scale focuses on enduring tendencies across situations where one tends to think about or analyze relationships, while the state scale reflects a temporary tendency or need to think about relationships induced by specific goal-blocking situations resulting in "outcome dependence". This is two main and crucial criterion for establishing the elemental responses associated with relational differences. As mentioned above, the state scale tends to be temporary. This is to mean that, when one exposed to certain stimuli in the environment, which in this case is their relationship with another person, there are elements that bound to come up. In an example, when one is faced with an argument with their partner or a close interaction, they are bound to react in a certain way that fits the emotions associated with the situation and the stimuli induced or presented at the time. It is possible, that next time they encounter such a stimuli, they may not react in the same way. They may actually not react in the generally perceived manner that is common in such a situation (Cacioppo, Petty & Kao, 1984). This relative to the fact that, the state reactions tend to have some element of uniqueness and they also take on a temporary stance that is fitting to situation at hand. One may even experience a negated sense of feeling that is not reflective of the argument and may instead be calm and collected about the said situation. If an argument ensure between a husband and wife, the parties may not bring out the elemental aspect of anger, depending on the relationship and the situation. Aspects of the events leading up to the situation and after the situation mentioned also play a great role. In the case of the trait scale, there is some very significant differences (Cacioppo, Petty & Kao, 1984).
When growing up, one is exposed to certain stimuli in the environment. These stimuli may be introduced over an extended period of time such that, it forms part of response sequence. As the name suggests, the stimuli goes on to instill certain aspects of the personality that largely reflect on the person, every time that they are exposed to such stimuli. As such, due to the formed habit associated with the stimuli, the person is likely to always react in certain way whenever such stimuli is presented. In the case presented before, if a person is arguing with their marriage partner, and the said person has developed maladaptive personality and largely avoidant, they are likely to bail out of the argument. Ideally, due to the intrinsic elements of the traits formed from past experiences, this person is likely to constantly avoid confrontations at all costs. As such, their partner may always feel that they are responsible for their actions simply because they never engage in the argument or even heated debates. Ideally, the avoidant personality is a reflection of the trait scale and indicates long-term conditioning process. While we discovered important and theoretically meaningful distinctions between the two sales, ultimately we focused on the trait scale, allowing researchers to use it as an individual difference measure or to modify it to focus on a specific state (motivated first impression, such as a date) or type of relationship (e.g., outcome dependent, romantic, work, etc.). The two scales are crucial to determining the impact on relationships and the way the people interact. There is a tendency for people to react in a given way dependent on their situation, such that, if one is going out on a date with someone they just met, there are certain attributes that they are going to exude as part of their character. They most likely will try to be on their best selves in order to impress their dates. This is a situation response triggered by the feeling of attraction to a new person, whether romantically or as part of new connection in their social network. It is also to note that, people that have been dating for quite a while, or even in a long-term relationship, will also tend to react differently towards one another if they went out on a date night. In this case, there is the element of the fact that, they have a relationship, in which they have invested emotionally, financially and even in time. In this case, they largely understand one another and are not trying to learn their partner. It is therefore not likely that the partners are going to try and create a connection but rather strengthen their bond.
Rationale for the State Scale
Relationship cognition may exist as a general tendency/trait or as a state, induced in response to feelings of outcome dependence. Partners with less influence in relationships of unequal power often want more change and are less able to achieve it without their partner’s cooperation (Jacobson, 1983). In relationships it is common to have one of the partners over shadowing the other. The element of power struggle in a relationship are quite common relative to the fact that, every relationship after getting through the attraction stage starts off with the power struggle stage (Muzik, 2012). Ideally at this stage, the differences start coming up and the partners struggle with the reconciling their differences. At this stage is thus possible that one of the partners is going to struggling to implement changes that they feel are going to bring about changes in the relationship to balance out the power. However due to the fact that there is a power gap between the two, it is most likely that, the partner with the least power in the relationship is always going to be trying to make the changes, but will need the approval of the more powerful partner. If the more powerful partner does not cooperate this will further create conflict and disappointment. As such, desired change may lead to increased motivation to analyze and think about the relationship.
Relationship cognitions may at times be circular like ruminative thoughts, but they are not focused on negative emotion or necessarily anxious, and therefore, relationship cognition should not be too closely related to rumination. The state of outcome dependence, however, should be more closely related to depression and anxiety. For the party that does not have the power in the relationship, it is becomes a grueling task of trying to get the other party to cooperate with their point of view. As such, the entire process tends to bring about feelings of disappointment and helplessness in the partner with less power.
Rationale for the Trait Scale
As previously stated, relationships are critical to our happiness and functionality in the world. They make one of the pivotal pillars in the society, as every other person wants to connect with the rest of the people that they interact with in their vicinity. As such, relationships are crucial to the cohesion that exists within the society regardless with interaction that exists, whether positive or negative. Ideally, as mentioned earlier given that humans are social, they have the tendency to always connect with those around them. In essence, humans have the innate need as part of a group. This means that, they are constantly trying to connect with a larger group within the society. People generally want to be part of something bigger than themselves. As such, humans tend to and belong to bigger element than themselves which ideally forms a crucial reference point when studying the relations. Measuring a general tendency to examine and analyze interpersonal interactions and ongoing relationships has enormous potential for aiding in understanding who tends to do this and what other variables may be related to this tendency. This research forms a fundamental background in light of trying to establish the cognitive elements that are associated with relationships. The measures are going to shed more light on the relations and the tendencies involved.
In order to examine relationships between variables that should theoretically overlap with or be distinct from NCBR, we examined several relevant individual difference variables. Relationship cognition may be related to social assessment self-talk (Brinthaupt, Hein & Kramer, 2009) in that individuals high in relationship cognition may engage in social assessment self-talk more often than those who are not (Fadal, 2015). This is to mean that persons that are constantly thinking about their relationship, will tend to self-assess the health of their relationship. While persons that do not have relationship cognition will not have much self-talk about the relationship. Self-talk largely relates to the inner voice that is associated with self-reflection (Collins, 2013). As one thinks through the various elements of their relationship, they tend to evaluate the basic pillars that make their relationship special, disastrous or even ways that they can improve on it. As such, it is crucial to note that self-talk can either be positive and it can also be negative (Brinthaupt, Hein & Kramer, 2009). The positive self-talk largely relates to taking on an optimistic approach towards the evaluation of the relationship. On the other hand, negative self-talk relates to taking on a pessimist stance (Fadal, 2015). A positive self-talk results in uplifting the mood and keeping on a positive outlook in the relationship in question, negative outlook on the other hand brings about a negative mood. Self-talk can impact the element of confidence (Brinthaupt, Hein & Kramer, 2009).
According Athena ‘This inner dialogue is a stream of consciousness that has an enormous effect on every aspect of your life and relationships. Interpretive thoughts, in particular, form words and pictures that shape your imagination and, in turn, modulate your body’s emotion and physiology. When thought patterns are repeated, over time, they form emotional-command neural circuits that automatically direct what and how you think, talk and act, because … they bypass the frontal cortex of your brain. It’s how your brain learns and adapts to change. When this inner dialogue, however, consists of toxic thinking patterns and limiting beliefs that unnecessarily activate your survival system, literally, your body takes subconscious control of responses, thus, your capacity to make conscious choices. In survival mode, the body shuts off most all communication to the higher cortex and relies instead on ‘proven’ protective strategies it has stored in memory.’ (Staik, 2016)
The studies that follow introduced and examined the (NCBR) state and trait scales (Connor et al., 2011) and their individual qualities.
Study 1
Method
Participants. N = 106 students from Tennessee State University; Race: African American: 84.6%, Caucasian : 3.8% Other/Multiracial: 4.9%; Gender: Men : 29.8%; Women: 70.2%; Age : M = 22.9; SD = 5.50
Procedure.Participants completed the Need for Cognition Scale (NC; Cacioppo, Petty, & Kao, 1984), Ruminative Response Style Scale (RRS; Nolen-Hoeks...