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Missing a romantic partner: A prototype analysis
Author(s) -
LE BENJAMIN,
LOVING TIMOTHY J.,
LEWANDOWSKI GARY W.,
FEINBERG EMILY G.,
JOHNSON KATHERINE C.,
FIORENTINO REMY,
ING JENNIFER
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
personal relationships
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.81
H-Index - 83
eISSN - 1475-6811
pISSN - 1350-4126
DOI - 10.1111/j.1475-6811.2008.00213.x
Subject(s) - loneliness , psychology , recall , romance , salient , centrality , social psychology , missing data , task (project management) , developmental psychology , cognitive psychology , computer science , artificial intelligence , statistics , management , psychoanalysis , economics , mathematics , machine learning
In this study, a prototype analysis of romantic missing was conducted. College‐age participants in the United States generated features of missing a partner (Study 1) and rated their centrality (Study 2). In a reaction time task, participants made category judgments for central features more quickly than for noncentral features (Study 3). In recognition and recall tasks, central features were more salient in participants’ memory, and participants evaluated individuals experiencing central features in vignettes as missing their partners more (Study 4). A prototype‐based measure of missing administered to individuals in long‐distance relationships (Study 5) correlated with commitment and attachment dimensions but only weakly with loneliness. Finally, level of missing differed based on whether individuals were in a geographically distant (vs. proximal) relationships (Study 6).