Commitment readiness: People vary in their sense of when they think the time is right to be involved in a committed relationship

It’s About Time: Readiness, Commitment, and Stability in Close Relationships. Christopher R. Agnew, Benjamin W. Hadden, Kenneth Tan. Social Psychological and Personality Science, February 20, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550619829060

Abstract: Timing matters in relationships. People vary in their sense of when they think the time is right to be involved in a committed relationship. We propose and examine the construct of commitment readiness and its role in predicting important relationship outcomes including commitment level, maintenance processes, and stability among involved intimates. Data from five independent samples obtained with various methods revealed, as hypothesized, that readiness (a) predicts commitment, maintenance processes, and actions toward ending a relationship; (b) serves to moderate commitment in predicting maintenance processes (self-disclosure, accommodation, sacrifice); and (c) serves to moderate commitment in predicting leave behavior, with those reporting both higher commitment and higher readiness being more likely to enact maintenance behaviors and least likely to enact leave behavior. We discuss the importance of considering one’s readiness for commitment within ongoing involvements.

Keywords: relationship receptivity, relationship timing, commitment readiness, commitment level, investment model

General Discussion

Among currently involved individuals, we examined commitment readiness,
the extent to which a person feels that the time
is right for a committed involvement and found evidence in
support of hypotheses. Higher readiness was associated with
higher commitment to a relationship, cross-sectionally, longitudinally, and day-to-day within individuals. Moreover, by
controlling for commitment at one time point, results speak
to the temporal precedence of readiness in shaping future
increases in commitment. Further, these findings were independent of investment model variables, such that the prospective effects of readiness on commitment are unique from
satisfaction, alternatives, and investments.
Readiness also predicted maintenance beyond commitment,
between individuals, and on a daily basis. Readiness was
uniquely associated with more self-disclosure. Although not
associated with overall accommodation, readiness was associated with less neglect and exit strategies. It was also associated
with less loyalty, suggesting that although individuals who
were more ready engaged in less destructive responses to conflict, they do not passively wait for things to get better. Readiness also largely bolstered the effects of commitment on
maintenance.
With data from three longitudinal studies, readiness was
also associated with lower likelihood of leaving one’s relationship, and readiness moderated the effects of commitment level
on leave behavior. This moderation emerged such that high
readiness bolstered the effect of commitment on leave behavior, whereas low readiness appears to undermine the effects
of commitment on leave behavior. These findings suggest that
although commitment to a specific partner is necessary for successfully maintaining a relationship, individuals are aided also
by feeling ready at a given time for commitment.
Consistent with relationship receptivity theory, readiness
serves both to increase commitment level across time and to
augment the effect of commitment on maintenance cognitions
and behaviors, including stay/leave behavior months later.
Experiencing high levels of both commitment and readiness
promotes maintenance, whereas lacking in either ingredient
appears to undermine stability. Although readiness is theoretically and empirically separable from level of commitment, one
might expect that being in a relationship elevates one’s sense of
readiness, possibly as a function of self-perception. One might
also expect that how successful a relationship is—how satisfying, and so on—might inform a sense that one is ready to maintain a commitment to that relationship. However, even if a
relationship might be particularly rewarding in and of itself,
it might still detract from other aspects of one’s life by taking
time from personal pursuits (e.g., VanderDrift & Agnew,
2014). Tension between the relationship and other domains
of life should play into how ready one feels for commitment.
Strengths of these studies include the use of measures of
both maintenance cognitions and behaviors, as well as actual
leave behavior. Further, by using a mixture of crosssectional, daily diary, and longer longitudinal studies, we were
able to investigate the scope of how readiness shapes relationship functioning. Readiness appears to be important for both
day-to-day relationship maintenance and for prospectively predicting stability. Limitations include samples consisting largely
of young adults who generally reported high levels of readiness, limiting both the age range and variability in readiness
among participants. We also concentrated on the individual
level and obtained measures of readiness from only one member of a dyad. A dyadic study would provide valuable data on
how actor and partner effects of readiness might be associated
with maintenance behaviors and stability. Moreover, one could
examine whether individuals accurately perceive partners’ levels of readiness and whether successful enactment of maintenance behaviors by one partner leads both the partner and
oneself to feeling more ready the next day.
Future research on readiness could go in a number of directions. One could examine associations between how ready an
individual thinks they are and their knowledge of factors that
have been shown to be strongly linked to relationship stability.
It is possible that some people who report that they are ready
for commitment have little idea of the kinds of cognitions and
behaviors necessary to sustain an involvement. One might
expect, then, that a sense of readiness would need to be paired
with a realistic sense of what it actually takes to keep a relationship going for readiness effects to be robust. Relatedly, the perception that one is capable of enacting the kinds of prosocial
behaviors shown to sustain relationships (Rusbult & Agnew,
2010) may also influence the extent to which one’s readiness
is associated with consequential outcomes. Experimental
manipulation of readiness, including priming it, is also ripe for
research. Moreover, gathering perceptions from social network
members of involved intimates may also shed light on whether
a given member of a couple is truly ready for commitment. Discrepancies in perceived readiness between a person involved in
a relationship and how their network perceives them might
yield findings consistent with past research showing that
“outsiders” possess perceptions that are particularly diagnostic
of relationship outcomes (Agnew, Loving, & Drigotas, 2001).
Finally, readiness appears to be an important yet heretofore
neglected construct. Therefore, its antecedents surely matter.
What gives rise to a sense of being ready for a committed relationship? Relationship receptivity theory provides several suggestions for answering this important question, but answers
await future research.