Examining Closeness Regulation More Closely: A Replication and Extension of Hilligloh and Hagemeyer (2025)

To maintain relationship satisfaction, partners in romantic relationships need to regulate closeness discrepancies – states where they feel either not close enough (closeness frustration) or too close to their partner (closeness surfeit). Using continuous time analyses of daily diary data, Hilligloh and Hagemeyer (2025) investigated differences in regulatory speed between these states, taking into account personal (implicit and explicit communal and agentic motivational orientations) and situational (partner contact) conditions. Results showed that the regulation of closeness frustration was slower and more dependent on the partner than the regulation of closeness surfeit. Moreover, closeness regulation was facilitated by increased partner contact and instances of person-situation fit. Communally oriented individuals regulated both kinds of closeness discrepancies faster with higher-than-usual partner contact than agentically oriented individuals, while agentically oriented individuals regulated faster with less-than-usual partner contact. We aimed to replicate these findings through continuous time analyses of daily diary data (N = 258 couples, t = 28 days) and extended the analyses to experience sampling data (N = 68 couples, t = 5 assessments per day over 14 days). Results again indicated that closeness frustration was regulated slower and was more partner-dependent than closeness surfeit. However, increased partner contact did not consistently facilitate regulation of closeness discrepancies, and the pattern of person-situation fit was only replicated for women’s implicit orientation. Taken together, the present research strongly replicated differences in the general regulatability of closeness frustration and closeness surfeit, but the associations with situational and personal conditions were only partially replicated.