The Relationship Between Couples’ Self-Sacrificing Behavior And Immediate Emotions: The Role Of Self-Construal

Self-sacrifice in close relationships refers to individuals sacrificing their own interests,desires,or needs to promote the well-being of their partner or the stability of the relationship.Although self-sacrifice is common and inevitable in the development of a relationship,current research does not provide a uniform answer to the question of whether behavioral sacrifice is beneficial to individuals and relationships,and this inconsistency may stem from the inconsistent conceptualization of self-sacrifice.The study of immediate emotions helps to understand the long-term outcomes of relationships,and this research will focus on behavioral sacrifice and explore the effect of actual sacrificial behavior on emotion using immediate emotion as the outcome variable.Self-construal theory distinguishes between the interdependent self and the independent self,and an important difference between the two is whether self-representation takes place in the context of others and relationships.Self-sacrifice in close relationships involves a game of self and partner interests,and this distinction in self-representation has been shown to have a significant impact on self-sacrifice.However,little is known about the exact effects of self-construal on behavioral sacrifice and emotional consequences in close relationships within a Chinese cultural context.This study builds on previous research by defining the scope of self-sacrificing behavior through three sub-studies,exploring the relationship between self-sacrificing behavior and immediate emotions and the influence of self-construal in this context.Study 1 constructs a script of Chinese couples’ self-sacrificing behaviors through a qualitative research approach,and also investigates the basic situation of self-sacrificing behaviors in three dimensions: frequency,cost,and gender distribution.The results showed that the main sacrifice categories of couples included 34 entries,and there were differences in the frequency,cost,and gender distribution of sacrificing behaviors in different categories;Study 2 explored the effects of different types of sacrificial contexts on immediate emotions and the interaction between different types of sacrificial contexts and self-construal through a mixed design of 2(self-construal initiation type:independent/interdependent)×2(sacrificial context type: high-cost/low-cost),and the results showed significant main effects of cost and significant interaction with self-construal for sacrificial contexts;Study 3 explored the two-way,dynamic relationship between sacrificial behavior and emotion on time scales and the moderating effect of self-construal on sacrificial behavior and emotion through an intensive one-week follow-up design by Dynamic Structure Equation Modeling for a total of 3160 valid data points for 84 subjects.The results demonstrated the negative predictive effect of sacrificial behavior on positive emotions and the moderating effect of self-construal.In summary,this study combines qualitative and quantitative research approaches to construct culturally valid scripts of self-sacrificing behaviors,demonstrate the relationship between self-sacrificing behaviors and emotions and the moderating role of self-construal,promote the localization of self-sacrificing research,and further provide evidence to support how to better maintain and promote the development of intimate relationships.