It's Not You, It's Me

Although automatic partner attitudes are a critical predictor of long-term relationship outcomes, we know very little about their more immediate implications. Different theoretical perspectives suggest different possibilities—automatic partner attitudes may predict (a) daily interpersonal judgments, (b) judgments of alternative sources, such as mood, or (c) no daily judgments if these attitudes are unconscious. We assessed automatic partner attitudes implicitly and interpersonal evaluations and mood via self-report for 14 days in a sample of newlywed couples. More negative partner attitudes were associated with more negative daily mood and less positive daily mood but not daily evaluations of the relationship over the 14 days. These findings suggest that people (a) do have access to the content of automatic evaluations but may not always realize their source but (b) may protect desired beliefs by explaining away automatic evaluations that are undesirable.