Initially when reading that supportive partners make you less motivated, I thought of social loafing. The idea makes sense, because when you feel like you have another trustworthy and competent person to rely on, you expect them to carry the weight in various situations. You know that they're there for you, and therefore you expect that they are also able to help you. The idea that surprised me was that if you rely on your partner heavily, you will develop a closer bond. Although I understand that if you feel comfortable together and can rely on each other you'll ultimately be closer, but I would think that if you rely so much on your significant other and look to them for many things, they would get annoyed and irritated at you and this would weaken your bond.
The experiments were a little difficult to follow because there was just so much information included (and various other things were cited). In experiment one, I know that it said women were only taken into account because they prioritize health and fitness goals more than men do, but this also seems to be an unfair representation. It seems like you would want at least a little male perspective so the study is not so biased.
The two greatest health goals that I have are exercising regularly and eating healthily. Having a supportive partner would help if they also had the same goals as I did. We would be able to motivate each other and work as a team to make the goals happen. I wouldn't expect that having a supportive partner would bring me down in achieving these goals unless they held much different values than I do.
I agree that it's unfair they only used women. It would be really interesting I think to have a male perspective on the whole thing. Especially to see if the effects are the same.
I agree it was difficult to follow. It's good to know I wasn't the only one a little confused!
I completely agree with you in regards to the closer bond issue. It makes sense that too much reliance would get obnoxious. Perhaps a clingy partner could be explained as someone who is trying to create a closer bond with someone and the other person is not ready to reciprocate those feelings.
Interesting points made by everyone. Here are some things to consider:
1) When we talk about "closer bonds," you might want to consider that closer bonds don't necessarily imply positive sentiment, at least from my understanding of the research. In particular, the authors talked about closer bonds in terms of commitment. And although it seems like commitment should be something that is inherently positive, relationships researchers don't necessarily think of commitment as such. In fact, a key component of commitment is "investment size," or shared resources. And the most glaring example we use is those of battered spouses. You would think, "How can a battered wife be committed to an abusive husband?" But battered wives are often extremely committed to abusive husbands, and it's because of SHARED RESOURCES such as kids or financial stability, not because of any positive sentiment. So you are right in that being over-reliant might cause annoyance. But you can still be annoyed and highly committed.
On another note, consider that they considered how committed the person SEEKING help was. It very well could be that the other partner would show less commitment if we were somehow able to get his or her own thoughts. However, why might it be impractical to get both partner's thoughts?
2) Also, I share your misgivings about the focus on women. I thought the justification for a female-only sample was weak at best, and look forward to discussing this issue during class.