More Information About Dr. Prager's work
Processes in Couple Relationships
Teaching and Professional Practice
Selected Papers and Publications
Research on Intimacy Processes in Couple Relationships
A recent National Opinion Research Survey tells us that, once our survival needs are met, no single aspect of our lives contributes more to our satisfaction with life or to our sense of psychological well-being than our intimate relationships. Yet despite our best efforts, the seeds of relationship demise are often visible from the very beginning of a relationship.
Our research explores the specific contributions of intimacy processes in relationships to individual need fulfillment and well-being and to relationship success.
We are exploring possible mechanisms by which intimacy exerts its well-documented effects on well-being and relationship satisfaction. One possibility is that intimacy fulfills important psychological needs, and its contribution to psychological need fulfillment accounts for its effects on well-being. Psychological need fulfillment should be closely linked to well-being.
We have collected questionnaire, interview, and interaction record data on approximately 120 cohabiting (mostly heterosexual) couples.
Thus far, our results suggest that intimacy is
significantly related to individual need fulfillment, individual well-being, and
relationship satisfaction. Intimacy's well-documented association with individual
well-being is mediated by its relationship with need fulfillment, itself closely
associated with well-being.
Partners who engage in more frequent intimate interactions
have a fuller, more accurate understanding of one another's psychological needs.
Currently, Tonya Lippert and I are examining couples' working definitions of intimacy as they emerge in their day-to-day interactions with each other, in the hopes of identifying key interaction characteristics that make unique contributions to people's implicit conceptions of intimate relating.
Jane Ojeda and I are investigating the role of partners' understanding of one another's psychological needs as these predict relationship satisfaction and partners' individual well-being.