{"id":57913,"date":"2019-06-28T15:17:33","date_gmt":"2019-06-28T19:17:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsroom.carleton.ca\/?post_type=cu_story&p=57913"},"modified":"2025-10-20T10:33:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T14:33:06","slug":"relationship-conference-research-addresses-secrets-and-threats","status":"publish","type":"cu_story","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/story\/relationship-conference-research-addresses-secrets-and-threats\/","title":{"rendered":"Relationship Conference Research Addresses Secrets and Threats"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Relationship Conference Research Addresses Secrets and Threats\n <\/h1>\n \n <\/header>\n <\/div>\n\n \n <\/path>\n <\/path>\n <\/svg>\n <\/div>\n\n \n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n

Carleton University hosted the International Association for Relationship Research (IARR) Mini-Conference from June 20 to 22, 2019 and its theme, \u201cPositive Action in Relationships,\u201d took research from textbook to the real world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From increasing positivity in relationships such as gratitude and personal development, to the components of relationship functioning, like motivation and cognition, the conference attempted to spark discussion on many aspects of romantic unions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carleton PhD student Chantal Bacev-Giles presented research investigating the role of daily relationship threats as obstacles to trying new and exciting activities with a romantic partner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bacev-Giles says that it is known that people gain many positive benefits in their relationships when they add growth via new experiences. She took a unique approach by creating a 21-day diary study of community couples, looking at how daily relationship threats such as fearfulness and anxiousness can add negative consequences to engaging in new and exciting couple activities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Chantal
Chantal Bacev Giles<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

She is continuing the research in the Positive Activities in Intimate Relationships (PAIR) lab at Carleton, directed by conference organizer Cheryl Harasymchuk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Master\u2019s student Elisabeth Bailin Xie also presented at the gathering. She had the opportunity to take part in a Carleton University Research Opportunity (CUROP) in the third year of her undergrad and she began looking into secret keeping in romantic relationships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since then, she has been working with supervisor Chris Davis and PhD psychology student Hannah Brazeau, to research the topic further.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere is other research that suggests that secret keeping is harmful for the secret keeper\u2019s relationship and well-being. My research explores why it is harmful. Specifically, the mechanisms for why secret keeping contributes to lower personal and relationship well-being,\u201d Xie says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Elisabeth
Elisabeth Bailin Xie<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Her research dives into the social context of secret keeping and, more specifically, a new construct she calls \u201cfear of discovery\u2019\u2019 and a scale to measure it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur research shows that the fear of discovery, which is the fear that your secret will be discovered through some means other than disclosing the information yourself, is contributing to negative consequences,\u201d Xie says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She conducted three studies to test the validity of the scale which showed that fear of discovery is, essentially, a new mechanism that contributes to the negative consequences of secret keeping in romantic relationships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe types of secrets that are more harmful are those that may be discovered through ways that have other means of disclosure, whether that\u2019s text message or e-mail history,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Xie hopes that the research will have a major impact on romantic relationships in the real world. In addition to promoting awareness of the dangers of secret keeping, her research also points to the potential harm that \u201cfear of discovery\u201d can carry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Carleton University hosted the International Association for Relationship Research (IARR) Mini-Conference from June 20 to 22, 2019 and its theme, \u201cPositive Action in Relationships,\u201d took research from textbook to the real world. From increasing positivity in relationships such as gratitude and personal development, to the components of relationship functioning, like motivation and cognition, the conference […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":410,"featured_media":57915,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"cu_story_type":[13],"cu_story_tag":[1920],"class_list":["post-57913","cu_story","type-cu_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","cu_story_type-research-discovery","cu_story_tag-faculty-of-arts-and-social-sciences"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/57913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cu_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/410"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/57913\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98467,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/57913\/revisions\/98467"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cu_story_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_type?post=57913"},{"taxonomy":"cu_story_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_tag?post=57913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}