奖励敏感性与两性亲密关系中的激情保持

According to the survey data of Ministry of Civil Affairs of the PRC, the time node of high incidence of divorce has been brought forward to three years after marriage, other than seven years in the past. Divorce or romantic relationship interruption may derive from multiple reasons, one of which is failure of passion-keeping, so how to keep passion has been proved to be a feasible and effective way to make a satisfying intimacy relationship. Some studies with functional brain imaging techniques revealed that there is an overlap in brain areas activated by passion and rewards. Another studies indicated that couples with more rewording interactions reported higher quality with their intimate relationships. However, individuals with higher reward sensitivity are more apt to receive rewarding information in interpersonal communication, which in turn promote their intimate relationships. Therefore, investigation of how on passion in reinforcement sensitivity personality, especially sensitivity to rewards, influence passion-keeping may shed light on research about heterosexual romantic relationships. Based on previous research, this project starts with selecting couples of high and low sensitivities of rewards through questionnaire and behavior coding in natural context. By combination of multi-channel physiological recorder and functional near-infrared spectroscopy techniques, multimodal explorations of behavioral and neurophysiological mechanism are conducted to find how individual sensitivity to rewards influences passion-keeping in heterosexual couples. Both occurrence conditions and mechanism of such influences are investigated, and a theoretical model is established to evaluate the current situation and predict the future development of intimate relationships, in order to improve the quality of heterosexual intimate relationships.

民政部调查发现，我国离婚高发期已从过去的“七年之痒”提前为“三年之痒”和“一年之痒”。尽管离婚及恋爱关系中断的原因呈多模式化，激情保持在维系两性亲密关系质量方面能成为可行且有效的研究视角。以往研究采用脑功能成像技术发现，激情唤醒的脑区与奖赏激励系统脑区相重叠。在人际交往中，奖励敏感性高个体更易于接受奖励性信息，从而提高其关系质量。因此，探索个体奖励敏感性特质对激情保持的影响，将为促进两性亲密关系质量的研究提供新思路。本课题在前期研究基础上，拟通过问卷、行为观察与神经生理实验（近红外与生理十六导的联合技术）相结合的追踪研究，探讨个体奖励敏感性特质影响两性亲密关系中激情保持的行为和神经生理机制，以及这种影响的发生条件，从而为促进两性亲密关系质量提供实证性建议。

根据三角恋爱理论，激情是浪漫爱情不可或缺的组成部分。一些脑成像研究表明，亲密关系中的激情激发与大脑中的奖赏回路有关。本项目研究中我们假设，在亲密关系中个体的奖励敏感性特征也与激情有关。在第一项研究中，采用惩罚敏感度和奖励敏感度问卷、激情恋爱量表和三角恋爱量表，探讨了异性亲密度与强化敏感度的关系。在第二项研究中，采用近红外技术，研究了被试在被出示伴侣、朋友或陌生人的照片时，奖赏敏感性与情绪唤醒之间的神经生理学相互作用。结果表明，奖励敏感性与激情呈正相关，惩罚敏感性与亲密度、承诺度呈负相关。奖赏敏感性与照片类型在侧前额叶皮层（LPFC）存在显著的交互作用，额叶下回（IFG）与奖赏敏感性人格特征对伴侣的影响尤为显著。总体而言，研究结果支持强化敏感理论，强化敏感人格特质（奖惩敏感人格特质）与亲密关系相关，个体奖励敏感与激情唤起相关。本项目研究对亲密关系的研究方法和理论具有重要意义，也有助于家庭治疗等临床应用。