In the Pursuit of Science 158 Personal Relationships, 17 (2010), 158–160. Printed in the United States of America. Copyright © 2010 IARR A TRIBUTE TO CARYL RUSBULT: DISTINGUISHED SCHOLAR In the Pursuit of Science Everybody reading these remembrances knows that Caryl was among the most es- teemed, most decorated, most infl uential scholars of close relationships our fi eld has known. Fewer people know that she appre- ciated philosophy of science and loved the humanities, and even fewer are aware of the myriad ways that this appreciation and love infl uenced her scholarship. This remembrance employs some of Caryl’s favorite quotations to discuss her approach to relationships sci- ence, an approach I imprinted on as a young scholar. “Whoever, in the pursuit of science, seeks after immediate practical utility, may generally rest assured that he will seek in vain. All that science can achieve is a perfect knowledge and a perfect understanding of the action of natural and moral forces.” —Hermann von Helmholtz Caryl studied topics of immense practical im- portance, and she never shied away from em- phasizing the applied value of her work. But she was, fi rst and foremost, a basic, theoreti- cally oriented scientist. She doggedly pursued truth not because of its “immediate practical utility,” but because of the inherent power, the visceral euphoria, of generating new knowl- edge. She conducted groundbreaking work on topics like relationship dissolution and do- mestic violence, and she was pleased on those frequent occasions when this work informed thinking beyond the ivory tower. However, for Caryl, discovering truth was the ultimate prize in itself. Those of us who trained under Caryl as graduate students internalized this zest for basic science. “The test of a man or woman’s breeding is how they behave in a quarrel.” —George Bernard Shaw Caryl’s groundbreaking work on close relationships started in 1980 with her articles introducing her investment model of com- mitment processes (e.g., Rusbult, 1980). Al- though few young scholars have launched their careers with such sparkling contributions, they were just the beginning; these initial fi reworks exploded into a 4th of July extravaganza as the decade progressed. In addition to fl eshing out the investment model (e.g., Rusbult, 1983), she developed her exit–voice–loyalty–neglect typology of responses to relationship dissatis- faction (Rusbult, Zembrodt, & Gunn, 1982), and she began her groundbreaking work on relationship maintenance mechanisms by demonstrating that highly committed individ- uals engage in motivated derogation of roman- tic alternatives (Johnson & Rusbult, 1989). This work set the stage for the 1990s, when Caryl published several of her most innovative and infl uential contributions to relationship science. She launched that decade by examin- ing how people “behave in a quarrel,” demon- strating the power of commitment to promote accommodating responses to potentially de- structive partner behavior (Rusbult, Verette, Whitney, Slovik, & Lipkus, 1991). I cut my teeth exploring related issues, investigating confl ict behavior in my masters and doctoral projects (Finkel & Campbell, 2001; Finkel, In the pursuit of science 159 Rusbult, Kumashiro, & Hannon, 2002), both of which benefi ted immeasurably from Caryl’s tutelage. In addition to this research on con- fl ict behavior, Caryl conducted related work in the 1990s demonstrating that strongly com- mitted people (a) are particularly willing to make personal sacrifi ces for the betterment of their relationship (Van Lange et al., 1997), (b) are particularly motivated to perceive their relationship as better than everybody else’s ( Rusbult, Van Lange, Wildschut, Yovetich, & Verette, 2000; Van Lange & Rusbult, 1995), and (c) are particularly likely to develop cogni- tive representations of their self as essentially embedded in (rather than independent from) their relationship (Agnew, Van Lange, Rusbult, & Langston, 1998). “I’m beginning to think that maybe it’s not just how much you love someone. Maybe what matters is who you are when you’re with them.” —Anne Tyler As the 1990s drew to a close, Caryl published two of her most important articles. In one, she presented a broad, sophisticated framework establishing the interpersonal processes un- derlying the mutual infl uence of commitment and trust (Wieselquist, Rusbult, Foster, & Ag- new, 1999). In the other, she ingeniously bor- rowed Michelangelo Buonarroti’s description of the sculpting process to achieve deep insight into human relationships (Drigotas, Rusbult, Wieselquist, & Whitton, 1999). Recognizing that individuals almost always have discrepan- cies between their actual self (the person they currently are) and their ideal self (the person they aspire to become), Caryl demonstrated that close relationship partners can help indi- viduals bridge that gap, promoting individu- als’ growth over time toward their ideal self. This work on the Michelangelo phenomenon has inspired me not only to work with Caryl to elaborate the model (e.g., Rusbult, Finkel, & Kumashiro, 2009; Rusbult, Kumashiro, Kubacka, & Finkel, 2009) but also to investi- gate diverse additional ways that interpersonal processes infl uence individuals’ goals pursuit (e.g., Finkel et al., 2006; Fitzsimons & Finkel, in press). “Perhaps I did not always love him so well as I do now. But in such cases as these a good memory is unpardonable.” —Jane Austen In the 2000s, Caryl’s third and fi nal decade as a relationships scholar, she continued to venture into new territory. Among other contributions, she put a relational twist on classic research domains in social cognition and cognitive psy- chology. For example, she established the role that involvement in well- adjusted relationships has on individuals’ attitudes ( Davis & Rusbult, 2001), and she demonstrated that individuals’ memories for relationship- relevant events are biased in prorelationship ways to the extent that the individuals trust their partner (Wi- eselquist et al., 2010). This benevolent memory research has inspired me to explore how di- verse relationship characteristics can bias not only memories of the past but also affective forecasts for the future (e.g., Eastwick, Finkel, Krishnamurti, & Loewenstein, 2008). “Only connect.” —E. M. Forster Caryl built a career’s worth of beautiful schol- arship around the idea that close relationships “are both the foundation and the theme of the human condition” (Berscheid, 1999, p. 261). Caryl was, for three decades, a leading inter- dependence theory scholar because she rec- ognized, as much as anybody, how essential relational processes are to the human experi- ence. She lamented what she perceived as the overemphasis on individual differences in re- lationships research (including the enormous emphasis on attachment styles), stressing in- stead the primary importance of understand- ing situation structure and dyadic processes ( Rusbult & Van Lange, 2008). Caryl has served as a role model to me in almost all ways since I started graduate school in 1997 as her pupil at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (affection- ately known as Carolina). I have sought to emulate her emphasis on basic, theoretically driven science; her investigation of interesting research topics; and her deep appreciation for the importance of close relationships. More 160 E. J. Finkel recently, I have also sought to emulate her per- sonal grace. If I ever face hardship anything like Caryl did with her cancer in the fi nal 2–3 years— especially in the fi nal 2–3 months—of her short life, I hope I face it with half as much dignity as she did. In her waning months, Caryl thought about her forthcoming memorial services. Toward her goal of making them fun, happy events, she selected the music she wanted played. I listen to that playlist all the time these days. I reminisce nostalgically about the years Caryl and I spent together when I was in graduate school, and I fi nd myself humming a line from one of the songs: “You must forgive me/If I’m up and gone to Carolina in my mind” (James Taylor). This one, too: “And I love her” (John Lennon and Paul McCartney). ELI J. FINKEL Northwestern University References Agnew, C. R., Van Lange, P. A. M., Rusbult, C. E., & Langston, C. A. (1998). Cognitive interdependence: Commitment and the mental representation of close relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 939–954. Berscheid, E. (1999). The greening of relationship sci- ence. American Psychologist, 54, 260–266. Davis, J. L., & Rusbult, C. E. (2001). Attitude alignment in close relationships. 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