Spending time with a romantic partner by going on dates is important for promoting closeness in established relationships; however, not all date nights are created equally, and some people might be more adept at planning dates that promote closeness. Drawing from the self-expansion model and relationship goals literature, we predicted that people higher (vs. lower) in approach relationship goals would be more likely to plan dates that are more exciting and, in turn, experience more self-expansion from the date and increased closeness with the partner. In Study 1, people in intimate relationships planned a date to initiate with their partners and forecasted the expected level of self-expansion and closeness from engaging in the date. In Study 2, a similar design was employed, but we also followed up with participants 1 week later to ask about the experience of engaging in their planned dates (e.g., self-expansion, closeness from the date). Taken together, the results suggest that people with higher (vs. lower) approach relationship goals derive more closeness from their dates, in part, because of their greater aptitude for planning dates that are more exciting and promote self-expansion.

通过约会与浪漫的伴侣共度时光对于增进已建立的关系中的亲密关系很重要；但是，并非所有约会之夜都是一样的，有些人可能更擅长计划约会，以增进亲密感。根据自我扩展模型和关系目标文献，我们预测接近关系目标较高（相对较低）的人将更有可能计划更令人兴奋的日期，从而从该日期开始经历更多的自我扩展并增加了与伙伴的亲密关系。在研究1中，有亲密关系的人计划了一个与伴侣一起约会的日期，并预测了参与约会后自我扩展和亲密关系的预期水平。在研究2中，采用了类似的设计，但是我们还与参与者在1周后进行了跟进，询问参与计划日期的经历（例如，自我扩展，从日期开始的亲近感）。两者合计，结果表明，接近关系目标较高（而不是更低）的人从约会中会获得更多的亲密感，部分原因是因为他们更倾向于计划日期，这更令人兴奋并促进自我扩展。