On the Peculiarities of Loyalty: A Diary Study of Responses to Dissatisfaction in Everyday Life

Abstract

Research on exit, voice, loyalty, and neglect suggests an enigma: Whereas responding to dissatisfying incidents with exit or neglect is generally harmful-and whereas voice is generally beneficial loyalty does not reliably yield favorable consequences. A diary study of dating partners' responses to dissatisfying incidents revealed results consistent with two explanations of the unreliable payoffs of loyalty. First, loyalty is less "visible" than the other responses: Partners exhibited less agreement about the occurrence of loyalty than other responses; individuals reported greater frequencies of loyalty for themselves than for their partners; and there were greater discrepancies between perceived frequencies of voice relative to loyalty for partner than for self: Thus, when an individual behaves loyally, this response frequently remains unnoticed (or is misinterpreted). Second, because acts of loyalty operate in an indirect manner; they frequently produce less extreme outcomes: Although loyalty responses were judged to yield more constructive consequences than exit and neglect, loyalty was judged less constructive than voice.