Interpersonal perception in close relationships : shared and private worlds in spouses' perceptions of each other

Abstract: The purpose of the dissertation was to investigate shared and private views in spouses’ perception of each other by means of survey-data. The views concerns areas such as values, love, personality-traits, emotions, communications-strategies and meta-perspectives on Self and partner.The dissertation is based on four studies and an introduction to the field of research. Study 1, investigated the importance and the attainment of different life-values for married and divorced couples. Factor analysis revealed five value-dimensions: coordination, personal satisfaction, altruistic values, emotional values and communication. For all dimensions, except for emotional values, divorced persons experienced less value attainment than did married persons. Importance ratings tended to be on the same level for both married and divorced persons.The result indicated that both married and divorced persons wanted approximately the same objectives from their marriage, but divorced persons are less successful in attaining these objectives. In Study 2, the congruence or incongruence of value-profiles for married and divorced couples was studied. Married persons and males perceived more value-congruence between their own and their partner’s values than was true for divorced persons. Divorced persons perceived their value-systems to develop in different directions. Study 3 examined how married or divorced males and females experienced their own and their partner’s ability for love and communication.Both married and divorced persons experienced that their partners expressed less love than they did themselves. However, both spouse’s saw themselves and their partner as experiencing the same degree of problem in the relationship. The divorced persons also saw their partner as less able listeners than was true for themselves. In Study 4, the theoretical construct of spouses’ Òshared realitesÓ was examined. Results indicated that within couples there was a common ÒtemperatureÓ (uniformity in the evaluative level or ratings of traits and emotion of oneself and the partner) that varied across partners in line with how much spouses loved each other. It was concluded that the thesis was revolving around two closely related themes: Shared or private realities and the evaluation of Self and partner, which in turn reflects love.