The role of interpersonal perception in dyadic adjustment

Romantic Passion as Output from a Self-Regulating, Intimacy-Seeking System: A Model for Understanding Passionate Love

This article presents a model of why individuals experience the feeling of passionate love in intimate relationships. Previous models have been limited because they do not describe the purpose and function of passionate love, do not incorporate basic emotion and personality theory, or are not applicable to help couples in distress. The present model reinterprets and integrates previous findings. New predictions are made about the functioning of passionate love in relationships by hypothesizing a self-regulating, intimacy-seeking system that produces passionate love as its outcome. A self-regulation model proposed by Carver and Scheier in 1998 is the template on which this model is based.

FIVE-FACTOR PERSONALITY SIMILARITY AND MARITAL ADJUSTMENT

No previous research has examined the relationship between marital adjustment and similarity of partner personality on a measure of the five-factor personality model. The present study examined this relationship in 99 married couples. Spousal similarity on the domains of Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Neuroticism, and several personality facets was related to marital adjustment. With the exception of Conscientiousness, the traits on which similarity was related to adjustment differed for husbands and wives. Reasons for these sex differences are discussed.

The marital relationship and health in women with chronic fatigue and immune dysfunction syndrome: views of wives and husbands

The purpose of this study was to describe the association between the marital relationship and the health of the wife with chronic fatigue and immune dysfunction syndrome (CFIDS). The convenience sample of 131 wives with CFIDS and their spouses reported their marital relationships similarly, but the wives reported higher CFIDS symptom scores. Marital adjustment scores, wives' conflict scores, and husbands' self-empathy scores were associated with wives' CFIDS symptom scores. Hierarchical multiple regression models showed wives with higher education, lengthier marriages, dyads with higher marital adjustment, and wives with less conflict and less support were predictive of lower problematic CFIDS symptoms.

Relationship beliefs, interpersonal perception, and marital adjustment

To test the hypothesis that relationship beliefs are related to marital adjustment, 46 married couples completed the Relationship Belief Inventory (RBI) and the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS). Significant correlations were found between the DAS scores and the D and S subscales of the RBI. It was shown that the low dyadic adjustment group made significantly more extreme evaluations compared to the high adjustment group. It also was found that individuals' perceptions of their spouses' relationship beliefs did not display the same trends observed with traditional personality questionnaire, in which marital adjustment was related to female accuracy and greater real similarity between spouses.