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2 - Self-Evaluation Motives in Close Relationships: A Model of Global Enhancement and Specific Verification

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 July 2009

By
Lisa A. Neff  and
Benjamin R. Karney
Edited by
Patricia Noller  and
Judith A. Feeney
Lisa A. Neff
Affiliation:
University of Florida
Benjamin R. Karney
Affiliation:
University of Florida
Patricia Noller
Affiliation:
University of Queensland
Judith A. Feeney
Affiliation:
University of Queensland
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Summary

In their classic work on marriage, Berger and Kellner wrote: “The reality of the world is sustained through conversation with significant others” (1964, p. 53). Spouses, in particular, are said to provide each other with the most important source of feedback about the nature of the social world. More notably, spouses provide each other with the most important source of feedback about themselves (Berger & Kellner, 1964). Marriage involves an identity negotiation process in which spouses must determine the roles and characteristics each will assume within the relationship (for example, Schlenker, 1984). Marital satisfaction, then, may rest on whether spouses accept the identities each will hold in the marriage, and thus view and treat the other in the desired manner (Schlenker, 1984; Swann, 1984).

In fact, abundant evidence suggests that the feedback spouses provide one another concerning their identity within the relationship is associated with marital well-being. How intimates view one another has been linked to both the satisfaction and the stability of a relationship (for example, Murray, Holmes, & Griffin, 1996a; 1996b; Swann, De La Ronde, & Hixon, 1994). Nevertheless, researchers disagree on the type of feedback that is associated with positive relationship outcomes. Do spouses in satisfying relationships provide each other with favorable feedback, casting even negative qualities in a more positive light? Or do these spouses convey an accurate understanding of each other's qualities, acknowledging both strengths and weaknesses?

Type
Chapter
Information
Understanding Marriage
Developments in the Study of Couple Interaction
 , pp. 32 - 58
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2002

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