Emotional Attitude to Own Appearance and Appearance of the Spouse: Analysis of Relationships with the Relationship of Spouses to Themselves, Others, and the World

Abstract

The study analyzed the relationship of attitudes toward one’s appearance and appearance of the partner with attitude toward the own personality and that of the other persons’ in married men and women. The empirical object of the study included 52 married couples in a registered (26 couples) and unregistered (26 couples) marriage with a duration from 5 months to 26 years (M = 7.31; SD = 6.78). The age of the respondents was 20–45 years old (M = 30.26; SD = 7.31; all are residents of the Russian Federation; Russians). Methods included the following questionnaires: (1) “History of the couples’ relationships”; (2) “Estimated and informative interpretation of one’s appearance and its compliance with gender–age constructs”; (3) “Color test of relationships”; (4) “Method of diagnosing interpersonal relationships”; (5) “Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation-Behavior questionnaire”. Empirical data were analyzed with Spearman correlation analysis, Mann–Whitney U-test, Kruskal–Wallis H-test. The results were as follows: (1) in men and women the attitude to their appearance is related to the attitude to themselves; attitude to the spouse’s appearance is associated with the attitude to him or her; (2) in women, the assessment of their appearance is related to the attitude to their appearance; in men, the assessment of their appearance is related to the attitude to appearance of their spouses; (3) women’s attitude to their appearance is associated with the need for inclusion, while in the men’s case it is associated with the need for love; (4) men who emotionally reject their mothers are dissatisfied with the appearance of their wives.