Dating Relationship Quality: Effects of Global Self-Verification and Self-Enhancement

Abstract

This study explored the effects of self-verification and self enhancement on dating relationship quality. We predicted that dating persons should be more intimate, satisfied, and committed when they perceive that their partners evaluate them in ways that are either consistent with or more positive than their own self-evaluations. A survey of dating undergraduate women involved in stable dating relationships tested these predictions, using global and specific measures of self-evaluations and perceived partner evaluations of the self. Global self-verification and self-enhancement each accounted for unique variance in measures of intimacy and satisfaction. Parallel findings emerged with regard to self-verification and self-enhancement based upon specific self-attributes, although these findings were less robust. Divergence from earlier work that suggested no role for self-verification among dating couples is discussed, and implications of self-verification and self-enhancement for relationship quality during courtship are addressed.