The Mismeasure of Love: How Self-Doubt Contaminates Relationship Beliefs

Abstract

The authors argue that individuals with more negative models of self are involved in less satisfying relationships because they have difficulty believing that they are loved by good partners. Dating and married couples completed measures of self-models, perceptions of the partner’s love, perceptions of the partner, and relationship well-being. The results revealed that individuals troubled by self-doubt underestimated the strength of their partners’ love. Such unwarranted insecurities predicted less positive perceptions of their partners. In conjunction, feeling less loved by a less-valuable partner predicted less satisfaction and less optimism for the future than the partner’s feelings of love and commitment warranted. A dependency regulation model is described, where feeling loved by a good, responsive partner is thought to represent a sense of felt security that diminishes the risks of interdependence and promotes closeness.