M. Attridge et al., PREDICTING RELATIONSHIP STABILITY FROM BOTH PARTNERS VERSUS ONE, Journal of personality and social psychology, 69(2), 1995, pp. 254-268
This study investigated whether longitudinal predictions of stability
are improved when assessments of the relationship are obtained from bo
th members of the couple rather than just from 1 partner and, if so, w
hich partner's assessments are the most diagnostic of stability. Both
partners in 120 dating couples provided self-report assessments on 16
relationship dimensions, and 6 months later 2 outcomes were examined:
stability and emotional distress if breakup had occurred. Assessments
from both partners were more predictive of stability than were assessm
ents from I (randomly chosen) partner, but the improvement was small.
Assessments from female partners were no more predictive of stability
than were those from male partners. However, assessments from ''weak-l
ink'' partners (whose standing on stability indicators was lower than
the other member of the couple) were significantly more diagnostic of
stability than were those from ''strong-link'' partners. These and oth
er findings are discussed.