PERCEIVING ONES ROMANTIC PARTNER - SCHEMA STRUCTURE AND AFFECTIVE EXTREMITY

This study attempted to extend research on cognitive structure and aff ective extremity to help understand the dynamics of interpersonal rela tionships. Individual members of dating couple relationships (n = 51) described their partners in a card-sorting task used to assess cogniti ve complexity and completed measures of affect in their relationships. Contrary to earlier studies that had found a number of cognitive dime nsions to play a large role in judgemental extremity, the redundancy o f the dimensions (i.e. whether unique or the same attributes were used to describe different facets of the partner) was most important. Grea ter redundancy in a perceiver's cognitive representation of the partne r was associated with greater perceived likelihood of remaining with t he partner, and greater positive affect and less negative affect being felt toward the partner.