Putting the partner within reach: a dyadic perspective on felt security in close relationships.

@article{Murray2005PuttingTP,
  title={Putting the partner within reach: a dyadic perspective on felt security in close relationships.},
  author={Sandra L. Murray and Paul Rose and John G. Holmes and Jaye L. Derrick and Eric J. Podchaski and Gina M. Bellavia and Dale W. Griffin},
  journal={Journal of personality and social psychology},
  year={2005},
  volume={88 2},
  pages={
          327-47
        }
}
The authors argue that felt insecurity in a partner's positive regard and caring stems from a specifically dyadic perception--the perception that a partner is out of one's league. A cross-sectional sample of dating couples revealed that people with low self-esteem feel inferior to their partner and that such feelings of relative inferiority undermine felt security in the partner's regard. Three experiments examined the consequences of reducing such perceived discrepancies by pointing to either… 
View on PubMed
doi.org
91 Citations
Highly Influential Citations
4
Background Citations
40
Methods Citations
4
Results Citations
2

91 Citations

Enhancing relationship perceptions by reducing felt inferiority: The role of attachment style
To trust in a romantic partner’s acceptance and love, people need to believe they are just as good a person as their partner (and that their partner shares this perception). Yet, people low in…
The role of shared-values affirmation in enhancing the feelings of low self-esteem women about their relationships
People with low self-esteem (LSEs) tend to have unwarranted insecurities about their relationships (Murray, Holmes, & Griffin, 2000). We examine whether LSEs' perceptions of their partners'…
Putting Yourself on the Line: Self-Esteem and Expressing Affection in Romantic Relationships
TLDR
It is found that participants with lower SE expressed less affection and experienced less positive emotional, cognitive, and physiological reactions when doing so and that their partners derived fewer benefits from their affection despite that their partner experienced normative boosts in positive emotion and relationship satisfaction.
Self-Esteem and Communal Responsiveness Toward a Flawed Partner: The Fair-Weather Care of Low-Self-Esteem Individuals
TLDR
In Study 3, individuals with low (but not high) self-esteem provided less emotional support and experienced more public image threat when they learned that partners were socially incompetent.
Overcoming acceptance insensitivity: Increasing low self-esteem individuals' perceptions of value to their partners
People with low self-esteem (LSEs) often have doubts about how much their romantic partners love and value them. These doubts, which undermine their relationships, are difficult to overcome because…
For Better or Worse? Self-Esteem and the Contingencies of Acceptance in Marriage
TLDR
A longitudinal daily diary study examined the origins and consequences of perceiving a partner's acceptance and love as contingent on professional success, and revealed that low self-esteem men and women felt more accepted and loved by their partner on days when their professional lives were marked by success.
More than words: reframing compliments from romantic partners fosters security in low self-esteem individuals.
TLDR
LSEs can reframe affirmations from their partners to be as meaningful as HSEs generally believe them to be and, consequently, can feel just as secure and satisfied with their romantic relationships.
Becoming Irreplaceable: How Comparisons to the Partner's Alternatives Differentially Affect Low and High Self-Esteem People.
INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS AND GROUP PROCESSES When Low Self-Esteem Encourages Behaviors That Risk Rejection to Increase Interdependence: The Role of Relational Self-Construal
Increasing interdependence in an intimate relationship requires engaging in behaviors that risk rejection, such as expressing affection and asking for support. Who takes such risks and who avoids…
Perceived Regard Explains Self- Esteem Differences in Expressivity
TLDR
Findings suggest that LSEs’ expressiveness can be heightened through interventions that reduce their concerns about social acceptance and that self-esteem difference is mediated by their perceptions of the interaction partner’s regard for them.
...
...

References

SHOWING 1-10 OF 86 REFERENCES
Self-esteem and the quest for felt security: how perceived regard regulates attachment processes.
TLDR
It is proposed that personal feelings of self-esteem foster the level of confidence in a partner's regard critical for satisfying attachments, and a dependency regulation model is proposed, wherein felt security in a partners' perceived regard is suggested as a prime mechanism linking self- esteem to relational well-being.
Through the looking glass darkly? When self-doubts turn into relationship insecurities.
The authors argue that individuals regulate perceptions of their relationships in a self-protective way, finding virtue in their partners only when they feel confident that their partners also see…
The Mismeasure of Love: How Self-Doubt Contaminates Relationship Beliefs
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…
When rejection stings: how self-esteem constrains relationship-enhancement processes.
TLDR
It is found that chronic needs for acceptance may result in low self-esteem people seeing signs of rejection where none exist, needlessly weakening attachments.
The benefits of positive illusions: Idealization and the construction of satisfaction in close relationships.
It is proposed that satisfaction is associated with idealistic, rather than realistic, perceptions of one's partner. To provide baselines for assessing relationship illusions, both members of married…
Calibrating the sociometer: the relational contingencies of self-esteem.
TLDR
A longitudinal daily diary study examined how chronic perceptions of a partner's regard for oneself might affect the day-to-day relational contingencies of self-esteem, finding people who chronically felt more positively regarded compensated for one day's acute self-doubts by perceiving greater acceptance and love from their partner on subsequent days.
Did I do that? Self–esteem–related differences in reactions to romantic partners’ moods
This study examined the relation between self–esteem and responses to a romantic partner's moods. College students in dating relationships imagined one scenario in which their romantic partners were…
The self-fulfilling prophecy in close relationships: rejection sensitivity and rejection by romantic partners.
The authors hypothesized a self-fulfilling prophecy wherein rejection expectancies lead people to behave in ways that elicit rejection from their dating partners. The hypothesis was tested in 2…
The self-fulfilling nature of positive illusions in romantic relationships: love is not blind, but prescient.
TLDR
In this study of the long-term benefits (or possible costs) of positive illusions, both members of dating couples completed measures of idealization and well-being 3 times in a year to reveal that idealization had a variety of self-fulfilling effects.
Kindred spirits? The benefits of egocentrism in close relationships.
TLDR
The results revealed that people in satisfying and stable relationships assimilated their partners to themselves, perceiving similarities that were not evident in reality and mediated the link between egocentrism and satisfaction in marriage.
...
...