Title
The Role of Gender and Relationship Satisfaction in Partner and Self Ratings: Attractiveness, Intelligence, and Communication Abilities
Document Type
Presentation
Publication Date
4-12-2010
Faculty Sponsor
Dr. Elizabeth Morgan
Abstract
This study first explores if young adults in romantic relationships tend to rate themselves and their partner similarly on physical attractiveness, intellectual intelligence, emotional intelligence, and communication abilities. We then turn our focus to whether or not a self-rating on these four attributes correlates with relationship satisfaction. Participants included 116 men and 116 women, for a total of 232 participants. All participants were involved in a heterosexual dating relationship or marriage. Eighty percent of these participants were college students whose average age was 21.6. Based on physical attractiveness, females’ ratings showed a positive correlation between the ratings they gave themselves and the ratings they gave their partners. Male and female self-ratings tended to be similar. The correlation between males’ self- and partner-ratings were marginally significant. Ratings on intellectual intelligence were fairly similar among males and females but were not significantly correlated, likely due to low variance in scores. However, results for emotional intelligence were significant. There was a positive correlation between the ratings females gave themselves and the ratings they gave their partners. There was also a positive correlation between the ratings males gave themselves and the ratings they gave their partners. Women tended to rate themselves higher than their partners. Men also rated their female partners higher than themselves on this attribute. Differences in communication abilities were also found significant and followed the same patterns as emotion intelligence. There was a positive correlation between the ratings both males and females gave themselves and the ratings they gave their partners. Interestingly, females rated themselves higher than their partners while men rated their partners higher than they rated themselves. Even though men and women tended to view their partner on an equal level as themselves, we found significant differences within some of the attributes we examined. Results also showed that the higher couples rated physical attractiveness, intellectual intelligence, emotional intelligence, and communication within their relationship, the higher they rated their relationship satisfaction.