The stability of college students' implicit theories of marriage

Recent research by Fitzpatrick and Perse, Pavitt, and Burggraf has used the Relational Dimensions Instrument (RDI) to examine people's “implicit theories of marriage,”; or general beliefs about the characteristics of the ideal marriage. The claim that these beliefs can be categorized as implicit theories presumes that they remain fairly stable over significant periods of time. As a test of this presumption, college students made two sets of judgments of the “ideal marriage”; one year apart using the RDI. The results show little stability for these judgments and casts doubt on whether college students’ implicit theories of marriage are tapped by the RDI.

Key concepts:

• RDI
• test‐retest reliability
• stability
• methodology
• implicit theory