Validating a Measure of Self and Partner Change in Romantic Relationships: The Perceived Change in Relationships Scale

Abstract

In romantic relationships, individuals take attributes of their romantic partner into their own self-concept, thus becoming increasingly similar to their partner. The current research tested the possibility that some individuals may take on the characteristics of their romantic partner to a greater extent. The Perceived Change in Relationships Scale was designed to measure the extent to which individuals report changing to be like their romantic partners and report that their romantic partners change to be more like them. We investigated the properties of this scale across two studies. The first study explored the factor structure of the scale. The second study demonstrated that generally perceiving greater self-change in relationships predicted individuals actually altering their self-concepts in romantic contexts.

Keywords:

• Self-concept
• Romantic relationships
• Identity
• Self-change

Notes

Participants' ratings of the idiosyncratic not me attribute prior to viewing the novel target's profile did not vary by the context that the participants later viewed the target's profile in, reported self-change in relationships, or reported partner-change in relationships.

The central interaction effect remained robust beyond, and was not moderated by participant gender or age.