Basic psychological needs predict participants' attitudes and expectations towards marriage

Abstract

Although modern societies are characterized by a constant decrease in marriage rates and an increase in divorce rates, individuals today still hold positive attitudes towards marriage and parenthood, and aim to nurture a marital union themselves in their adult age. Nevertheless, individuals differ with respect to the degree in which they deliberately plan and strive to achieve such intimate unions. In addition, individuals differ with respect to the quality of their initial expectations towards future marriage, as well as their attitudes towards the possibility of a divorce. In explaining such individual differences, previous studies have emphasized the importance of primary family structure and experiences. Expanding these findings, the present study explored the influence of individuals' satisfaction with primary family relations, as well as personal psychological needs, on their intimacy goals, marriage expectations and attitudes towards divorce. The obtained results indicate the need for relatedness as the only significant predictor of intimacy goals. While the intimacy goal and the need for autonomy were identified as significant predictors of marriage idealization tendencies, the number of siblings, the need for autonomy, and marriage idealization tendencies were identified as significant predictors of attitudes towards divorce. These results confirm the importance of basic psychological needs in defining our relationships goals, as well as our attitudes and expectations towards future marriage and divorce.

Keywords::

• basic needs
• intimacy goals
• marital expectations
• attitudes towards divorce

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.