Perceptions of partner social control: accuracy, bias, and daily experience

Abstract

Objective

We examined accuracy and bias in people’s perceptions of their romantic partner’s daily social control attempts of daily health behaviours and how misperceptions of partner daily social control are related to both partners’ daily experiences.

Design

106 cohabiting couples from the community reported on their own and their partner’s daily social control attempts (i.e., persuasion, pressure) and their daily experiences (i.e., positive and negative affect, autonomy, relationship satisfaction) across 14 consecutive days (N = 2377 reports). Multilevel path models examined tracking accuracy, projection, and mean-level bias in perceptions of partner health social control attempts, and associations between mean-level bias and daily experiences.

Results

Perceptions of provider influence contained significant tracking accuracy, projection, and mean-level accuracy in provider use of social control. Underperceptions of persuasion were associated with negative outcomes for the perceiver and no outcomes for the provider. Overperceptions of persuasion were associated with negative outcomes for providers and marginally higher positive affect for perceivers. Misperceptions of pressure were associated with negative outcomes for both perceivers and providers.

Conclusion

Results suggest that social control may have the most benefit and least harm to both partners when people accurately perceive the mean-levels of such influence attempts on their health behaviours.

Keywords:

• Accuracy and bias
• health behaviour
• person perception
• romantic relationships
• social control

Disclosure of interest

The authors report no conflict of interest.

Funding

Collection of these data was supported by startup funds awarded to Judith Gere by Kent State University.

Data availability statement

As our sample comprises romantic partners reporting potentially sensitive and personal information about each other, to help ensure privacy and risk of identification, data will not be publicly available but will be made privately available upon request.

Notes

1 As our sample comprises romantic partners reporting potentially sensitive and personal information about each other, to help ensure privacy and risk of identification, data will not be publicly available but will be made privately available upon request.

Additional information

Funding

Collection of these data was supported by startup funds awarded to Judith Gere by Kent State University.

Notes on contributors

Jessica E. LaBuda

Jessica E. LaBuda is a corresponding author, and she is a doctoral student in the Department of Psychological Sciences at Kent State University. Her research program focuses on accuracy and bias in romantic partners’ perceptions of one another’s motivations, emotions, and various dyadic interactions and how such perceptions relate to relationship functioning.

Logan B. Kochendorfer

Logan B. Kochendorfer is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at Rockhurst University. Her research seeks to better understand which mechanisms might foster high-quality close relationship experiences in adolescence and emerging adulthood.

Judith Gere

Judith Gere also a corresponding author, and she is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences at Kent State University. Her research focuses on goal pursuit among romantic partners, well-being, and accuracy and bias in partners’ perceptions of each other.