| dc.description.abstract | The present study examined the association between ego
identity status and the maintenance and success of long-term,
intimate, heterosexual relationships. This was guided in part by
Erik Erikson*s (1959, 1968) notion that identity achievement was a
necessary prerequisite for the attainment of intimacy- In
particular, the "similarity versus complementarity" (i.e., "birds
of a feather flock together" vs. "opposites attract") of ego
identity status as a possible determinant of the maintenance and
quality of such relationships was assessed. The sample for this
study consisted of 78 volunteer married couples obtained from a
variety of settings, primarily in the Thunder Bay area. Of these
78 couples, 40 were designated as "stable," and 38 as "unstable,"
on the basis of whether or not the couple had reported some recent
step towards dissolution in their relationship (usually separation)
and/or some recent involvement in marital counselling. All couples
were tested on Grotevant and Adams' (1984) self-report measure of
ego identity status, as well as on self-report measures of
relationship satisfaction, psychosocial intimacy, passionate love,
and spousal attitude similarity. Overall, it was noted that
spousal similarity in terms of ego identity status, as expected,
did tend to be related to the patterns of mate choice and marital
stability among the couples. Specifically, significant
correlations emerged between the spouses in the stable group on
their moratorium and diffusion subscale scores, while such
significant correlations were not seen in the unstable group nor in two randomly-paired control groups* In addition to this modest
similarity factor, it was also suggested by the data that the
"absolute levels of identity" may have played a key role in
influencing the marital satisfaction and stability of the couples.
As an example of this, the unstable marital group was found to have
significantly higher moratorium scores in comparison to the stable
group, while having lower identity achievement and psychosocial
intimacy scores. These latter two differences, however, appeared to
be largely associated with just the husbands in the sample. Similar
trends were also observed when expressing the identity data in
terms of J. E. Marcia's (1966) popular "identity status"
classification scheme, or when correlating the identity/intimacy
subscales with a continuous, paper-and-penci1 measure of marital
satisfaction. As far as passionate love and spousal identity
content similarity were concerned, these were also examined within
the context of marital stability and found to be strongly
related—as expected. However, contrary to expectations, these two
variables did not appear to be particularly important in terms of
"masking" or "suppressing" the complex relationship which may exist
between identity achievement and marital satisfaction. Thus, it
was tentatively concluded that the chances of a marriage being
successful may be enhanced to some extent if neither partner is
currently experiencing the "identity crisis," and if the husband in
particular, has achieved a secure sense of his own identity and is
capable of being intimate. Possible clinical implications of the
study and numerous directions for future research are also
thoroughly discussed. | |
