Hint of the Month and News Update - May, 2003
 
Self Confidence, Self Esteem and Relationship Quality
All the Prepare and Enrich inventories provide an assessment of partners’ levels of self confidence.  Assuming that self confidence and self esteem are highly similar concepts, the findings of a recent American study are worth noting (Murray, Sandra; Rose, Paul; Bellavia, Gina; Holmes, John, & Kusche, Anna, When Rejection Stings: How Self-Esteem Constrains Relationship-Enhancement Processes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2002, 83, p 556–573). 
The authors conducted three experiments examining how needs for acceptance might constrain people with low self-esteem as they seek to protect their relationships in the face of difficulties. Having assessed participants’ levels of self esteem using a self-report scale, they led participants to believe that their partner perceived a problem in their relationship. They then measured perceptions of the partner's acceptance, partner enhancement, and closeness. 

Low self esteem participants... 

  • tended to read too much into problems, seeing them as a sign that their partner's affections and commitment might be waning. 
  • they then tended to derogate their partner and to reduce closeness. 
High self-esteem participants... 
  • being less sensitive to rejection, tended to affirm their partner in the face of threat. 
The authors comment that the “… experience of slights and hurts at the hands of one's partner is likely an inevitable feature of romantic life.  After all, no partner is perfect, and even ambiguous behaviors, if sufficiently scrutinized, might seem to reveal a partner's irritation, disappointment, or disinterest in the self.  The challenge in romantic life then becomes preventing such occasional feelings of hurt or rejection from triggering dependency regulation processes and, thus, the defensive devaluation of the partner (and the delivery of reciprocal slights)”. It is also possible that chronic needs for acceptance may result in partners with low self-esteem tending to see signs of rejection where none exist.  It would seem to be reasonable to assume that partners with low self confidence might also be likely to react in a similar way. 
For partners with high self-esteem (or high self confidence), confident expectations of acceptance may lessen the sting of occasional hurts in such a way that lessens the need to distance the self from an (occasionally) hurtful partner.  For people with low self-esteem the authors comments that “…the partner's slightest offense is likely to be overgeneralized and seen as a sign of impending rejection, thereby triggering dependency regulation processes. In this way, the desire to protect themselves against the hurt of rejection could ultimately and ironically result in lows undermining the very attachment bonds they so strongly want and need to preserve”. 

These findings suggest that it would be helpful to be alert to these dynamics when working with a partner (or partners) with low self confidence. 

    News Update:  
    The June issue of the Newsletter, the Prepare Diary, will be released on this web site in mid-June at the latest. 

    Prepare-CC (for cohabiting couples intending to marry) packs may now be ordered (see the item in the December 2002 newsletter on our website for details). 

    Processing  for the old (pre-version 2000) versions of the Prepare-Enrich inventories is no longer available.  If you have not yet updated your accreditation to Version 2000 please see the list of Training Days and update as soon as possible.