What the motivated mind sees: Comparing friends’ perspectives to married partners’ views of each other

This article argues that satisfaction in marriage is associated with motivated and benevolent biases in perception. Married couples individually completed measures of relationship satisfaction and described themselves and their partners on a series of virtues and faults. They also nominated friends who described each spouse on the identical qualities. The results revealed that intimates in satisfying marriages perceive more virtue in their partners than their friends or their partners themselves perceive. They also possess partners who see them in this benevolently distorted light. In contrast, intimates in less satisfying marriages perceive less virtue in their partners than their friends or their partners themselves perceive. The findings are discussed in terms of the role motivated cognition plays in sustaining satisfying relationships.