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Ideal Standards in Close RelationshipsTheirStructure and Functions

ARTICLE in CURRENT DIRECTIONS IN PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE · JUNE 2000

Impact Factor: 3.93 · DOI: 10.1111/1467-8721.00070

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Garth J O Fletcher

Victoria University of Wellington

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Jeffry A Simpson

University of Minnesota Twin Cities

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AbstractThis article describes the

Ideals Standards Model, whichdeals with the content andfunctions of partner and rela-tionship ideals in intimate rela-tionships. This model proposesthat there are three distinct cat-e g o r ie s o f p a r t n e r i d e a ls(warmth-loyalty, vital i ty-attractiveness, and status-resources), and that ideals havethree distinct functions (evalu-

ation, explanation, and regula-tion). The model also explainshow perceived discrepancies

between ide als and percep-tions of one’s current partneror relationship can have differ-ent consequences, dependingon which of two motivatingforces is active (the need to seethe partner or relationshippositively or the need to be ac-curate). Recent empirical stud-ies that support some of the

main features of the model aredescribed.

Keywordsideals; functions; discrepan-cies; relationships

How do people know whetherthey are in a good or a bad intimate

relationship? On what basis do

people decide whether to becomemore involved, live together, getmarried, or look for another mate?One answer to such questions isthat judgments about a particularrelationship might be based on theconsistency between ideal stan-dards, on the one hand, and per-ceptions of the current partner orrelationship, on the other. This ideais in common currency in folk wis-dom but has received relativelylittle attention in the scientific lit-

erature. Our research and theoreti-cal program over the past fewyears has confirmed that idealstandards do serve as pivotalknowledge structures in closerelationships. However, it has alsosuggested that the psychologicalprocesses through which idealstandards operate are complex.

THE IDEALSSTANDARDS MODEL

Relationship and partner idealsare central components of the so-cial mind that people use to guideand regulate their interpersonalworlds. According to our IdealsS t a n d a r d s M o d e l ( S i m p s on ,Fletcher, & Campbell, in press),partner and relationship ideals

may predate—and causally influ-ence—important judgments anddecisions in relationships. Theseideals comprise three interlockingcomponents: perceptions of theself, the partner, and the relation-ship. For example, a person’s part-ner ideal of “handsome and warm”represents a personally held idealthat specifies what the individualhopes and desires (the self), de-scribes a hypothetical other (the

partner), and specifies what theideal would be like in an intimaterelationship with the self (the rela-tionship).

According to our model, partnerand relationship ideals should be

based around three evaluative di-mensions: (a) warmth, commit-ment, and intimacy; (b) health, pas-sion, and attractiveness; and (c)status and resources. We derivedthese predictions from recent evo-

lutionary models which suggestthat each of these dimensions rep-resents a different “route” to ob-taining a mate and promotingone’s own reproductive fitness (seeGangestad & Simpson, in press).For example, by being attentive toa partner’s capacity for intimacyand commitment, an individualshould increase his or her chancesof finding a cooperative, commit-ted partner who is likely to be adevoted parent. By focusing on at-

tractiveness and health, an indi-vidual is likely to acquire a matewho is younger, healthier, and per-haps more fertile (especially in thecase of men choosing women).And by considering a partner’s re-sources and status, an individualshould be more likely to obtain amate who can ascend social hierar-chies and form coalitions with

Ideal Standards in Close Relationships:Their Structure and FunctionsGarth J.O. Fletcher and Jeffry A. Simpson1

Department of Psychology, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand(G.J.O.F.), and Department of Psychology, Texas A&M University,College Station, Texas (J.A.S.)

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other people who have—or can ac-quire—valued social status orother resources.

Why do people not “want it all”in terms of their ideals, seeking outmates who are incredibly attrac-tive, rich, and warm? First, rela-

tively few people fit such a stellardescription. Second, most peoplecould not attract such a person,even if one were available. Third,even if someone succeeded in at-tracting such a paragon, it might bedifficult to keep him or her. Inshort, people must normally maketrade-offs between these attributeswhen deciding whom to date ormarry.

Our Ideals Standards Modelproposes that partner and relation-ship ideals serve three functions:evaluation, explanation, and regu-lation. More specifically, the size of discrepancies between ideal stan-dards and perceptions of the cur-rent partner or relationship should

be used by individuals to (a) esti-mate and evaluate the quality of their partners and relationships(e.g., assess the appropriateness of potential or current partners or re-lationships), (b) explain or provide

an understanding of relationshipevents (e.g., give causal accountsexplaining relationship satisfac-tion, problems, or conflicts), and (c)regulate and make adjustments intheir relationships (e.g., predictand possibly control current part-ners or relationships).

Many relationship theoristshave proposed that people need toidealize and enhance their roman-tic partners and relationships. In-deed, there is good evidence that

individuals often do perceive theirpartners and relationships in an ex-cessively positive, Pollyanna-ishlight, and that the tendency to ide-alize one’s partner is associatedwith greater relationship satisfac-tion and lower rates of dissolution(see Murray & Holmes, 1996).

It is not difficult to understandwhy people are motivated to ideal-

ize their partners and relationships.To begin with, the costs of relation-ship co nfl ict and dissolutionshould motivate most individualsto perceive their partners and rela-tionships in the best possible light.From a rational standpoint, most

people know that approximately50% of marriages end in divorce, atleast in Western countries. Despitethis realization, the vast majority of people get married and have chil-dren at some point in their lives.Committing to a long-term rela-tionship, therefore, requires a leapof faith and a level of confidencethat may well be difficult to justifyon purely rational grounds. As aresult, psychological pressures tomake charitable and benevolent

judgments about one’s partner andrelationship must be strong tocounteract these forces. This mightexplain the potency of the enhance-ment motive in most relationships.

Thomas Huxley (1884) once la-mented that “the great tragedy of Science [is] the slaying of a beauti-ful hypothesis by an ugly fact” (p.244). In this case, the beautiful hy-pothesis is the presumed perva-siveness and dominance of the re-

lationship-enhancement motive.The ugly fact is that the vast major-ity of romantic relationships even-tually break up. This latter factsuggests that the relationship-enhancement motive is often eitherinoperative or displaced by other

basic motives in certain contexts.Our model proposes that part-

ner and relationship idealizationwill sometimes conflict with thegoal of being accurate, especiallywhen the effective prediction, ex-

planation, and control of partnersand relationships become impor-tant. Attempting to accurately un-derstand and attribute motives and

beliefs to others should be highlyadaptive in certain situations (suchas when deciding whether or not tostart or remain in a relationship, orwhen deciding how best to predictor control the behavior of others).

Indeed, evolutionary pressuresshould have selected humans to as-certain and face the truth—no mat-ter how bleak and depressing—insituations in which it was danger-ous or extremely costly to do oth-erwise.

How can the coexistence of thesetwo contrasting motives be recon-ciled? We believe that both en-hancement and accuracy motivesoperate, but under different condi-tions. Relationship interactions thatare highly threatening ought toincrease the power of esteem-maintenance goals, subverting ac-curate attributions about the part-ner or the relationship. However,when the need to make accurate,unbiased judgments becomes criti-cal in relationships (such as whenindividuals must decide whetheror not to date someone, get mar-ried, or have a child), the accuracymotive should take precedence.When couples settle into a comfort-able relationship phase of mainte-nance, the enhancement motiveshould once again become ascend-ant.

These contrasting motives haveimportant implications for under-

standing the consequences of dis-crepancies between ideals and per-ceptions of the current partner orrelationship. For example, whenenhancement motives predomi-nate, people should try to reduceideal-perception discrepancies(and, thus, improve the evaluationsthat stem from them) by using cog-nitive strategies that involve ratio-nalizing inconsistencies, alteringattributions, or changing what theyvalue in their partner or relation-

ship. We suspect that such pro-cesses often occur automaticallyand largely outside of consciousawareness. However, in situationsthat demand greater accuracy (e.g.,when important relationship deci-sions must be made, when attrac-tive alternative partners becomeavailable, or when difficult rela-tionship problems arise), moderate

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to large ideal-perception discrep-ancies should motivate individualsto engage in more in-depth analy-sis and information processing. Toreduce discrepancies, accuracy-motivated individuals are likely touse behavioral strategies, perhaps

attempting to change their own ortheir partners’ behavior. If indi-viduals eventually come to the con-clusion that the discrepancies areimportant but simply cannot be re-duced, they may leave the relation-ship, look for new partners, or seeksolace in other activities.

EMPIRICAL EVIDENCEFOR THE MODEL

We currently are testing some of our model’s basic postulates. Weinitially set out to identify thestructure and content of partnerand relationship ideals (Fletcher,Simpson, Thomas, & Giles, 1999).Adopting an inductive approach toidentifying the ideals dimensionsthat people spontaneously use, in afirst study we asked men andwomen to list all the traits or char-

acteristics that described their idealromantic partners and their idealromantic relationships.

In a se co nd study, anothersample of men and women thenrated the 78 items gathered in thefirst study in terms of perceivedimportance for their own stan-dards concerning ideal partnersand ideal relationships (using7-point scales where 1 = very unim-

portant and 7 = very important). Inorder to determine the underlying

structure of the perceived-impor-tance ratings of the ideals, we car-ried out two exploratory factoranalyses. A factor analysis of theideal-partner items revealed thethree factors we expected: (a) part-ner characteristics relevant to inti-macy, warmth, trust, and loyalty;(b) personality and appearancecharacteristics concerning how at-

tractive, energetic, and healthy thepartner is; and (c) characteristicsrelevant to the partner’s social sta-tus and re so urces. The ideal-relationship items produced twofactors that resembled two of thepartner-based ideals: (a) the impor-

tance of intimacy, loyalty, and sta- bility in a relationship and (b) theimportance of excitement and pas-sion in a relationship. The results of the factor analyses (the correlation,or loading, of each item on eachfactor) were used to assess whichitems belonged to which factors.We then summed the scores foritems belonging to each factor,separately for each participant, toproduce five separate scores repre-senting the perceived importanceof each general ideal category. Ad-ditional analyses and studies haveconfirmed the reliability and valid-ity of these derived measures of thefive factors.

The final study we reported(Fletcher, Simpson, Thomas, &Giles, 1999) tested a basic postulateof our model—that individualsevaluate their current partners andrelationships by comparing themagainst their ideal standards. To

test this hypothesis, we asked anew sample of men and women torank the importance of variousideal attributes and also to reporttheir perceptions of their currentpartner or relationship on itemstaken from the ideal-partner andideal-relationship scales. In addi-tion, we asked subjects to ratehow satisfied they were with theirrelationships. As predicted, indi-viduals who reported smaller dis-crepancies between their ideal

standards and their perceptions of the current partner and relation-ship rated their relationships morefavorably.

Although these studies pro-vided initial support for our model,they were cross-sectional in designand, therefore, could not test forpossible causal relationships. Toaddress this issue, we conducted a

longitudinal study (Fletcher, Simp-son, & Thomas, 1999). A largesample of individuals in newlyformed dating relationships com-pleted a battery of measures assess-ing perceptions of their currentpartner or relationship, the quality

of their relationship, and their idealstandards once a month for 3months, and then at 12 monthsafter the beginning of the rela-tionship. The first measurementtypically occurred 3 weeks after in-dividuals had started dating some-one.

As predicted, greater consis-tency between ideals and percep-tions of the current partner or rela-tionship (assessed at earlier timesin the relationship) predicted in-creases in relationship satisfactionover time. Indeed, how closelypartners matched individuals’ ide-als during the first month of datingstrongly predicted how individualsfelt about their relationships a full12 months after the dating started.However, also as expected, higherinitial levels of relationship satis-faction did not predict changes inlevels of consistency between ide-als and perceptions. These results

suggest that cognitive comparisons between ideal standards and per-ceptions of the current partner orrelationship are firmly in the cog-nitive driving seat in the initialstages of dating relationships.

We are currently investigatinghow self-perceptions, along withthe flexibility of ideal standards,are related to how individuals settheir ideal standards (Campbell,Simpson, Kashy, & Fletcher, inpress). The higher that individuals

set their ideal standards, the moredemanding they are in terms of how closely they expect their part-ners to match their ideal standards.Although this may seem paradoxi-cal, it is understandable in terms of other results showing that indi-viduals with more positive self-views (e.g., on the vitality-attrac-tiveness dimension) also possess

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both higher ideal standards andless flexible ideal standards. For ex-ample, if a man perceives himself as very fit and highly attractive, hecan set high expectations for ob-taining a partner who is also highlyfit and attractive. Moreover, if the

chosen partner subsequently turnsinto a “couch potato” and gainsweight, and this change is moni-tored by the man, then he is in astrong position to look for—andpossibly find—an alternative part-ner who meets his exacting stan-dards.

Many intriguing and importantquestions remain to be investi-gated. First, our theorizing con-cerning the different functions of

relationship-enhancement and ac-curacy motives remains specula-tive. Second, we still know rela-tively little about how individualsestablish and adjust their idealstandards over time. Third, andperhaps most important, there is aneed to understand and researchhow ideals function and changewithin their natural home—the dy-adic relationship. We know verylittle, for instance, about how idealstandards are communicated to the

partner, or what happens whenone partner is motivated to be ac-curate when the other partner ismotivated to enhance the relation-ship. We also know almost nothingabout whether possessing idealstandards that are similar to thoseheld by one’s partner facilitates arelationship’s functioning and

quality, or how partners might in-fluence one another concerning theperceived importance of particularideals.

CONCLUSION

It is hard to think of another do-main in social life in which theneeds for prediction, control, andexplanation are more pressing thanin intimate relationships. The re-search and theory we have re-ported here are part of a burgeon-ing area within social psychologythat is examining social cognitionin close relationships. For years, ithas been assumed that judgments

and perceptions of relationshipsdepend mainly on the nature of theindividuals and interactions in-volved. Our research shows thatthere exist hidden “third parties”—mental images of ideal partnersand ideal relationships—that alsoplay a critical role in influencing

judgments about relationships.

Recommended Reading

Fletcher, G.J.O., Simpson, J.A.,Thomas, G., & Giles, L. (1999).(See References)

Fletcher, G.J.O. , & Thomas, G.(1996). Lay theories in close rela-tionships: Their structure andfunction. In G.J.O. Fletcher & J.Fitness (Eds.), Knowledge struc-tures in close relationships: A social psychological approach (pp. 3–24).Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Murray, S.L., & Holmes, J.G. (1996).(See References)

Simpson, J.A., Fletcher, G.J.O., &Campbell, L.J. (in press). (See Ref-erences)

Note

1. Address correspondence to ei-ther Garth Fletcher, Department of Psychology, University of Canterbury,Christchurch, New Zealand, e-mail:[email protected], or to Jeffry A. Simpson, Department of Psy-chology, Texas A&M University, Col-lege Station, TX 77843-4235, e-mail: [email protected].

References

Campbell, L.J., Simpson, J.A., Kashy, D.A., &Fletcher, G.J.O. (in press). Ideal standards, theself, and flexibility of ideals in close relation-ships. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

Fletcher, G.J.O., Simpson, J.A., & Thomas, G.(1999). The role of ideals in early relationship de-velopment. Unpublished manuscript, Univer-sity of Canterbury, Christchurch, NewZealand.

Fletcher, G.J.O., Simpson, J.A., Thomas, G., &Giles, L. (1999). Ideals in intimate relation-ships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychol-ogy, 76 , 72–89.

Gangestad, S.W., & Simpson, J.A. (in press). Theevolution of human mating: Trade-offs andstrategic pluralism. Behavioral and Brain Sci-ences.

Huxley, T.H. (1884). Biogenesis and abiogenesis; col-lected essays, Vol. 8. London: Macmillan.

Murray, S.L., & Holmes, J.G. (1996). The construc-tion of relationship realities. In G.J.O. Fletcher& J. Fitness (Eds.), Knowledge structures in closerelationships: A social psychological approach (pp.91–120). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Simpson, J.A., Fletcher, G.J.O., & Campbell, L.J. (inpress). The structure and functions of idealstandards in close relationships. In G.J.O.Fletcher & M.S. Clark (Eds.), Blackwell handbook of social psychology: Interpersonal processes. Lon-don: Blackwell.

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