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Dear research participants!

I appreciate everyone who took the time and effort to participate in the study. Thank you! I also apologize for posting this information later than originally intended. Below is a summary of the group findings, as well as updates on the prize drawing and the future phases of this research:

Group Findings

The purpose of the study was (a) to introduce a new psychological construct, perceptual agreement, (b) to develop assessment measures for perceptual agreement, and (c) to understand how perceptual agreement relates to diverse aspects of personality and relationship behavior.

In simple terms, perceptual agreement is the similarity between partners' views of shared events or characteristics. For example, if a husband views himself as friendly but his wife thinks he is not, then there is perceptual disagreement about the husband's friendliness. Similarly, there may (or may not) be disagreement about the wife's friendliness.

In this research, perceptual agreement was conceived as a global aspect of how partners perceive one another. That is, perceptual agreement refers to the extent to which partners share a reality of their relationship, such as a jointly held vision of who they are and what their relationship is. I theorized that couples vary in perceptual agreement—some are higher than others, for example—and that these variations relate to other aspects of both couple processes and the experiences of partners as individuals. Among the questionnaires you completed was a measure by which you reported on the amount of perceptual agreement in your relationship. For participants who took part as couples, I was also able to quantify perceptual agreement in additional ways: based on the answers you both gave to many of the questionnaires, where you described your own and your partner's behaviors and experiences.

The first major finding of this study suggested that perceptual agreement could be measured reliably. Participants' descriptions of perceptual agreement in their relationships were consistent and cohesive, and they remained stable over time. Additionally, in the analysis of results for participating couples, I found that partners who agreed in their perceptions about one area (e.g., friendliness) also tended to agree in their perceptions about other areas (e.g., commitment). Furthermore, this agreement between partners largely did not change over time.

I also found that perceptual agreement is not related to demographic characteristics of couples, such as partners' age, gender, education, presence or number of children, sexual orientation, or racial background. Surprisingly, the length of the relationship also did not influence couples' standing on perceptual agreement.

Additional major findings provided evidence for the association between perceptual agreement and many aspects of partners' experiences as individuals (e.g., self-esteem) and as members of a couple (e.g., relationship satisfaction). For example, perceptual agreement was positively associated with partners' constructive communication. In fact, perceptual agreement strongly predicted how happy or unhappy participants felt about their relationships.

Another goal of this study was to understand why couples differ in perceptual agreement. Some indirect findings suggested that perceptual discrepancies among partners could be explained by the presence of what I termed "romantic expectations." That is, some individuals develop preconceived notions and expectations about how their relationships should be. They then tend to perceive their actual relationships through the lens of these expectations. As a result, such individuals are more likely to misperceive their partners.

Overall, the findings obtained so far provide strong evidence for the importance of this research and its potential implications. Your participation has made a very valuable contribution. I am very enthusiastic about continuing this endeavor and will do my best to disseminate the results within research and clinical communities.

Raffle Drawing Update

I apologize for the delay in conducting the raffle drawing. The drawing for prizes (an iPod and 5 books) was conducted in 2012, and all winners were contacted.

Follow-up Phases

I will be contacting registered research participants for brief online follow-ups. Some of you have already taken part in the re-test phase of this research. The follow-up phase will be even shorter (under 10 minutes) and will consist of fewer of the same questionnaires as the re-test phase. Of course, you are under no obligation to continue your participation.

Thank you again for your contribution,

Michael Ivanov, Ph.D.