Abstract
This research describes perceived rules pertaining to honesty in romantic relationships, identifies sources of accuracy and bias affecting consensus on rules, and clarifies implications for couple conflict. Couples typically idealize honesty; yet, situational rules are vulnerable to different interpretations due to ambiguous properties of deception and pressures to balance openness with discretion. The research distinguishes obligatory rules, which prescribe disclosure or proscribe deception, and discretionary rules, which grant flexibility. Couples agreed on obligatory rules more than discretionary rules, although females endorsed obligatory rules more than males. Individuals overestimated agreement, overattributed sex-stereotypic rule endorsement to the partner, and showed minimal understanding of expectations unique to the partner. Agreement on obligatory rules was associated with lower conflict, whereas understanding predicted greater conflict.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
