Similarity and assumed similarity of attitudes between husbands and wives.

Abstract

Similarity of attitudes, interpreted as reward via consensual validation, has been found to exert a positive effect on interpersonal attraction. It was hypothesized that with respect to relatively important topics, husbands and wives have similar attitudes. Working from Newcomb's A-B-X model, it was further hypothesized that assumed similarity of attitudes is greater than actual similarity. Ss were 36 married couples who responded to Rokeach's Left Opinionation, Right Opinionation, and Dogmatism scales as they themselves felt and as they guessed their spouses would respond. As predicted, significant husband-wife correlations were found for all 3 scales. Further, the correlations indicating assumed similarity (the relationship between self-scores and assumed spouse scores) were significantly larger than the actual husband-wife relationships, regardless of length of marriage. (30 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)