Effect of Spousal Appraisal of Identity Consistency on Well-being of Married Females

Abstract

Our research frame work concerned on delineating the relationship between the perceived spousal appraisal of female’s Identity Consistency(IC) and its impact on their sense of wellbeing. Identity refers to a person’s sense of self as unique being developed out of the various intimate figures and associations of adolescence (Erikson, 1959). Previous research suggests that consistent self-image across intimate relationships is more valued in western society than eastern society (Heine, 2001; Heine & Lehman, 1997, 1999; Markus & Kitayama, 1994; Suh, 2002, English and Chen, 2011). Moreover, contradictory findings have been observed in eastern culture where Shuh (2002) in her study found consistency of Identity is less valued in eastern culture where as Dhar (2010) in her study concluded with reversed findings that Consistency is valued in eastern culture. Shuh (2002) used 20 maximum variability traits to measure one’s Identity Consistency (IC) whereas Dhar (2010) used 80 moderate variability traits to measure one’s Identity consistency. Hence, It was needed to investigate further this contradictory findings in eastern culture. The sample comprised of 130 love married couples (non working female partner).They were administered Identity Consistency scale ( Prepared by Dhar,2010) and Subjective wellbeing Scale (Sell and Nagpal, 1992). Trait Selection for Identity Consistency Scale: For the present study, initially 52 maximum variability traits (like sensitive, talkative etc) along with 80 moderate variability traits from Dhar’s study (like anxious, submissive etc) were considered and finally 50 traits were selected with mixed of maximum variability and moderate variability traits to assess Identity Consistency of females for the present study. Internal consistency of each female has been obtained in terms of percentage of variance by using factor analysis by principal component method. Mean, standard deviations ,’t’ test , Product moment coefficient of correlation and Stepwise Multiple Regression Analysis have been carried out for further analysis with the considered variables in the present study. Results showed that appraised spousal overestimation of females’ IC by females are leading to a satisfactory sense of wellbeing of them may be indicative of the fact that they find the meaningfulness while appraised positively about their inner integrity by ‘the person with whom they share the most intimate relation’. However, females’ self appraisal of IC is independent on their sense of wellbeing leading to the fact that they are less disturbed by this incongruity.