Relational Maintenance and Inclusion of the Other in the Self: Measure Development and Dyadic Test of a Self-Expansion Theory Approach

Abstract

This article reports a series of two studies that develop and validate a measure of relational maintenance behavior informed by self-expansion theory. The first study evaluated an initial item pool, identified 11 dimensions of maintenance behavior, and established concurrent/divergent validity with theoretically related constructs. The second study further tested the instrument in a sample of 123 romantic dyads, demonstrating that inclusion of the other in the self (Aron, Mashek, & Aron, 2004) predicts frequency of maintenance behavior in a communally oriented fashion. Additional analysis identified four maintenance dimensions corresponding to dimensions of self-other inclusion in self-expansion theory. These results commend self-expansion theory as a promising direction for future maintenance research and offer a maintenance measure for theoretical development and practical application.