Marital Power,Roles, and Solidarity and Husbands' and Wives' Appraisals of Self and Other*

The purpose of this study was to investigate conditions underlying the social self process within marital relationships. Two hypotheses were tested in a mail questionnaire survey of 165 couples: 1) Mead and Cooley's hypothesis that self-appraisal is positively associated with other's view of self, and 2) an extension of this hypothesis suggesting that the association between self-appraisal and spouse's appraisal is greater, and the appraisals are more favorable, when marital power is shared, household role responsibilities are shared, and marital solidarity is high. The first hypothesis was supported: self-appraisal was significantly correlated with other's view of self. The second hypothesis was strongly supported for solidarity: the greater the couple's solidarity, the more favorable and the more similar were self-appraisal and other's appraisal of self. Only partial support was found for a positive association of shared marital power and roles with appraisals of self and other.