Psychology Today: Getting to Know Yourself Better Will Benefit Your Relationship

Why greater self-understanding leads to more satisfying relationships.

What Does It Mean to Know Yourself?

“You’ve likely heard the terms self-knowledge or self-understanding used to suggest that someone has a greater level of comfort or mastery over who they are as a person. Researchers call this self-concept clarity, or a person’s ability to hold a cohesive, consistent, clear, and stable view of their self-concept (Campbell et al., 1996). People with greater clarity experience less change in how they describe their self over time (e.g., how you describe yourself today will largely match your description in a month or a year). High-clarity individuals are also less likely to hold conflicting views of the self (e.g., simultaneously thinking you’re modest and ambitious).

Those who have greater self-concept clarity are more likely to agree with statements such as:

• I have a clear sense of who I am, and am confident about those views.

• My beliefs about myself rarely conflict.

• It’s easy for me to describe to others what I’m really like.

They’re likely to disagree with statements like:

• The way I see myself frequently changes.

• I’m generally unclear and unsure about who I am.

• The various aspects of who I am are often in conflict.

The Benefits of Self-Understanding

Being more clear and confident about who you are has lots of benefits (Emery & Gardner, 2020). For example, those with greater self-concept clarity are less stressed, depressed, anxious, and neurotic. Not surprisingly, they have higher self-esteem, more meaning in their life, greater life satisfaction, and greater well-being. That's all good, but enhanced self-knowledge is good for your relationship, too.

There are a few reasons why greater self-concept clarity should benefit your relationships. First, with high self-concept clarity, your thoughts, opinions, and behaviors should be more consistent (Campbell et al., 1996). A study found that individuals with higher self-concept clarity had close friends who agreed more with their view of their self. Those friends also gave more accurate assessments. In other words, high-clarity individuals are easier to read and get to know. In a relationship, that’s very helpful to your partner. Because you’re behaving more consistently, it’s easier for them to predict how you’re going to feel and act (Lewandowski & Nardone, 2012). When you’re clear about who you are, your partner can more accurately and confidently know who you are. That’s important for your relationship’s quality and longevity because research routinely shows how having an emotionally unpredictable partner harms relationships (Fisher & McNulty, 2008).

Within a couple, partners also blend and merge their identities in a process called inclusion of other in the self (Aron et al., 2013). Taking on your partner’s qualities and becoming more like them can be risky—especially if you don’t know who you are and feel like you could potentially lose part of yourself. However, if you have greater clarity and confidence in yourself, adopting aspects of your partner is not only less threatening but potentially more beneficial, because those new elements help you grow."

Read the full article here!

Reflection: How do you make time for self-reflection in your relationships? Do you feel you have enough time for self-reflection? Why/Why not?

#Relationships #Self-Knowledge #Self-Reflection #Self-Understanding