Development of Perceived Parental Relationship Scale and Its Psychometric Properties

The fact that a person chosen by an individual as a spouse shares similar characteristics with that individual’s parents may affect the marital relationship between two people. It is even possible for an individual to have the tendency to choose a spouse sharing similar characteristic with his/her parents when looking for a person sharing similar characteristics with himself/herself, or vice versa. On the other hand, he/she might choose an authoritarian spouse while he/she is also of an authoritarian character. According to Rushton and Nicholson (1988), advocates of Buss and Barnes (1986) who claimed that many spouses exhibit similar characteristics, the similarity between individuals and their parents is a result of genetic affinity as individuals strive for ensuring their genes to survive through passing them on. Bereczkei (2004) further explains that the spouse one chooses shows resemblance with each one of his/her parents. According to Davies and Cummings (1994) children in a family react to how their parents solve their relationship problems (conflicts) and take them as a model. Thus, emotions and thoughts of the children take form accordingly. Children will adopt the same pattern when their parents are able to solve their marital relationship problems successfully. This might indicate that an individual’s behavior in his/her marital relationship will depend on the behavior observed in their parents’ marital relationship. It is widely believed that marital satisfaction is in close relation with an individual’s positive perception of his/her parents’ marital relationship in order for an individual to feel psychologically good about himself/herself and for the members of a family to be happy. It was reported that men tend to prefer women who resemble their mothers while women tend to prefer people who resemble their fathers (Roithmayer, 2011). Therefore, the role parents play in a marital relationship should be taken into consideration. In this context, our perception of the relationship behavior of our parents plays an important role in our choice of spouse, our relationship behavior and the relationship continuity. Literature review revealed that there are no studies analyzing the relation between the perceived parental relationship and subjects such as choice of spouse, similarity theories, taking parents as a model and self-esteem.