Recalling Experiences: Looking at Momentary, Retrospective and Global Assessments of Relationship Satisfaction

Abstract

Relationship satisfaction can be assessed in retrospection, as a global evaluation, or as a momentary state. In two experience sampling studies (N = 130, N = 510) the specificities of these assessment modalities are examined. We show that 1) compared to other summary statistics like the median, the mean of relationship satisfaction states describes retrospective and global evaluations best (but the difference to some other summary statistics was negligible); 2) retrospection introduces an overestimation of the average annoyance in the relationship reported on a momentary basis, which results in an overall negative mean-level bias for retrospective relationship satisfaction; 3) this bias is most strongly moderated by global relationship satisfaction at the time of retrospection; 4) snapshots of momentary relationship satisfaction get representative of global evaluations after approximately two weeks of sampling. The findings extend the recall bias reported in the literature for retrospection of negative affect to the domain of relationship evaluations and assist researchers in designing efficient experience sampling studies.

Relationship satisfaction in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic: A cross-national examination of situational, dispositional, and relationship factors

“…One study on recall bias in ratings of relationship satisfaction suggests that couples generally tend to rate past relationship satisfaction more negatively that it actually was [ 46 ], resulting in a trend for perceived satisfaction improvement rather than deterioration over time. Similarly, a study by Zygar-Hoffmann and Schönbrodt [ 28 ] showed that retrospective reports of annoyance toward the partner were overestimated, whereas the retrospective assessment of relationship satisfaction was quite accurate overall. If our results were affected by the recall bias as identified in previous research, they would have under estimated the degree of decline in relationship satisfaction.…”

“…terror attacks; other studies on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic [ 25 – 27 ]). Although retrospective data have their limitations, they have shown to be generally quite accurate in the case of relationship satisfaction [ 28 ].…”

With a frown or a smile: How leader affective states spark the leader‐follower reciprocal exchange process

“…Similar to the reciprocal exchange process, work on state relationship satisfaction suggests that the state is determined by reciprocal affection between relationship partners (Zygar et al, 2018). State relationship satisfaction is distinct, yet correlated with global assessments of relationship quality (Zygar-Hoffmann & Schönbrodt, 2020). Examination of state relationship satisfaction has provided evidence regarding the significant role of state-like constructs in the underlying process when similar, trait-like constructs offered mixed evidence (i.e., Zygar et al, 2018) similar to the limited understanding of trait negative affect in the LMX relationship (see Dulebohn et al, 2012).…”

Motivational Interdependence in Couple Relationships

“…The present research used data from an experience sampling study with German couples. The data are available as a scientific use-file (Zygar-Hoffmann et al, 2020a ) and have been used in previous publications (Pusch et al, 2020 ; Zygar-Hoffmann and Schönbrodt, 2020 ; Zygar-Hoffmann et al, 2020b ; Schönbrodt et al, 2021 ). However, none of these previous publications addressed the hypotheses tested in the present research, but focused on other hypotheses.…”