Psychological Intimacy in the Lasting Relationships of Heterosexual and Same-Gender Couples

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It is difficult to assess the validity of the data in the traditional sense of that concept, since we were eliciting the personal perceptions and evaluations of participants about the meaning of psychological intimacy in their relationships at a particular point in time. The candor of participants on highly personal matters, such as the decline in sexual relations because of sexual dysfunctions, suggests that participants were equally candid about other aspects of their relationships, such as psychological intimacy. By interviewing partners separately and asking them to talk about themselves, as well as their observations of their partners in these relationships, we were able to compare responses to determine if there were significant differences over common realities. For example, did both partners assess the nature of conflict in their relationships similarly? Did a participant, in commenting on an aspect of a partner's behavior, come close to the partner's observations about the same factor? Correspondenc e between partners was permitted in the study, which was illustrated in the responses to conflict management styles, when participants were asked to describe their style as well as the style of their partners. For example, partners who described themselves as having an evasive style were viewed by their partners in an equivalent way.

In a cross-sectional design in which participants are asked to report on their life today and in the past, traditional measures of reliability are inadequate. The meaning-of-life events and an individual's response to these events will vary, and may even vary within the same person at different points over the lifespan. While longitudinal designs may be superior in contending with problems of validity and reliability, cross-sectional designs that use interviews to uncover the meaning of behavior have the strength of eliciting the richness in the experiences of human beings.

There is a shortfall in recoding the data from multiple categories into dichotomous ones. This step built onto the earlier qualitative analysis by offering a different lens through which to understand the data. To offset the potential reductionistic effects of recoding, we have incorporated a discussion of the qualitative data into the results. The integration of qualitative and quantitative procedures was intended to enhance the theory development objective of the research.

The use of an interdisciplinary team throughout the research process enhanced the quality of the study. Issues of bias, misinterpretation, and other matters that could affect the validity and reliability of the data were discussed. One of the principal investigators read all 216 interview transcripts and served as a second blind coder for each interview. Having one researcher read and code every interview provided for continuity in the operational definitions of variables. To insure that there was both a male and a female perspective on the data, the second coder was a woman. As a measure of inter-rater reliability, Cohen's kappa was used and ranged from .79 to .93.

The sample was selected purposively to include participants not often included in other studies in lasting relationships; namely, people of color, blue-collar participants, and same-gender couples. The goal was not to test theory but to develop an understanding of a subject--psychological intimacy among an older group of diverse partners in lasting relationships--that has not received much attention by researchers. The sample fit with the goal of this exploratory study.

SUMMARY

The study of psychological intimacy in human relationships is a highly complex and dynamic process. Defining intimacy is a challenge, as is the importance of specifying the operational parameters. We defined psychological intimacy as the sense that participants had of their relationships as a place in which they could share personal thoughts and feelings about themselves and their relationships not expressed customarily with others. In this definition, positive communication was a quintessential component of psychological intimacy. We focused on cognitive themes about the meaning of relationships to individual partners rather than on specific interpersonal behaviors. The sample consisted of heterosexual and same-gender couples in relationships that had lasted approximately 30 years.

A chi-square analysis of all research variables with the independent variable revealed that social and demographic factors such as age, race, education, income, and religion did not have significant relationships to psychological intimacy in recent years. That finding is important to the process of understanding factors that contribute to the quality of psychological intimacy in committed relationships that last for many years. It may also suggest that factors within relationships are more important than are socioeconomic and demographic factors in shaping psychological intimacy between partners in these relationships.

In the chi-square analysis, several factors were associated significantly with reports of psychological intimacy in recent years, defined as the last 5 to 10 years of these relationships. They were the quality of communication between partners, minimal relational conflict, conflict management style of partners, couple decision-making, relational equity, quality of sexual relations, importance of sexual relations, and physical affection. These data are similar to findings reported in previous studies that have explored psychological intimacy (Berscheid & Reis, 1998), although those studies tended to focus on younger participants.

Phi coefficients were then computed to determine the strength of the associations between the dependent variable and each of the independent variables. Based on the substantial correlation between communication and psychological intimacy ([phi] = .50), communication was not included as a dependent variable in the theoretical models that were tested with logistic regression. In this study, it is appropriate to consider psychological intimacy as psychologically intimate communication.

Based on the statistically significant relationships of the above variables with psychological intimacy, along with their identification in previous research as important factors in shaping intimacy (Kurdek, 1998; Swain, 1989; Howard, Blumenstein, & Swartz., 1986), two theoretical models were constructed and tested with logistic regression analysis. The first model included the sexual orientation of couples (heterosexual, lesbian, or gay male) as an independent variable. The results pointed to five factors predictive of psychological intimacy in these lasting relationships. They were minimal levels of relational conflict (B = -2.24, p = .01), a confrontive conflict management style in the partners of participants (B = 1.16, p = .01), a sense of equity about their relationships (B = 1.29, p = .01), and expressions of physical affection between partners (B = 1.63, p .01). The fifth factor was sexual orientation of couples: more lesbians reported their relationships as psychologically intimate i n recent years than did heterosexuals (B = 1.47, p = .05) and gay males (B = 1.96, p = .03), a finding that resonated with the work of Kurdek, who compared intimacy in heterosexual, lesbian, and gay male relationships (1998).

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To assess the significance of gender over sexual orientation on reported psychological intimacy, gender was substituted for sexual orientation in a second model. The four factors that contributed significantly to psychological in the first model did not change substantially in this second model, and the gender of participants had a moderate effect on the results (B = .81, p = .08). That finding is compatible with those of Parks and Floyd (1998), who argued that gender role identification of males and females is not as powerful a factor in shaping intimacy in friendship relationships as may be assumed.

CONCLUSIONS

This study focused selectively on a sample of 108 heterosexual and same- gender partners in 216 relationships that had lasted an average of 30 years. The results suggested that factors within relationships themselves had a more powerful effect in shaping the meaning of psychological intimacy than did social and demographic factors. The data suggested that a sense of psychological intimacy was nurtured when interpersonal conflict was kept to minimal levels, when one's partner dealt with conflict in the relationship by initiating face-to-face discussion of differences, when one had a feeling that the relationship was fair, and when there were expressions of affection between partners through touching and hugging. Perhaps, a reason that these relationships endured was that these factors nurtured a sense of psychological intimacy that contributed to relational stability.

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