I don’t think the female is very aware of this though, as she doesn’t rate him the way he rates himself- she doesn’t realise how shy he ‘really’ is. This suggests a laidback, careless attitude in the female.
The female’s personality contrasts with that of the male’s, who is very intelligent and analytical, and he pays a lot of attention to his partner; his rating of his girlfriend’s personality is very similar to how she rated her own personality.
I asked the couple if there were problems in the relationship to see if my findings were correct. The female said, ‘He’s so boring. He never wants to come out with me at night, and he gets angry when I drink too much.’
The couple have potential; they have lasted three months. To resolve the problems and strengthen the relationship, the female needs to realise that her boyfriend is not boring. He is just shy. As well as this being a personality clash, it’s also due to perception and self-concept. The way the male sees himself affects the way he communicates. He sees himself as quiet and shy, so he isn’t very positive in talking to his girlfriend, and has difficulty starting conversations.
To resolve this communication problem the male needs to learn to communicate in a more positive way so he will get a more positive view of himself. He could do this by finding something he knows about, enjoys, and is good at. He should then talk about it to his partner, or use it as a conversation starter, until he builds up confidence. The female should learn to become aware of his problem, and support him.
The second couple I spoke to were harder to analyse. The only major difference I found was that the male was very happy-go-lucky, and the female was serious.
I decided to alter the table as some of the personality traits were not necessary. I changed -
Trusting & suspicious to good sense of humour & no sense of humour
Forthright & shrewd to short-tempered & placid
Conservative & experimenting to laidback & alert
Apprehensive & self-assured to optimistic & pessimistic
Adding these words onto the table I found out more about the second couple. The female rated herself a 5, for short-tempered, whereas, her partner rated her as being short-tempered. This shows a perception problem. Perhaps the female is short-tempered but doesn’t like to admit it, or maybe he sees her as being a lot more short-tempered than she really is. The male rated himself a 1 for GSOH, and his partner rated him a 1 as well. I think the problem in this relationship is that the male is a bit of a ‘clown’, and as the female is possibly very short-tempered, she gets wound up by him.
‘Personality clashes’ are causing problems in these relationships. In reality however, it is not so much the clashing personality traits in themselves which cause problems so much as the various individuals’ perceptions of their own and their partners’ behaviour. In fact, personality is based on our perceptions of the ‘meaning’ of behaviour.
