Including the other in the self
As a relationship develops, partners are thought to incorporate each other's perspectives, resources and identities into their own self-concept. The Inclusion of Other in the Self scale uses a simple diagram of overlapping circles to capture how close a person feels to someone else.
Novelty and relationship quality
Falling in love often brings rapid self-expansion, which may fade as partners get to know each other. In a frequently cited experiment, couples who shared a novel and arousing activity later reported higher relationship quality than those completing a more mundane one, suggesting that shared new experience may help maintain closeness.
Limits
Effects of shared-activity experiments tend to be modest and may be short-lived. Expansion can also be undermined when a partner's interests conflict with a person's own identity, and too much overlap is not always beneficial. The model has been extended to individual activities and to work.
Further reading
- Aron, A., Aron, E. N., & Smollan, D. (1992). Inclusion of Other in the Self Scale and the structure of interpersonal closeness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 596-612.
- Aron, A., Norman, C. C., Aron, E. N., McKenna, C., & Heyman, R. E. (2000). Couples' shared participation in novel and arousing activities and experienced relationship quality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 273-284.