NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - People with low self-esteem may look for evidence their romantic partner is secretly unhappy with them, and when they get it, they may put their partners down in response, new study findings show.

Over time, this type of behavior can seriously weaken the relationship, according to Dr. Sandra L. Murray of the University at Buffalo, State University of New York and her team.

The finding is from a study in which people with low self-esteem were fed false information about their romantic partner. When the participants were told their partner did not like something about them, those with low self-esteem tended to decide that the overall relationship was in jeopardy, Murray told Reuters Health.

Short-lived problems occur in every normal relationship, Murray explained. However, in the eyes of a person with low self-esteem, those transient difficulties can threaten their sense of security in the relationship, causing them to put down their partners before their partners can reject them, she said.

It's as if the low self-esteem partners were saying: "'So if you're going to reject me, you suck,"' Murray explained.

This behavior is "not adaptive," Murray noted, and can have a significant impact on the health of the relationship. "Going to such a grand conclusion from one episode isn't often warranted," she added.

Murray's team developed their findings from a series of experiments involving people who were involved in romantic relationships.

In the first experiment, the researchers tested the self-esteem of 104 people who were in a romantic relationship for an average of 20 months. During the study, the investigators asked some participants to indicate what sides of their personalities they don't want their partners to see.

When faced with the concept that certain aspects of their personalities are not appealing to their partners, people with low self-esteem reported fewer positive traits in their partners, and more anxiety about the relationship, than those with high self-esteem.

In the second experiment, the study authors asked another group of participants about how often their partners appeared annoyed with them. The researchers then informed them that, based on their responses, their partners were likely not happy with certain aspects of their personalities, and that these incompatibilities can lead to later, more significant problems in the relationship.

Again, the authors found that people with low esteem thereafter began questioning the strength of their relationships, and distanced themselves from their partners. In contrast, people with high self-esteem appeared even more confident about their partners' affections after the experiment, and showed a higher esteem for their partners as a result of the relationship "threats" insinuated by the experimenters.

In an interview with Reuters Health, Murray explained that people with high self-esteem are relatively confident that their partners value and accept them, a belief that helps them withstand the emotional bumps that appear along the course of a normal relationship.

These findings may prove useful in the context of couples therapy, she noted. It may be helpful for practitioners to evaluate how accepted and valued each partner feels by the other, and, in some cases, to help people learn to reduce their tendencies to read too much into events.

SOURCE: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 2002;83:556-573.

Reference Source 89