1283 When Is Being Known or Adored by Romantic Partners Most Beneficial? Self-Perceptions, Relationship Length, and Responses to Partner’s Verifying and Enhancing Appraisals Lorne Campbell Sandra D. Lackenbauer Amy Muise University of Western Ontario In this scene of Shelley’s famous play Prometheus Unbound, he speaks of the necessity of love, of feeling content in the knowledge that a romantic partner val- ues you above all others. Although Shelley may have provided a solution for experiencing lifelong happiness (i.e., feeling loved), he did not offer his opinion regard- ing how people might achieve this lofty goal. That task has fallen primarily on the shoulders of relationship researchers, and the past few decades have witnessed a substantial amount of research attempting to discover the factors related to intimacy and happiness in roman- tic relationships. When do people feel happy and intimate with their romantic partners? Research guided from different the- oretical perspectives has attempted to answer this ques- tion by focusing on how people are appraised by their partners. Adopting a self-enhancement perspective, Murray and colleagues (Murray, Holmes, & Griffin, 1996a, 1996b) have demonstrated that people are most satisfied when their partners perceive them more posi- tively than they perceive themselves. Other research guided by a self-verification perspective has shown that Authors’ Note: This research was supported in part by a grant to the first author from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and also from a Premier’s Research Excellence Award (PREA). Correspondence should be addressed to Lorne Campbell, Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada, N6A 5C2; e-mail: lcampb23@uwo.ca. PSPB, Vol. 32 No. 10, October 2006 1283-1294 DOI: 10.1177/0146167206290383 © 2006 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc. An experiment tested the hypothesis that relationship length moderates preferences for both verifying and enhancing appraisals from romantic partners, particularly for people with negative self-perceptions. One hundred and three roman- tically involved couples participated in this research. Participants with both negative and positive self-perceptions were randomly assigned to receive either verifying or enhanc- ing feedback ostensibly created through comparison of their self-ratings and their partner’s appraisals. The critical test was for those with negative self-ratings who received verifying feedback. For these participants, results revealed that those in longer relationships felt their partners were seeing the best in them more than did those in shorter relationships, whereas the opposite pattern of results was observed for those who were enhanced. Individuals with negative self-ratings who were verified also reported greater feelings of intimacy in the rela- tionship when in long-term relationships. The importance of relationship length in moderating responses to partner’s appraisals is discussed. Keywords: enhancement; verification; relationships; accuracy; satisfaction All love is sweet, Given or returned. Common as light is love, And its familiar voice wearies not ever.... They who inspire it most are fortunate, As I am now; but those who feel it most Are happier still. —Percy Bysshe Shelley (1901)