The role of individuals’ and their partners’ positivity in the satisfaction with the relationship: an actor-partner interdependence mediation model

Over the last thirty years, the actor-partner interdependence model (Kenny, 1996) became an important methodology to address interpersonal perceptions in dyads. In this contribution, we present each practical step to conduct an extended version of it, the actor-partner interdependence mediation model (Ledermann, Macho, & Kenny, 2011) using multilevel modeling. Specifically, we posit that individuals’ and their romantic partners’ positivity, a personality disposition, enhance relationship satisfaction, through the individuals’ perceptions of partners’ positivity. Results from 161 heterosexual couples confirmed that both actor and partner’s positivity predicted satisfaction directly and indirectly, through the actor’s perception of partner’s positivity. Therefore, importantly, in the observed relationships, the mediating role of the individuals’ perception of their partners confirmed the theoretical assumptions of the interpersonal perception framework. The innovative contribution of this work lays, in actual fact, in the possibility offered by the model proposed to include this latter variable as a mediator.