Seeing you, seeing me: Links between perceived commitment, metaperceptions, and relationship well-being

Are perceiver's impressions of target's commitment associated with the target's relationship experience? Could target's metaperceptions (i.e., target's beliefs about the perceiver's impressions of the target) help explain why? In the present dyadic study (N = 206; N-couples = 103), we found that perceiver's impressions of target's commitment was positively related to target's relationship well-being, and target's metaperceptions helped to account for this link. Additional analyses disentangled the roles of accuracy and bias of metaperceptions. On average, people underestimated their partners' impressions of commitment, and this negative mean-level bias was related to lower relationship well-being. Overall, the present results shed light on the potential implications of metaperceptions for relational well-being.