SELF-COMPLEXITY AND REACTIONS TO A RELATIONSHIP BREAKUP

Our major hypothesis was that college students' distress over a recent breakup of a romantic relationship would be positively related to the proportion of their self-complexity (SC) that involved their relationship self-aspect (i.e., relationship impact quotient; RIQ). The rationale for this hypothesis comes from Linville's (1985) spill over model for SC applied to a specific self-aspect. As predicted, regression analyses showed that RIQ was a positive predictor of self-rated upset over the breakup and Avoidance responses on the Impact of Event Scale (Horowitz, Wilner, and Alvarez, 1979). In addition, we replicated Linville's (1987) original finding that SC serves as a life stress buffer: The positive relationship between number of negative life events and psychological distress became weaker as SC increased. The results suggest that the relative structure of a specific self-aspect is predictive of an individual's reaction to a negative event in that particular domain.