Namorar faz bem? a relação entre autoestima, autoavaliação e relacionamentos românticos

Abstract

In the last decades several studies have been showing the relation between self-esteem and romantic relationships. Studies point that self-esteem can be influenced by different situations and characteristics for men and women. The literature brings vast approaches to explain the choice of romantic partners. The Evolutionary Psychology searches on the evolutive processes of our species the reason for differences between genders on the desired characteristics of a partner. The studies with self-perception of market value show that and individual’s mate value is influenced by characteristics preferred by the opposite sex, classic considerations attractiveness would be the most relevant factor for the female market value and characteristics related to the capacity to obtain resources for the male. Therefore, self-esteem might be more related to physical characteristics for women then for men as most important factor to men, and social status and the capacity to acquisite resources as the most influent factors to women on the choice’s process. Besides that, it has been discussed on the literature for a long time that men and women have different costs with the reproduction and therefore they adopt different reproductive strategies, being the men predisposed to invest in short term relationships and women to be more selective and invest in long term relationships. But in the last decades the discussion of this theme is showing its attention to how individual characteristics, such as self-esteem and market value, interfere in the partner’s choice and the maintenance of a long term romantic relationship, however little is known about the differences between genders in this relation. Thus, the objective of our work was to investigate the interaction between self-esteem, self-evaluation and relationship status in men and women. Our methodology consisted in the application of presential questionnaires. Our results point that self-esteem correlates positively with the self-evaluation characteristics as a romantic partner, but no differences were found in self-esteem between genders or between single individuals and individuals in a long-term relationship. Besides that, in their self-evaluation single men showed to score less than those involved in a relationship in the characteristic of general attractiveness. We can conclude that the dynamics of romantic relationships are influenced by individual characteristics and that self-esteem may be indirectly related to the partners that an individual chooses because it is related to the self-perception of market value.