Abstract:

Self-sacrifice in intimate relationships refers to the behavior of giving up personal interests in order to promote the partner’s or relationship’s satisfaction. Self-sacrifice in intimate relationships is influenced by relationship-orientation and personal characteristics. Individuals with relationship-orientation such as high commitment, communal orientation, and interdependent self-construal are more likely to make self-sacrifice, while the relationship between self-sacrifice behavior and personal characteristics of power, self-control, self-esteem has contradictory results. We formulated self-sacrifice motives model to explain when self-sacrifice occurs from the comparison of personal interest, partner interest and relationship interest. We analyzed the positive effects of self-sacrifice and the conditions that produce positive effects.Relationship orientation, the motivation of sacrifice, the perception of sacrifice, and the way of dealing with negative emotions are the key factors to determine whether self-sacrifice has positive effects. In addition, we formulated a self-sacrifice dual-process model to explain when the self-sacrifice behavior has positive effects from perspectives of self-sacrificial motivation and partner’s feedback.

Key words: intimate relationships, self-sacrifice, communal orientation, interdependent self-construal, commitment