Opposite sides of the same coin: Former spouses' divergent perspectives in coping with their divorce.

Investigated the extent to which people are assisted in their adjustment to divorce by their tendency to appraise the breakup in a biased, ego-enhancing fashion. Comparisons of the perceptions of 90 ex-spouses (45 couples) revealed that (1) ex-spouses did not differ in their positive self-perceptions or in their negative perceptions of each other; (2) Ss rated themselves more positively along dimensions of responsibility for the breakup, villain/victim status, and desire to reconcile than they were rated by their ex-partner; (3) both partners agreed that the women were more likely to have had control over the separation process than the men; and (4) wives' views of their ex-husband tended to correlate with the men's self-perceptions; men's and women's views of the wives were unrelated. The greater the control over the breakup attributed to one's ex-spouse, the lower one's level of psychosocial adjustment and resolution of the breakup. The article discusses how distorting perceptions of ego-threatening situations may facilitate adjustment to and maintenance of change. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)