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Category: Project

Description: We investigated whether positive partner illusions (i.e., perceiving a romantic partner more positively then she/he actually is) and their beneficial interpersonal consequences already occur in initial romantic encounters. In a real-life speed-dating context, 398 heterosexual singles (aged: 18-28) indicated their perceptions of their dating partners directly after each speed-date. We obtained 2 kinds of reality benchmarks to compare these partner perceptions against: dating partners’ self-perceptions and consensus ratings about the dating partners. With 3 follow-ups in the 6 weeks following the speed-dating, we assessed interpersonal consequences between daters. Response surface analyses revealed no evidence of positive illusions or of beneficial interpersonal consequences of positive illusions in initial romantic encounters. These findings (a) suggest that positive illusions start to emerge at later stages of romantic acquaintance and (b) inform research on the psychological processes underlying positive illusions. We furthermore provide methodological recommendations for future longitudinal research investigating the time of onset of positive illusions and the formation of romantic relationships in general.