ABSTRACT
This filter is concerned with the extent to which romantic partners meet each other’s needs and is likely to occur at a later stage in the relationship than the other two. The focus is more on heterogamy as people need someone who has different personal attributes to their own in order to make up for something that they lack. Similar to overgeneralisation, the mental filter focuses on a single negative and excludes all the positive. An example of the distortion is one partner in a romantic relationship dwelling on a single negative comment made by the other partner and viewing the relationship as hopelessly lost. The mental filter can foster a negative view of everything around a person by focusing only on the negative. Filter theory suggests that whilst it is important to have similar attitudes and values in the development of a relationship, in the long term complementary skills that keep a relationship going.
