ABSTRACT
We inevitably tend to make global assessments of our relationships, and the nature of those assessments may affect behaviour both within and outside the relationship. The nature of the assessment is important for each partner’s immediate well-being as well as for the longer-term course of the relationship. But although we make global assessments, many individual aspects of a relationship can contribute to those assessments, and many can detract from it. Satisfaction thus has many determinants, including individual characteristics of the participants, the nature of the relationship, contextual factors, and the relations between all of these.
