Sense of entitlement – the subjective perception of what one deserves in a specific situation – is part of every interpersonal relationship (Solomon & Leven, 1975; Spiegel, 1987). Though one’s sense of entitlement might be relevant in many areas of human existence, there is growing evidence attesting to the crucial role it plays in determining the quality of couples' relationships (Campbell, Bonacci, Shelton, Exline, & Bushman, 2004). This kind of relational entitlement is conceptualized as the extent to which an individual feels that his/her wishes, needs, and expectations should be fulfilled by a romantic partner (Tolmacz & Mikulincer, 2011).

Tolmacz and Mikulincer (2011) recently developed the Sense of Relational Entitlement Scale (SRE) and showed its associations with relationship satisfaction in a sample of young adults, most of whom were single. Pursuant to Tolmacz and Mikulincer's own recommendation to further validate the SRE along an individual's entire life span, we assessed the SRE scale among middle-aged partners in long-term dyadic relationships. Adopting the well-established dyadic perspective (Revenson & Delongis, 2011; Robins, Caspi & Moffitt, 2000), we also assessed, among this same sample, the contribution of one's sense of relational entitlement to both one's own and one's partner's relationship satisfaction.

 

The first conceptualization of entitlement in the psychology literature can be traced back to Freud (1916). Freud wrote about patients who claimed they were entitled to some sort of compensation from life, mostly due to their congenital deficiencies. Freud found Shakespeare's Richard III to be a prototypical example of this kind of character. He also claimed that – albeit to a lesser degree – this personality characteristic was shared by all human beings in general. Edith Jacobson (1959) elaborated on Freud’s ideas and added that the notion that certain individuals felt they deserved more than others may not in fact have stemmed from early disadvantages but, on the contrary, from the feeling that they were in possession of exceptional virtues. Therefore, due to their alleged superiority, these individuals may have felt more entitled than others (Jacobson, 1959).

In the field of personality psychology, entitlement has been regarded mostly within the context of narcissism, (e.g., Campbell et al., 2004; Edelstein, Newton & Stewart, 2012; Emmons, 1984; Wink, 1991). Narcissism is an individual differences concept which is comprised of grandiosity and an exaggerated sense of self on the one hand, and feelings of inferiority and low self-esteem on the other (Emmons, 1984; Exline, Bushman, Baumeister, Campbell & Finkel, 2004). The entitlement component within the spectrum of narcissism consists of the tendency to expect favored treatment from others (Exline et al., 2004).

 

Although the concept of entitlement was initially perceived as a negative characteristic, contemporary scholars (Kriegman, 1983; Levin, 1970; Moses & Moses-Hrushovski, 1990) have expanded the sense of entitlement concept to include the healthy assertion of needs and rights. The concept has since been differentiated into three attitudes toward personal entitlement: appropriate or assertive entitlement, excessive or exaggerated entitlement, and restricted or understated entitlement (Kriegman, 1983; Levin, 1970; Moses & Moses-Hrushovski, 1990). An assertive or appropriate sense of entitlement characterizes people who are able to realistically appraise what they can expect from others. This appropriate sense includes the ability to assertively and confidently stand up for one’s preferences and is considered an adaptive form of entitlement, crucial to one's well-being. Individuals who have a sense of restricted entitlement are characterized by a limited sense of sovereignty and self-assuredness; they are usually reserved, unassertive and timid. Finally, people characterized by an excessive sense of entitlement believe they deserve to have their needs and wishes fulfilled regardless of others’ emotions and wishes.

 

Sense of Relational Entitlement

 

Although theorists conceptualized the sense of entitlement as a global trait (e.g., Campbell et al., 2004), it is generally agreed upon that an individual's sense of entitlement takes on different forms depending on the social situation he/she is in (Moses & Moses-Hrushovski, 1990). Tolmacz and Mikulincer (2011) have stressed that entitlement plays an especially important role in a couple's relationship. From the perspective of personality psychology and according to Bowlby's attachment theory (1979), perceptions and memories of the type or quality of care that individuals received from early attachment figures shape the way they respond to their attachment figures in adulthood. Person (1989) claimed that the romantic relationship is the prototypical scenario in which people expect to have their emotional needs fulfilled, especially those which were neglected during childhood development. In addition, social exchange theories also suggest that entitlement issues are relevant to the distribution of resources within romantic relationships and thus are crucial to the understanding of relationship function and satisfaction (Lerner & Mikula, 1994). Thus, it is plausible to suggest that romantic relationships are the primary domain in which entitlement-related wishes, needs, and expectations will be uniquely expressed.

Indeed, there are several clinical reports showing how crucial the sense of entitlement is to a couple's relationship (e.g., Blechner, 1987; Billow, 1999). For instance, empirical studies have shown that excessive entitlement is associated with issues such as violence and aggression among couples (Wood, 2004), divorce rates (Sanchez & Gager, 2000), and selfishness in romantic relationships (Campbell et al., 2004). Fortunately, the SRE scale, recently developed by Tolmacz & Mikulincer (2011), enables an empirical investigation of the sense of entitlement in the context of the romantic relationship. The authors found both the excessive and restricted types of relational entitlement to be maladaptive, and high scores on these two types were associated with higher levels of distress and lower levels of relationship satisfaction.

 

Tolmacz and Mikulincer (2011) were innovative in conceptualizing the idea of relational sense of entitlement and in developing a specific scale measuring entitlement in couples' relationships. However, most of their sample consisted of young singles, and their self-reported relational entitlement scale was therefore not related to actual long-term dyadic bonds. In addition, Tolmacz and Mikulincer (2011) themselves raised concerns regarding the inner structure of the SRE they had devised (p. 85) and recommended that further validation steps of the SRE be conducted. Therefore, we further invested in assessing the SRE's inner structure as well as in assessing its associations with attachment which, as stated earlier, is theoretically conceived to be the bedrock of sense of entitlement.

Our study, therefore, focuses on couples in long-term relationships and in doing so extends prior findings by investigating the concept of relational entitlement from a dyadic perspective. Overall, our goals were (a) to further validate the measure of relational entitlement in a sample of adult couples in long-term romantic relationships and (b) to use this measure to demonstrate the contribution of each partner's sense of relational entitlement to one's own and one's partner's relationship satisfaction. It was hypothesized that whereas assertive entitlement would be positively associated with relationship satisfaction for both partners, restrictive and excessive senses of relational entitlement would be negatively associated with both partners' relationship satisfaction.

 

 The study was conducted on 120 healthy middle-aged couples. A series of factor analysis identified a personality construct which was similar although not identical to the original one reported by Tolmacz and Mikulincer (2011). Four of the original factors also emerged in the current study: "excessive entitlement" (formerly termed "vigilance"), "restricted entitlement," "assertive entitlement," and "entitlement expectations." One deviation from Tolmacz and Mikulincer's (2011) suggested structure, which was introduced in the current study, was the omission of the fifth factor, originally labeled "sensitivity to relational transgressions and frustrations." This factor was formerly associated with only two factors, hence creating a differentiated second-order factor. In our study, however, this sensitivity factor correlated with all the other four factors, which suggests that – unlike for young singles – for couples in long-term relationships it perhaps expresses a more general tendency toward sensitivity in relationships and is thus unable to differentiate between entitlement attitudes.

 

Additionally, whereas in the Tolmacz and Mikulincer (2011) study a three-factor solution was suggested (albeit without sufficient statistical justification), a more valid structure emerged in the current study, in which four factors integrated into two second-order factors which were titled conflicted relational entitlement and assertive relational entitlement. It can be suggested that the conflicted dimension of the SRE, which consists of both the excessive and the restricted factors of entitlement, expresses one's imbalance in terms of two dialectical ends: the inflated confidence that one deserves everything, and – at the other end of the spectrum – the strong belief that one deserves nothing. The conflicted dimension might therefore reflect the narcissistic conflict between grandiosity on the one hand and vulnerability on the other (Edelstein et al., 2012). Indeed, according to Wink (1991), the sense of entitlement encompasses both aspects of narcissism.

 

The assertive dimension found in our study expresses a person's ability to maturely evaluate and assertively negotiate those things that one can expect from his/her partner. No correlation was found between the conflicted and assertive dimensions of relational entitlement, implying that being high on the assertive dimension does not automatically necessitate being low on the conflicted dimension. These results support the assumption that relational entitlement doesn’t simply reflect a continuum ranging from a low to a high level. Rather, one's sense of relational entitlement may be comprised of both assertive and conflicted aspects concurrently.

The second goal of our study was to assess the association between one's sense of relational entitlement and his/her own relationship satisfaction and his/her partner's satisfaction by applying APIM analysis. Findings showed that the more one was characterized by conflicted entitlement, the less he/she felt satisfied with the relationship. These results were found for the conflicted second-order factor as well as for its two components: excessive and restricted entitlement. The findings are consistent with the assumption that holding either an inflated or a restricted sense of entitlement is maladaptive within the context of a romantic relationship (Kriegman, 1983; Moses & Moses-Hrushovski, 1990; Tolmacz & Mikulincer, 2011), at least on the individual level.

 

It was found that the more entitlement expectations an individual had of his/her partner, the more satisfaction the partner took in the relationship. What individuals expect to receive from their partners affects their evaluations and perceptions of their relationships (Fletcher, Simpson & Thomas, 2000; Reis, Clark & Holmes, 2004; Stanley, Blumberg & Markman, 1999). Our findings add to the literature by showing that the positive expectations held by one partner of the other are also associated with the relationship satisfaction experienced by the partner.

In sum, a thorough examination of the original SRE items reveals a two- dimensional structure. The first factor, conflicted entitlement, expresses the disparity in one's own entitlement needs and wishes: on the one hand one retains a strong belief that one deserves to have all his/her needs and demands met by the partner, and on the other hand one retains a strong sense that one isn't worthy of getting anything at all from the partner. The findings indicate that this conflicted dimension is associated with less satisfaction within the context of the couple relationship. The second dimension – assertive entitlement – expresses a person's ability to appropriately and realistically evaluate those things that one can expect from his/her partner. This dimension seems to be associated with the partner's relationship satisfaction in the context of the couple relationship. 

 

 

George, S., Vilchinsky, N., Tolmatcz, R., & Liberman, G. (2014). Sense of entitlement in couple relationship: A dyadic perspective. Journal of Family Psychology, 28, 193-203.

 

George, S., Vilchinsky, N., Tolmatcz, R., Khaskia, A., Mosseri, & Hod, H.  (2016). "It takes two to take": Relational Entitlement, Caregiving Styles, and Cardiac Patients' medication taking. Journal of Family Psychology.

 

George-Levi, S., Vilchinsky, N., Raffaeli, E., Liberman, G., Khaskia, A., Mosseri, & Hod, H. (2016). Caregiving styles and anxiety among couples: Coping versus not coping with cardiac illness. Anxiety, Stress, and Coping, 30, 107-120.