III.Reading Comprehension

　　People who describe themselves as perfectionists may do well on job interviews, but new study findings suggest that they may struggle in marriage and other intimate relationships.

　　Previous research has shown that certain personality traits can affect a couple's ability to adjust to marriage. In this study,a team of Canadian researchers report that a partner's perfectionism greatly influences their—and their mate’s—adjustment to marriage.

　　“Thus, perfectionism may be worth considering in the context of marital and family therapy,” write Dr. Paul L. Hewitt of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and his colleagues.

　　Their study involved 76 couples who were married or had been living together for no more than four years. Perfectionism was determined by the extent to which the men and women agreed with statements such as, “When I am working on something, I cannot relax until it is perfect.”

　　Overall, men and women who identified their partners as perfectionists-meaning they felt that their mates demanded perfection from them—tended to report greater use of sarcasm(諷刺)， nagging(嘮叨) and other conflict-driven strategies to cope with their marital problems, study findings indicate.

　　And when men used these conflict strategies, both they and their wives rated marital adjustment—including their satisfaction with the marriage and the quality of their marital intimacy—lower than did their peers.

　　“This suggests ‘individuals’ personality traits may affect not only their own experience of the marriage, but the experience of their partner as well,” Hewitt and his colleagues write.