The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 36, No. 2 - 16

Karen Erlandson

ministrators; roommates could be matched on their control needs, with care taken not to pair two people with high interpersonal needs for control. Satisfaction with roommates has already been linked to a student’s perception of the quality of their college experience, their academic achievement (Pace, 1970), and their

associated with this measure, which makes it more inclusive. Additionally, being aware of control issues could help resident life administrators prevent some roommate conflicts. For example, many residence halls hold meetings during the first weeks of school where roommates complete roommate contracts. Including issues related to control in this contract might help prevent some conflicts or at least bring them to the attention of the roommates and residential life staff. Forming a communication framework for dealing with potential conflicts surrounding control needs could help roommates initiate and enact conflict episodes more successfully. There are several limitations to the current study. First, like many studies in which roommates are required to participate together, there may be a self-selection bias toward roommates who already get along fairly well. Participation in dyads makes it unlikely that roommates who have very strong negative feelings toward each other would choose to spend time participating in a study together. Second, satisfaction and interpersonal needs were determined with selfreport measures; ideally, behavioral measures would also be available. Future research may want to include both types of measurement in assessing satisfaction and interpersonal needs. Successful roommate pairing is very important to college and university administrators, and success is based on numerous variables. This study suggests that pairing roommates based on their need for control may be one additional variable to consider, and it would be relatively easy to integrate, requiring the addition of pertinent questions about control needs to roommate matching surveys already in use.

This study suggests that pairing roommates based on their need for control may be one additional variable to consider, and it would be relatively easy to integrate, requiring the addition of pertinent questions about control needs to roommate matching surveys already in use .

positive psychological adjustment (Waldo, 1984). Previous research has shown that satisfaction with roommates is related to similarity on several dimensions, including communication traits (Martin & Anderson, 1995; Hawken et al., 1991) and personality traits (Carli et al., 1991; Costa & McCrae, 1992; Jones & Kavanagh, 1996; Jones et al., 1980). The current study suggests that the interpersonal need for control should be added to this list. Because there are only 10 scale items needed to assess the need for control, this could be an efficient means of screening and matching roommates, and it may work better than other scales that require much more time and more resources to complete. In addition, no gender differences were
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THE JOURNAL OF COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITy STUDENT HOUSING

The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 36, No. 2

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