Predictors of relationship adjustment among couples coping with a high risk of developing breast/ovarian cancer

This study investigated the association between supportive and collaborative processes and dyadic adjustment in 94 women at increased risk of breast/ovarian cancer and their partners. Participants were recruited through two familial cancer clinics. They completed mailed, self-report questionnaires that included measures of psychological distress, dyadic adjustment (consensus, cohesion and satisfaction) and couple predictor variables (perceived support and team approach). Most couples reported average-to-high levels of consensus, cohesion and satisfaction, with a small proportion of couples (6.4%) reporting scores that reached clinically significant levels of dyadic distress. Greater perceived support was associated with better dyadic consensus and satisfaction, and dyadic cohesion and satisfaction were higher among couples who reported greater use of a team approach. General distress did not moderate the association between dyadic coping and relationship quality. There were no significant relationships between intra-couple congruence on support or team approach, and dyadic adjustment. Most couples had a functional relationship in the face of the current health stressor, although a subgroup may be at elevated risk of negative psychological consequences, including further relationship strain. The results highlight that dyadic coping strategies are important factors involved in the quality of couples' relationship following genetic counselling for breast/ovarian cancer risk.     

Ambivalence Over Emotional Expression and Psychological Weil-Being Among Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients and Their Spouses1

Associations between ambivalence over emotional expression and psychological well-being among rheumatoid arthritis patients and their spouses were investigated. Sixty-nine couples completed questionnaires assessing ambivalence over emotional expression, emotional expressiveness, psychological well-being, and strategies used in coping with arthritis. Associations between the patient's ambivalence and psychological well-being were stronger for those married to a highly ambivalent spouse, although this pattern of results was not found for spouses. Lower psychological well-being among more ambivalent spouses, and to a lesser extent patients, could be partially explained by their greater use of passive and distancing coping strategies. Results emphasize the importance of taking a dyadic approach to the study of psychological functioning among chronically ill patients and their spouses.     

Similarity, convergence, and relationship satisfaction in dating and married couples

The current work investigates how personality and interpersonal processes combine to predict change in relationship quality. Measures of personality and emotion similarity were collected during laboratory interactions from a cross-sectional sample of dating couples (Study 1) and a 1-year longitudinal study of newlywed married couples (Study 2). Results showed that emotion similarity mediated the association between personality similarity and relationship quality (Studies 1 and 2) and that emotion convergence mediated the association between personality convergence and relationship satisfaction (Study 2). These results indicate that similarity and convergence in personality may benefit relationships by promoting similarity and convergence in partners' shared emotional experiences. Findings also lend support to models that integrate partners' enduring traits and couples' adaptive processes as antecedents of relationship outcomes.     

The dark side of forgiveness: the tendency to forgive predicts continued psychological and physical aggression in marriage

Despite a burgeoning literature that documents numerous positive implications of forgiveness, scholars know very little about the potential negative implications of forgiveness. In particular, the tendency to express forgiveness may lead offenders to feel free to offend again by removing unwanted consequences for their behavior (e.g., anger, criticism, rejection, loneliness) that would otherwise discourage reoffending. Consistent with this possibility, the current longitudinal study of newlywed couples revealed a positive association between spouses' reports of their tendencies to express forgiveness to their partners and those partners' reports of psychological and physical aggression. Specifically, although spouses who reported being relatively more forgiving experienced psychological and physical aggression that remained stable over the first 4 years of marriage, spouses who reported being relatively less forgiving experienced declines in both forms of aggression over time. These findings join just a few others in demonstrating that forgiveness is not a panacea.     

Positive and negative characteristics of marital interaction and their association with marital satisfaction in middle-aged and older couples

The study examined age differences in positive (e.g., warm) and negative (e.g., hostile) characteristics of marital interactions between middle-aged and older couples and whether these characteristics were differentially associated with marital satisfaction by age. Spouses' perception of partners' positive and negative behavior during marital interaction was assessed in general and following disagreement and collaborative tasks. Trained observers coded spouses' positive and negative behavior during interactions. Older individuals reported higher marital satisfaction and perceived their spouse's behavior as less negative in general and more positive across all contexts than middle-aged individuals. Spouses' perceptions of their partners' positive and negative behavior independently predicted marital satisfaction for both age groups across contexts. Perceptions of partners' negative behavior in general and of both positive and negative behavior in the disagreement task were more closely associated with marital satisfaction for older spouses than for middle-aged spouses. Results point to the importance of positive and negative characteristics in marital functioning across age cohorts and indicate that such characteristics may be context dependent. Findings suggest that, in some contexts, both positive and negative characteristics are more salient for older adults.     

Effects of provision and receipt of social support on adjustment to laparoscopic radical prostatectomy

Radical prostatectomy has a negative impact on prostate cancer patients' health-related quality of life (HRQoL). Social support may help patients adjust to their situation after surgery. We investigated patients' accounts of received social support as well as their spouses' accounts of provided social support as predictors of patients' HRQoL 6 months after surgery. Moreover, we tested whether patients with lower HRQoL at 2 weeks after surgery had the most benefit from spousal support. A total of 77 patients (M = 61.57 years, SD = 6.03) and their spouses (M = 58.46 years, SD = 7.52) completed questionnaires at 2 weeks and 6 months after laparoscopic radical prostatectomy. Received social support, spousal provided social support, and HRQoL were assessed 2 weeks after surgery, and HRQoL was assessed again 6 months later. Patients with lower HRQoL at 2 weeks after surgery benefited more from the receipt and their partners' provision of support in terms of HRQoL 6 months later than patients with a higher HRQoL at the beginning. Assessing patients' HRQoL might be one method to identify those individuals who are in special need of support from their spouses.     

Evaluation of a cognitive behavioral group intervention program for spouses of stroke patients

This study investigated the effectiveness of a cognitive behavioral group program for spouses of stroke patients. The program consists of 15 bi-monthly 112h sessions. The goal of the intervention is to reduce the prevalence of mental disorders and burnout among care-giving spouses of stroke patients. The sample (stroke patients and their spouses) consisted of one intervention group (n=38 couples) and two different control conditions, those receiving informational support (n=35 couples) and those receiving standard care (n=51 couples). We used the following instruments to measure spouses' mental health and quality of life: Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), WHO Quality of Life Questionnaire. Measurements were taken before the intervention (Time 1), directly following the intervention (Time 2) and 6 months after Time 2 (Time 3). Several regression analyses allowed for examination of the short-term and long-term effects of the intervention. The spouses' participation in the intervention program was associated with significant short-term changes in care-giving spouses' quality of life and with long-term changes in their quality of life and depression. The presented multi-component intervention appears to have an immediate effect on care-giving spouses' quality of life. In contrast, the intervention-related changes in more resistant mental-health-related variables did not appear until after a latent stage in the later post-intervention phase.     

Beyond initial attraction: physical attractiveness in newlywed marriage.

Physical appearance plays a crucial role in shaping new relationships, but does it continue to affect established relationships, such as marriage? In the current study, the authors examined how observer ratings of each spouse's facial attractiveness and the difference between those ratings were associated with (a) observations of social support behavior and (b) reports of marital satisfaction. In contrast to the robust and almost universally positive effects of levels of attractiveness on new relationships, the only association between levels of attractiveness and the outcomes of these marriages was that attractive husbands were less satisfied. Further, in contrast to the importance of matched attractiveness to new relationships, similarity in attractiveness was unrelated to spouses' satisfaction and behavior. Instead, the relative difference between partners' levels of attractiveness appeared to be most important in predicting marital behavior, such that both spouses behaved more positively in relationships in which wives were more attractive than their husbands, but they behaved more negatively in relationships in which husbands were more attractive than their wives. These results highlight the importance of dyadic examinations of the effects of spouses' qualities on their marriages.     

How do constraints on leaving a marriage affect behavior within the marriage?

Like relationship satisfaction, constraints on leaving a relationship have been described as a component of global commitment. But do constraints increase or decrease efforts to maintain the relationship? To address this question, the authors of the current article describe 3 independent studies of spouses and married couples. Across all studies, wives who perceived more constraints on leaving the marriage exhibited lower levels of negative behavior only when their husbands were relatively unconstrained. In Study 3, this association was especially pronounced among less satisfied wives. In Study 2, spouses' perceived constraint also interacted to predict husbands' behavior, but in the opposite direction: Husbands who perceived more constraints behaved less negatively when their wives were similarly constrained but more negatively when their wives were less constrained. These results highlight differences in behavior between couples who persist in marriage because they desire to and those who endure because they have to, raising questions about measures of global commitment that obscure these distinctions. They also highlight the need for a dyadic perspective on the forces that keep relationships together.     

A Dyadic View of Support in Marriage: The Critical Role of Men’s Support Provision

This study examined how sensitive support provision and receipt were related to marital outcomes in a sample of 57 happily married, middle-class couples from the Midwestern U.S. To assess how observed supportive behaviors may be differentially associated with self-reported support satisfaction, marital love, and marital conflict for men and women, we utilized a series of Actor Partner Interdependence Models (APIM). This dyadic approach revealed significant gender differences regarding how the supportive role enacted (i.e., provider versus recipient) contributed considerably to marital outcomes. Specifically, husbands’ sensitive support provision significantly predicted both spouses’ support satisfaction. Additionally, husbands’ sensitive support provision was significantly associated with wives’ marital love. Wives’ reported conflict was predicted by the combination of both providing and receiving sensitive support. For husbands’ outcomes, husbands’ own sensitive support provision was most critically associated with their reporting greater love and less conflict. These findings reveal notable gender differences as men’s ability to provide sensitive support was critical not only to their wives’ marital outcomes, but to their own as well. Our results build upon and extend the literature implicating the importance of examining gender differences in supportive interactions in marriage. Moreover, our findings suggest that simultaneous consideration of spousal support receipt and provision is critical when seeking to understand how support is related to marital outcomes for men and women.     

Relational aggression in marriage

Drawing from developmental theories of relational aggression, this article reports on a study designed to identify if spouses use relationally aggressive tactics when dealing with conflict in their marriage and the association of these behaviors with marital outcomes. Using a sample of 336 married couples (672 spouses), results revealed that the majority of couples reported that relationally aggressive behaviors, such as social sabotage and love withdrawal, were a part of their marital dynamics, at least to some degree. Gender comparisons of partner reports of their spouse's behavior revealed that wives were significantly more likely to be relationally aggressive than husbands. Structural equation modeling demonstrated that relational aggression is associated with lower levels of marital quality and greater marital instability for both husbands and wives. Implications are drawn for the use of relational aggression theory in the future study of couple conflict and marital aggression Aggr. Behav. 36:315–329, 2010. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Discrepancies between patients' and partners' perceptions of unsupportive behavior in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

The literature on chronic diseases indicates that partner support, as perceived by patients, contributes to well-being of patients in either a positive or a negative way. Previous studies indicated that patients' and partners' perceptions of unsupportive partner behavior are only moderately related. Our aim was (1) to investigate whether discrepancies between patients' and partners' perceptions of two types of unsupportive partner behavior-overprotection and protective buffering-were associated with the level of distress reported by patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and (2) to evaluate whether the direction of the differences between patients' and partners' perceptions was associated with distress (i.e., whether patient distress was associated with greater patient or greater partner reports of unsupportive partner behavior). A cross-sectional study was performed using the data of a sample of 68 COPD patients and their spouses. Distress was assessed using the Hopkins Symptom Checklist-25. Patients' and partners' perceptions of unsupportive partner behavior were assessed with a questionnaire measuring overprotection and protective buffering. Distress was independently associated with patients' perceptions of protective buffering and discrepancies in spouses' perceptions of overprotection. Regarding the direction of the discrepancy, we found that greater partner reports of overprotection as compared with patient reports were related to more distress in COPD patients. Our study showed that patients' distress was associated not only with patients' perceptions, but also with discrepancies between patients' and partners' perceptions of unsupportive partner behavior.     

Marital Processes Linking Gender Role Attitudes and Marital Satisfaction Among Mexican‐Origin Couples: Application of an Actor–Partner Interdependence Mediation Model

Informed by dyadic approaches and culturally informed, ecological perspectives of marriage, we applied an actor–partner interdependence mediation model (APIMeM) in a sample of 120 Mexican‐origin couples to examine (a) the associations linking Mexican immigrant husbands’ and wives’ gender role attitudes to marital satisfaction directly and indirectly through marital processes (i.e., warmth and negativity) and (b) whether the associations between spouses’ gender role attitudes and marital processes were moderated by wives’ employment. Although previous research has identified spouses’ gender role attitudes as potential predictors of spouses’ marital satisfaction, no study has examined these links in a dyadic model that elucidates how gender role attitudes may operate through processes to shape marital satisfaction and conditions under which associations may differ. We found that when spouses reported less sex‐typed attitudes, their partners reported feeling more connected to them and more satisfied with the marriage, regardless of whether wives were employed. Our results suggest that marital satisfaction was highest for those Mexican‐origin couples in which marital partners were less sex‐typed in their attitudes about marital roles to the extent that partners’ attitudinal role flexibility promoted spouses’ feelings of warmth and connection to their partner.     

The coregulation of daily affect in marital relationships

This study examined whether changes in individuals' affective states are associated with their partners' affect when spouses come together in daily life after having spent time apart while pursuing individual activities, as well as whether such associations are moderated by individual differences in interpersonal insecurity and perspective taking. For 7 consecutive days, spouses from 166 married couples reported their affect 6 times per day on 2 dimensions, hard affect (angry-calm) and soft affect (sad/depressed-upbeat/content). Within-couple analyses indicated that spouses' changes in hard affect covaried, particularly when they scored high on interpersonal insecurity. Moreover, husbands' changes in soft affect covaried with their wives' soft affect when the husbands scored high on perspective taking. The results emphasize the interconnectedness of spouses' feelings when they reunite, and they identify key individual difference variables that strengthen interpersonal transmission of emotion in close relationships.     

Working models of attachment shape perceptions of social support: evidence from experimental and observational studies

Two studies examined the association between attachment style and perceptions of social support. Study 1 (N = 95 couples) used an experimental paradigm to manipulate social support in the context of a stressful task. Insecure participants (anxious and avoidant) who received low-support messages appraised these messages more negatively, rated a prior behavioral interaction with their partner as having been less supportive, and performed significantly worse at their task compared with secure participants. Study 2 (N = 153 couples) used a similar paradigm except that partners were allowed to send genuine support messages. Insecure participants (especially fearful) perceived their partners' messages as less supportive, even after controlling for independent ratings of the messages and relationship-specific expectations. These studies provide evidence that individuals are predisposed to appraise their support experiences in ways that are consistent with their chronic working models of attachment, especially when the support message is ambiguous.     

Marital satisfaction and topographical assessment of marital interaction: A longitudinal analysis of newlywed couples

Despite numerous tests of social learning hypotheses relating to marriage, important questions remain concerning how best to quantify behavior displayed in marital interaction. In the present study, 60 newlywed couples reported their marital satisfaction, engaged in a 15-minute problem-solving discussion, and reported their marital satisfaction again 6 and 12 months later. The interactions were microanalytically coded, the codes were assigned a numeric value, and each spouse's cumulative point totals were plotted as a function of time in the interaction. This was done separately for all 60 couples. Graphs were divided into groups based on the topography of the graphically represented interactions. These groups differed cross-sectionally and longitudinally in their level of marital satisfaction. Couples tended to have lower satisfaction scores when their initial interactions were characterized with behavioral parity between the spouses at the beginning of a discussion, changing to asymmetrical patterns of behavior later in the conversation. This method was found to be more predictive of marital satisfaction than were standard methods of assessing dyadic interaction (i.e., base rates of behavior and sequential analysis). Implications of these data for understanding how interactions relate to the course of newlywed marriage are discussed.     

Responding to partners' expression of anger: the role of communal motivation

The effects of communal motivation on reactions to relationship partners' expressed anger were examined. In Study 1, married couples reported on the communal strength of their marriage, their expressions of anger to their spouse, and relationship satisfaction. In Study 2, college students reported on the communal strength of their best friendships, those friends' expressions of anger, and their evaluations of and provision of support to those friends. In Study 3, communal motivation toward a stranger who expressed mild anger was manipulated and evaluation of that stranger was measured. In all three studies, low communal motivation was associated with more negative evaluations of angry partners, lower relationship satisfaction, and, in Study 2, lower support provision. In contrast, when communal motivation was high, these decreases either did not occur (Studies 1 and 3) or were diminished (Study 2), and in Study 2, partners' anger was associated with increased provision of social support.     

Relationships between Gender Role Attitudes, Role Division, and Perception of Equity among Heterosexual, Gay and Lesbian Couples

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationships between gender role attitudes, household tasks, and the perception of equity among heterosexual, gay and lesbian couples. One hundred and twenty-four participants (54 heterosexuals, 30 gay men and 40 lesbians) were tested. It was found that same-sex couples had more liberal attitudes toward gender roles than did heterosexual couples. In addition, significant differences were found between the spouses in their responses regarding role division in housekeeping in each group. The responses of heterosexual spouses correlate more closely with each other regarding the role of each of the spouses than was the case for same-sex couples. However, the role division among lesbian couples was more egalitarian than that of heterosexual couples. In addition, heterosexual women consider their married life less equitable than heterosexual men do. Similarly, one of the gay spouses considers the relationship less equitable than the other spouse does. The results are discussed in terms of their relevance to theories of social perception and cultural backgrounds.     

The relationship between marital standards,dyadic coping and marital satisfaction

Different types of cognitions in close relationships have been identified. Yet, little is known about the nature and effects of most of them, such as marital standards. In our research project ‘What makes marriages last?’ we applied a German adaptation of the ‘Inventory of Specific Relationship Standards,’ a questionnaire measuring how much sharing, egalitarianism and investment spouses feel they should have and actually experience in their own marriage. We hypothesized that high, i.e., relationship‐focused standards, should be associated with dyadic coping processes as well as with marital satisfaction. Thereby, dyadic coping was expected to play a mediating role between standards and marital satisfaction. Based on a sample of 663 German married couples, we found significant correlations between standards, marital satisfaction, and dyadic coping processes. Moreover, supportive behavior in stressful situations had the expected partial mediating effect, which turned out to be slightly different for husbands and wives. Implications for preventive and therapeutic intervention are discussed. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Bidirectional associations between hope,optimism and social support,and trauma-related symptoms among survivors of terrorism and their spouses

The study examined bidirectional relationships between three key resources of resilience: hope, optimism, and social support, and a range of trauma-related symptoms (posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, and anxiety) among injured survivors of terror attacks and their spouses (N = 210). A series of actor-partner interdependence models were used to test the bidirectional dyadic associations. The results demonstrate negative associations between resilience resources of the survivors and their spouses and their trauma-related symptoms. Further, the levels of hope and social support reported by the survivors were negatively associated with the trauma-related symptoms experienced by their spouses, whereas the level of optimism reported by the spouses was negatively associated with the trauma-related symptoms experienced by the survivors. Theoretical and clinical implications are discussed.