Attachment insecurity and perceptions of housework: Associations with marital well-being.

This exploratory study examines the interactive effects of attachment insecurity and perceptions of housework on 2 dimensions of marital well-being--satisfaction and perceptions of fairness. Participants were 148 married couples obtained from an area probability sample as part of a larger study. Multilevel modeling analyses with the couple as the unit of analysis showed that women who scored high and men who scored low on the dimension of attachment anxiety and reported that their spouses performed more routine housework (i.e., prepares meals) also reported being over-benefited. Women who scored high and men who scored low on the dimension of attachment avoidance and reported that their spouses performed more intermittent housework (i.e., yard work) reported greater marital satisfaction. These results highlight the role of attachment orientations in explaining why perceptions of housework may have more or less prominent effects on marital well-being.     

Effects of parental divorce on marital commitment and confidence

Research on the intergenerational transmission of divorce has demonstrated that compared with offspring of nondivorced parents, those of divorced parents generally have more negative attitudes toward marriage as an institution and are less optimistic about the feasibility of a long-lasting, healthy marriage. It is also possible that when entering marriage themselves, adults whose parents divorced have less personal relationship commitment to their own marriages and less confidence in their own ability to maintain a happy marriage with their spouse. However, this prediction has not been tested. In the current study, we assessed relationship commitment and relationship confidence, as well as parental divorce and retrospectively reported interparental conflict, in a sample of 265 engaged couples prior to their first marriage. Results demonstrated that women's, but not men's, parental divorce was associated with lower relationship commitment and lower relationship confidence. These effects persisted when controlling for the influence of recalled interparental conflict and premarital relationship adjustment. The current findings suggest that women whose parents divorced are more likely to enter marriage with relatively lower commitment to, and confidence in, the future of those marriages, potentially raising their risk for divorce.     

When life's good: Gendered marital satisfaction and work-pay satisfaction influences on organisational commitment of advancement-career-stage employees

We examined the influences of marital satisfaction and work-pay satisfaction on organisational commitment among advancement-career-stage employees while controlling for gender and a selection of socio-demographics. The sample consisted of 350 workers (females = 237; mean age = 32.44, SD = 9.99 years) from a large privately owned educational service provider. The employees completed measures of marital satisfaction, work-pay satisfaction, and organisational commitment. The data were analysed to predict the influence of marital satisfaction, and work-pay satisfaction on organisational commitment, while controlling for gender and socio-demographics. The results suggest that although happily married people with work-pay satisfaction had higher organisational commitment, those with marital satisfaction and older age were less committed to their employer organisations. We conclude that marital satisfaction interfered with advancement-career-stage employees’ loyalty to the organisation.     

Marital commitment,communication and marital satisfaction: An analysis based on actor–partner interdependence model

Marital commitment and satisfaction are known to be closely related, but only limited research has examined the asymmetric interaction patterns between spouses. In this paper, the authors study 400 Chinese couples and find that communication mediates the relationship between marital commitment and marital satisfaction. Using the actor–partner interdependence model, they find that wives and husbands show asymmetric associations for marital commitment, communication and satisfaction. Specifically, compared with husbands, wives are more attuned to the path from marital commitment to marital satisfaction via communication. Implications and limitations are discussed.     

Prebirth marital interactions and postbirth marital development

A considerable body of research supports the general statement that “couples who before the birth of their first child are characterized by positive mutuality, partner autonomy, and the ability to confront problems and regulate negative affect are responsive to the needs of their infants, promote their autonomy and have more secure and autonomous children, as seen throughout the first 4 years of life” (Heinicke, 1995). The implications for infant mental health are profound, but more needs to be known about what specific prebirth marital qualities interact with and anticipate postbirth marital and child functioning. This is a study of the association between the nature of the couple's prebirth interaction and their marital adaptation during the first 2 years of the child's life. Linking pre- and postbirth marital functioning, the frequency of negative affect and off-task scores, as well as the inability to resolve their issues in the prebirth marital interaction, anticipated a declining or consistently low postbirth marital adaptation.     

空性的三方会谈

空性是宇宙的根本实相,佛学、老子、量子论各依自身的需要和目的分别进行了阐述。其三方的结论具有一定的可比性及哲学上的相似性。由此说明了她们对宇宙根本实相的认识具有深刻的统一性。     

A rational-emotive theory of marital dysfunction and marital therapy

This article first discusses some rational-emotive perspectives on marital and couples therapy, including what constitutes a good relationship, some important differences between rational-emotive and other couples therapy approaches, and an RET classification of relationship problems. Second, this article also sketches out ways in which social exchange principles can be integrated into rational-emotive couples therapy.This is a revised version of a paper that originally appeared in A. Ellis and M. Bernard's (Eds.) 1985 text,Applications of Rational Emotive Therapy, Plenum Publishing Co., New York.     

Humean supervenience and tripartite entanglement relations

Axiomathes - It has been argued that Humean Supervenience (HS) is threatened by the existence of quantum entanglement relations. The most conservative strategy for defending HS is to add the...     

Neuroticism and marital satisfaction

Thirty happily married and thirty unhappily married couples were examined by means of the MPI questionnaire to test the hypothesis that emotional instability impaired satisfaction in marriage. Unhappily married partners were very significantly higher on neuroticism than happily married partners, but there were no differences in extraversion/introversion. The data suggest that the high neuroticism of the unhappily married partners antedates their marriage.     

Psychoticism and marital satisfaction

The author has tested the hypothesis that psychoticism, as described in Eysenck's theory of personality, is related to marriage outcome. Thirty happy and 30 unhappy couples answered the Eysencks' EPQ questionnaire. The unhappy husbands and unhappy wives scored significantly higher on the P scale than their happy counterparts respectively. The results suggest that psychoticism (like neuroticism) may impair the marriage satisfaction. In addition, happily married spouses show greater similarity with respect to personality than do unhappily married spouses. Thus the results support the likeness and go counter to the complementaries theories of marital satisfaction.     

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.     

Class,housework, and happiness: Women's work and life satisfaction

Large-sample surveys often fail to find a difference in self-reported satisfaction between housewives and employed women. Several explanations that have been offered for this failure are explored here in greater detail. The suggestion that the ease of housewives' lives is experienced as a benefit compensating for fewer satisfactions in other areas is rejected; greater time pressure is associated with greater satisfaction for housewives. The suggestion that working-class women are happier at home, while middle-class women prefer careers is also not supported; working-class women appear to be less satisfied with their lives and no more satisfied with their work whether the comparison group is working-class women with jobs or middle-class housewives. Social desirability, on the other hand, is found to be a major factor predicting the self-reported happiness of housewives, and the general issue of the role of social expectations in evaluating satisfaction is raised.     

Feminism and marital dissatisfaction

A questionnaire measuring sex-role attitudes was completed by 809 readers of a popular women's magazine, along with the Kipnis Marital Power Questionnaire and items concerned with marital and sexual happiness. Feminist women were less satisfied with their relationship both generally and sexually, and had a slightly lower frequency of sexual intercourse than traditional women. Analysis of the means used to wield power within the relationship showed that feminist women were more given to confrontation than accomodation, which might account for their marital difficulties. Another type of woman who tended to be unhappy in her marriage was the traditional domestic woman who favoured emotional manipulation as a means of influence within the relationship. Results were consistent with previous findings in showing that happiness decreased with age, duration of marriage and number of children.     

Daily marital interactions and positive affect during marital conflict among newlywed couples

The mundane and often fleeting moments that a couple experiences in their everyday lives may contribute to the health or deterioration of a relationship by serving as a foundation to major couple events such as conflict discussions and caring days. This study examines the role of playfulness and enthusiasm in everyday life to the use of humor and affection during conflict. Using observational methods, we studied 49 newlywed couples in a 10-minute dinnertime interaction and in a 15-minute conflict discussion. The conflict discussion was coded using the Specific Affect Coding System (SPAFF; Gottman, Coan, & McCoy, 1996), and a new observational system was developed to capture dinnertime interactions in a seminatural setting. We analyzed the data using path analysis and found a stronger path model when the direction of correlation moved from daily moments to the conflict discussion. These findings provide preliminary support for the importance of daily moments in couple relationships, but this research was strictly observational and therefore correlational, so further research is necessary to determine direction of causation.     

Personality and compatibility: a prospective analysis of marital stability and marital satisfaction

The antecedents of marital stability (divorce or remaining married) and marital satisfaction (within the group that remains married) were investigated with a panel of 300 couples who were followed from their engagements in the 1930s until 1980. Twenty-two of the couples broke their engagements; of the 278 couples who married, 50 got divorced at some time between 1935 and 1980. Personality characteristics (measured by acquaintance ratings made in the 1930s) were important predictors of both marital stability and marital satisfaction. The three aspects of personality most strongly related to marital outcome were the neuroticism of the husband, the neuroticism of the wife, and the impulse control of the husband. In combination, the 17 major antecedent variables were moderately predictive of a criterion variable composed of both marital stability and marital satisfaction (R = .49). The three major aspects of personality accounted for more than half of the predictable variance. The remaining variance was accounted for by attitudinal, social-environment, and sexual history variables.     

Depression and marital interaction.

A family-systems model of depression is presented and discussed. In this model, the intrapsychic concept of cognitive schema and the interpersonal concepts of social stimulation and social reingorcement are integrated within a systems-theory perspective. The effects of positive and negative feedback are delineated, and a concept of depression-triggering and depression-maintaining feedback loops is described. A clinical illustration is utilized to exemplify the theoretical model.