Externalizing psychopathology and marital adjustment in long-term marriages: Results from a large combined sample of married couples.

The current study evaluated the associations between externalizing psychopathology and marital adjustment in a combined sample of 1,805 married couples. We further considered the role of personality in these associations, as personality has been found to predict both the development of externalizing psychopathology as well as marital distress and instability. Diagnostic interviews assessed conduct disorder, adult symptoms of antisocial personality disorder, and alcohol dependence. Personality was assessed using the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire. The Dyadic Adjustment Scale was used to measure marital adjustment. Results indicate that more externalizing psychopathology, greater negative emotionality, and lower communal positive emotionality were associated with reduced marital adjustment in both individuals and their spouses. Low constraint was associated with reduced marital adjustment for individuals but not for their spouses. Multivariate analyses indicated externalizing psychopathology continued to predict marital adjustment even when accounting for overlap with personality. These results highlight the importance of examining the presence of externalizing psychopathology and the personality attributes of both members of a dyad when considering psychological predictors of marital adjustment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social support, conflict, and the development of marital dysfunction.

How spouses help each other contend with personal difficulties is an unexplored but potentially important domain for understanding how marital distress develops. Newly married couples participated in 2 interaction tasks: a problem-solving task in which spouses discussed a marital conflict and a social support task in which spouses discussed personal, nonmarital difficulties. Observational coding of these interactions showed that wives' support solicitation and provision behaviors predicted marital outcomes 2 years later, independent of negative behaviors during marital problem-solving discussions. In addition, couples who exhibited relatively poor skills in both behavioral domains were at particular risk for later marital dysfunction. These results suggest that social support exchanges should be incorporated into social learning analyses of marriage and into programs designed to prevent marital distress. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Negative life events, marital interaction, and the longitudinal course of newlywed marriage

Life events and problem-solving behavior were examined relative to longitudinal change in depressive symptoms and marital adjustment over 18 months in 60 newlywed couples. Spouses' problem-solving behavior moderated, but did not mediate, the relationship between life events and adjustment. Some behaviors contributed to spouses being more resilient to life events, and some behaviors made spouses more vulnerable. In particular, wives' anger facilitated their adjustment to major and interpersonal events such that their depressive symptoms declined and their marital satisfaction increased. Husbands' humor contributed to marital instability when spouses reported more major events. The results further specify the vulnerability-stress-adaptation model of marriage and expand on the role of behavior in marriage.     

Prospective associations from family-of-origin interactions to adult marital interactions and relationship adjustment.

To test the social learning-based hypothesis that marital conflict resolution patterns are learned in the family of origin, longitudinal, observational data were used to assess prospective associations between family conflict interaction patterns during adolescence and offspring's later marital conflict interaction patterns. At age 14 years, 47 participants completed an observed family conflict resolution task with their parents. In a subsequent assessment 17 years later, the participants completed measures of marital adjustment and an observed marital conflict interaction task with their spouse. As predicted, levels of hostility and positive engagement expressed by parents and adolescents during family interactions were prospectively linked with levels of hostility and positive engagement expressed by offspring and their spouses during marital interactions. Family-of-origin hostility was a particularly robust predictor of marital interaction behaviors; it predicted later marital hostility and negatively predicted positive engagement, controlling for psychopathology and family-of-origin positive engagement. For men, family-of-origin hostility also predicted poorer marital adjustment, an effect that was mediated through hostility in marital interactions. These findings suggest a long-lasting influence of family communication patterns, particularly hostility, on offspring's intimate communication and relationship functioning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Communication and intimacy in the marriages of depressed patients.

Marital discord is common among depressed patients. To explain the concurrence of depression and marital discord, it was hypothesized that depressed patients and their spouses have weak relationship-coping abilities, specifically communication, problem solving, and capacity for intimacy. 17 depressed patients and their spouses were compared with 17 control couples on a communication task, an intimacy interview, and self-reports of marital satisfaction. Results indicated that, compared with control Ss, the depressed patients and their spouses (1) reported greater marital dissatisfaction, (2) demonstrated poorer communication and problem-solving ability, and (3) were more likely to have an impaired capacity for establishing and maintaining intimacy. The implications for understanding the development of depression and marital discord are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Marital interaction: Physiological linkage and affective exchange.

Studied 30 married couples during naturalistic interactions to determine the extent to which variation in marital satisfaction could be accounted for by physiological and affective patterns between and within spouses. Two hypotheses were tested: (a) Compared to nondistressed couples' interactions, distressed couples' interactions would show greater physiological interrelatedness or "linkage," more negative affect, and more reciprocity of negative affect. (b) These differences would be more pronounced when the interaction was high in conflict (discussing a marital problem) as opposed to low in conflict (discussing the events of the day). Heart rate, GSR, pulse transmission time, and somatic activity from both spouses were analyzed using bivariate time-series techniques to derive a measure of physiological linkage. Self-report affective data were analyzed using sequential analyses to derive a measure of affect reciprocity. The hypotheses were strongly supported; 60% of the variance in marital satisfaction was accounted for using measures of physiological linkage alone. Additional nonredundant variance was accounted for by the other physiological and affective measures. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Marital power, marital adjustment, and therapy outcome.

This study examined the association of marital power type to (1) marital adjustment and (2) response to behavioral marital therapy. A behavioral measure was used to classify 53 distressed couples into egalitarian, husband-dominant, wife-dominant, or anarchic power patterns. Marital adjustment was assessed by measures of marital satisfaction, desired relationship change, and 2 communication indexes. At pretreatment, egalitarian couples showed the best overall marital adjustment, and anarchic couples showed the worst; at posttreatment, egalitarian and wife-led couples reported the highest marital satisfaction, and anarchic couples reported the lowest. Wife dominant couples improved the most, reporting increased marital satisfaction and demonstrating improved communication. The discussion considers the special treatment needs of anarchic couples for whom improved communication occurred in a context of continued marital dissatisfaction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Refining the association between attributions and behavior in marital interaction.

Evidence in support of an association between attributions and behavior in marital interaction is incomplete and subject to alternative interpretations. To address this problem, 120 newlywed spouses completed measures of marital satisfaction and marital attributions and participated in 2 interaction tasks. In one task, spouses discussed a marital difficulty with their partner. In the other task, one spouse described a personal difficulty that he or she wanted to resolve while the partner provided support; these roles were then reversed. To the extent that wives offered maladaptive attributions, they tended to behave in ways that hindered problem resolution in both tasks. Attributions and behavior were more strongly related among wives than husbands and among relatively distressed spouses than nondistressed spouses. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Physical aggression and marital dysfunction: A longitudinal analysis.

Shortly after marriage, 56 couples provided data on physical aggression and other predictors of marital adjustment. At 6-month intervals over the next 4 years, spouses reported on their marital quality and stability. Results indicated that marital dysfunction was more common among aggressive than among nonaggressive couples (70% vs. 38%) and among severely aggressive than among moderately aggressive couples (93% vs. 46%). Aggression remained a reliable predictor of marital outcomes after the authors controlled for stressful events and negative communication. These findings help to refine developmental models of marital dysfunction, which often overlook the role of aggression, and can provide information for prevention programs for marital distress, which typically do not distinguish between aggressive and nonaggressive couples. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Individual and contextual correlates of marital change across the transition to parenthood.

To explore multiple prenatal antecedents and postnatal correlates of change in marital adjustment and satisfaction in men and women across the transition to parenthood, 102 couples from diverse sociocultural backgrounds were studied longitudinally from pregnancy to the 9th postpartum month. Guided by an ecological model, the pre- and postnatal assessments included questionnaires of marital adjustment, personality traits, attitudes toward parenthood, work role centrality, social support, as well as observations and ratings of infant behaviors, maternal and paternal behaviors, and marital communication. Fathers' caregiving behaviors and play and affiliative behaviors were the most powerful, positive predictors for both spouses. Additional positive predictors for women were personality traits of impulse control and non-Western ethnicity, whereas negative predictors were work role centrality and personality trait of autonomy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Comparing the responses of maritally violent and nonviolent spouses to problematic marital and nonmarital situations: Are the skill deficits of physically aggressive husbands and wives global?

This study compared the competency of responses offered by spouses in violent and nonviolent marriages to problematic marital and nonmarital situations. Twenty-five maritally violent and distressed, 10 nonviolent but maritally distressed, and 23 nonviolent and nondistressed couples participated. Each spouse listened to narratives of marital and nonmarital (e.g., boss or friend) problematic situation vignettes. Participants were asked what they would say and do in each situation. A coding system designed with input from nonviolent, happily married individuals showed that violent spouses provided less competent responses than nonviolent spouses for both marital and nonmarital situations and for both 1st and 2nd responses. The findings suggest that violent-distressed spouses have particular difficulty with marital situations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Assessing responses to recurring problems in marriage: Evaluation of the Marital Coping Inventory.

Evaluated the psychometric properties of the Marital Coping Inventory (MCI) by administering the MCI and measures of marital satisfaction and negative affectivity to 120 newlywed spouses, by observing spouses discussing a marital problem, and by administering the MCI again to 104 spouses 6 mo later. Results extend prior analyses of the MCI. The Avoidance subscale had low internal consistency, wives scored higher than husbands on the Conflict and Self-Blame subscales, coping scores correlated with specific affects expressed in the discussions, and the Conflict and Self-Interest subscales predicted change in marital satisfaction. These findings aid in evaluating the psychometric status of the MCI and the conceptual status of coping as assessed by the MCI. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Fonction du geste interactif et du regard dans la régulation de la résponse d'écoute chez des conjoints conjugalement satisfaits et insatisfaits.

Notes that previous research has shown that spouse's responsive listening contribute to the perception of support by the partner. Videotaped conjugal support interactions of 10 maritally satisfied couples and 10 maritally dissatisfied couples were used to examine the communication regulation of spouses discussing a personal problem. Two regulators of responsive listening were studied: gaze and interactive gestures. The study objectives were (1) to compare the efficacy of gaze and interactive gestures in the regulation of responsive listening, and (2) to verify whether maritally satisfied spouses, compared with dissatisfied spouses, produced more responsive listening contingent to the regulators. The results show that the concurrent occurrences of gaze and interactive gestures were the most effective regulators of responsive listening, particularly for satisfied spouses. The results of this study underline the importance of studying responsive listening to understand the contribution of social support to marital satisfaction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Model generation and testing to probe neural circuitry in the cingulate cortex of postmortem schizophrenic brain

How spouses help each other contend with personal difficulties is an unexplored but potentially important domain for understanding how marital distress develops. Newly married couples participated in 2 interaction tasks: a problem-solving task in which spouses discussed a marital conflict and a social support task in which spouses discussed personal, nonmarital difficulties. Observational coding of these interactions showed that wives' support solicitation and provision behaviors predicted marital outcomes 2 years later, independent of negative behaviors during marital problem-solving discussions. In addition, couples who exhibited relatively poor skills in both behavioral domains were at particular risk for later marital dysfunction. These results suggest that social support exchanges should be incorporated into social learning analyses of marriage and into programs designed to prevent marital distress.     

Conflict-management styles of spouses in lasting marriages.

This article focuses on conflict-management styles of spouses in marriages that lasted an average of 35 yrs. Data about adaptation in these marriages, which included how spouses dealt with marital conflict, was collected through in-depth interviews with 144 spouses in 72 marriages. The sample was diverse in terms of race, socioeconomic status, and religion. Qualitative and quantitative methods were used to analyze the data. The findings revealed that the most powerful factor in shaping conflict-management styles in the recent years of these relationships was the style of managing conflict in previous years. Based on these findings, treatment implications for marital therapy are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Patterns of marital change during the early childhood years: Parent personality, coparenting, and division-of-labor correlates.

Cluster analysis was applied to the marital reports of 99 husbands and wives (from 104 families) obtained when their firstborn sons were 10, 27, 36, and 60 months of age to identify distinct patterns of change in marital functioning. Husband-love and wife-conflict scores revealed 3 distinct change patterns—stays good, bad to worse, and good gets worse—which afforded the opportunity to address 2 distinct questions, the 1st dealing with the correlates of consistently good and poor functioning marriages and the 2nd with what distinguishes marriages that initially functioned similarly (and well) but proceeded to develop in distinctively different ways. Results show, consistent with related findings from a study of newlyweds (B. Karney & T. Bradbury, 1997), that the answer to the 1st question is found in enduring personality traits of spouses, whereas the answer to the 2nd is found in observed marital dynamics (reflecting coparenting processes). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Hitting home: Relationships between recent deployment, posttraumatic stress symptoms, and marital functioning for Army couples.

Using a sample of 434 couples consisting of active duty Army husbands married to civilian wives, relationships between recent deployment, current posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, and a range of marital outcomes were investigated. Self-reports from both husbands and wives regarding relationship functioning did not differ between couples who were and were not separated due to deployment in the prior year. However, deployment in the past year was related to higher levels of current PTSD symptoms for husbands, and husbands' current PTSD symptoms were associated with lower marital satisfaction, confidence in the relationship, positive bonding between the spouses, parenting alliance, and dedication to the relationship for both husbands and wives. In addition, husbands' current PTSD symptoms were associated with higher levels of negative communication for both husbands and wives, and lower satisfaction with sacrifice for the relationship for husbands. Once positive bonding, negative communication, and parenting alliance were controlled, husband PTSD symptoms no longer significantly predicted marital satisfaction for wives. Husband PTSD symptoms continued to exert a significant, but reduced, unique effect on husband marital satisfaction once these variables were accounted for. The results provide greater understanding of the relationship of deployment/PTSD symptoms and marital functioning and suggest areas for intervention with military couples. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Depressive symptoms and marital satisfaction in the context of chronic disease: A longitudinal dyadic analysis.

These analyses examined the longitudinal relationships between depressive symptoms and marital satisfaction over a 2-year period as experienced by 315 patients with end-stage renal disease and their spouses. Using multilevel modeling, the authors examined both individual and cross-partner effects of depressive symptoms and marital satisfaction on patients and spouses, testing bidirectional causality. Results indicate that mean and time-varying depressive symptoms of both patients and spouses were associated with their own marital satisfaction. Although mean marital satisfaction was associated with own depressive symptoms for both patients and spouses, time-varying marital satisfaction did not affect depressive symptoms for either patients or spouses. Significant cross-partner effects reveal that both mean enduring and time-varying depressive symptoms of the spouse affected marital satisfaction of the patient. Findings highlight the complex nature of the relationship between depressive symptoms and marital satisfaction in late-life couples. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The influence of adult attachment styles on the association between marital adjustment and depressive symptoms.

This study tested the hypothesis that attachment styles moderate the relationship between marital adjustment and depressive symptoms among husbands and wives. In a sample of 91 married couples, ratings of the anxious-ambivalent attachment style moderated the relationship between marital adjustment and depressive symptoms for both husbands and wives. Additionally, ratings of the secure attachment style moderated the relationship between marital adjustment and depressive symptoms for wives, with a trend for husbands. These findings suggest a relationship between insecurity and a predisposition to depressive symptoms in marital relationships. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)