ICPR Abstracts: Session 36

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Session 36: Symposium

Adaptation and Change in Marriage: A 13-Year 
Longitudinal Study

Adaptation and Change in Marriage: An Overview

Laura J. Shebilske
University of Texas at Austin

The papers presented in this symposium, all of which are 
based on a longitudinal study of marriage conducted from 
1981 to 1994, examine how broad contextual forces affect 
marriage and how couples adapt to each other in marriage. 
The introductory presentation, given by Laura Shebilske, 
will provide an overview of the symposium as well as the 
larger project within which it is embedded. The first 
empirical study, presented by Anne Lucchetti, examines 
the processes through which economic hardship creates 
marital distress. The second and third papers examine 
psychological characteristics that spouses bring to 
marriage. John Caughlin will discuss how spouses' 
personality characteristics (i.e., "negative affectivity") 
affect marital satisfaction, and Renate Houts will 
demonstrate how a couple's level of incompatibility relates 
to the development of distress. The fourth and fifth papers, 
presented by Szu-Chia Chang and Elizabeth Johnson, 
examine the ways in which couples deal with, or adapt to, 
disappointments and differences. All of the papers 
presented in this symposium use data from a four-phase 
study of 168 predominantly white working-class couples. 
Information on the spouses' demographic background, 
psychological attributes (e.g., personality, compatibility, 
role expectations), and their patterns of interaction were 
gathered in 1981, two months after couples were married. 
With the exception of personality, which is assumed to be 
stable, parallel data were collected during 1982 and 1983, 
thus allowing us to capture marital adaptation and change. 
Due to the harsh economic conditions many of the couples 
experienced in the 1980's, more detailed financial 
information was gathered during the follow-up phase in 
1994. At each phase of the investigation, data were 
gathered about marital satisfaction from both spouses.


Economic Hardship and Marital Distress

Anne E. Lucchetti
University of Texas

Research conducted across several decades of the 20th 
century has demonstrated that economic hard times can 
have severe adverse consequences for families, including 
an increased risk of marital distress (Bakke, 1940; Conger, 
Conger, Elder, Lorenz, Simons, & Whitbeck, 1993; Elder, 
1976).  The present study continues this tradition by 
examining the processes through which economic hardship 
affects the quality of marital relationships for couples 13 
years into marriage.  Specifically, this research was 
designed as a conceptual replication and elaboration of 
Conger and Elder's (1994) Family Stress Model.  The 
Conger and Elder model proposed that economic hardships 
and declines in marital satisfaction are mediated through 
economic pressure, which produces emotional distress and 
negative marital interaction patterns.  In the present study, 
economic hardship engendered feelings of economic 
pressure.  This pressure was related to the emotional 
distress husbands and wives felt, which, in turn, gave rise 
to more negativity and conflict in the marital relationship.  
Finally, this negative climate, along with partners' high 
emotional distress, was negatively associated with lower 
levels of marital satisfaction for both husbands and wives.  
The results of this study supported a "Mediated Marital 
Stress Model." 


Processes by which Personality Comes to Affect 
Marital Satisfaction:  Interpretive and 
Interactive Models

John P. Caughlin
University of Texas

More than fifty years ago, Lewis Terman (1938) proposed 
that "in a large proportion of unsuccessful marriages it is 
possible to discover either in the husband or the wife, or 
perhaps both, numerous elements of the unhappy 
temperament and evidence that these elements have 
played a causal role [in the demise of marriage]."  Since 
that time, research has established a link between 
personality, particularly "negative affectivity" (a.k.a., 
neuroticism, anxiety), and marital satisfaction.  The 
majority of this research reports connections between 
people's personality and their own satisfaction.  Such 
research implies an interpretive model:  personality affects 
they way one views a relationship.  Surprisingly, little 
research has examined the potential impact of personality 
on both partners in the relationship.  The possibility that 
one's personality can affect a partner's satisfaction can be 
explained by a second interpretive model.  Such a model 
proposes that personality affects communication in a 
marriage, both because personality relates to one's own 
behavioral tendencies and because one's personality elicits 
certain types of responses from the partner. To test the 
relative utility of the two models (interpretive and 
interactive), structural equation modeling was used.  
Focusing on negative affectivity, the aspect of personality 
most consistently related to marital satisfaction, the 
structural equation modeling suggested that both models 
help explain how personality affects marital satisfaction.  
Specifically, the structural equations based on the 
interactive model adequately explained the relationships 
between negative affectivity and marital satisfaction at 
both two years and 13 years into marriage.  The structural 
equation often fit significantly better by adding an 
additional path linking negative affectivity and own 
marital satisfaction, suggesting the interpretive model is 
also important.


Compatibility:  A Behavioral Model of Relationship 
Development and Deterioration

Renate M. Houts
Kent State University

This presentation examines behavioral compatibility as it 
relates to marital stability and partners' well-being over 13 
years. Leisure activities and role tasks that each couple 
reported engaging in were used to determine relevant 
activities for inclusion in the measure of preference 
similarity. Compatibility scores were thus individualized 
for each couple; these scores were further refined for 
relevance by weighting each activity by the proportion of 
time spent in the activity by the couple. Partners' well-
being was a composite score, taking into account a 
person's satisfaction with various areas of his or her life 
(e.g., marital satisfaction, job satisfaction, financial 
satisfaction). Preliminary results indicate that 
compatibility does not appear directly related to a 
propensity to divorce, but instead influences marital 
stability through its impact on each partner's well-being. 
Additionally, incompatibility in role preferences and 
leisure interests appears to have a stronger influence on 
partners' well-being in relationships that end in divorce 
early; that is, although these couples are no more 
incompatible than the other couples, their well-being is 
more closely tied to their level of compatibility. Possible 
reasons for this finding are explored.


Adaptation in Early Marriage

Szu-Chia Chang
University of Texas at Austin

Early writing on marriage (e.g., Waller, 1938) portrays 
marital adjustment as a process that couples go through in 
order to adapt to each other. However, subsequent marital 
adjustment research depicts adjustment as an end state. 
the present study attempts to recapture marital adjustment 
as a process. In this manner, two models, optimization and 
adaptation, were tested. Optimization reflects a mutual 
influence process between the spouses. Adaptation, on the 
other hand, occurs when a one-way pattern of influence 
exists. Husbands and wives provided information about 
the affective quality of marital interaction and completed 
scales indicating the degree to which they desired change 
in their partners' behavior. Wives, more than husbands, 
desired changes in their spouses' behavior. However, 
wives were no more likely than their husbands to change 
their behavior to accommodate their partners' desires. 
Overall, the more spouses desired change from each other, 
the more they used conflictive and the less they used 
maintenance strategies. Such a combination of strategies is 
ineffective in producing accommodation and thus may lead 
individuals to gradually give up their effort for change in 
their partner.


The Development of Consensus During the 
Transition to Parenthood

Elizabeth Johnson
University of Texas at Austin

The transition to parenthood often produces a 
reorganization of behavior patterns on both the individual 
and couple level. This reorganization is often guided by 
traditional norms about the expected roles of mothers and 
fathers. However, these norms may not necessarily emerge 
immediately after the birth of a child. New parents must 
adapt their expectations to both their particular 
circumstances and to their partners' expectations. 
Consensus about who should perform child care tasks is 
important because it lessens the need for continuous 
negotiation and reduced opportunities for disappointment 
and conflict. Little is known about the processes by which 
couples adjust their prenatal preferences about child care 
tasks to the reality of parenthood. This longitudinal study 
examined the development of couple consensus on 
preferences for child care tasks. Husbands' and wives' 
preferences, uncorrelated before the birth of a child, 
became aligned over the transition to parenthood. This 
process appeared driven by wives increased preferences to 
do child care tasks by themselves. However, the more both 
husbands and wives loved their spouse, the more willing 
they were to do child care tasks.