Evaluated the effect of previous marital history, particularly the husband's marriage order, on the stability of first and second marriages of White and Black women. The most important predictor of the instability of first marriages of women are the previous divorces of husbands. (Author)

Examined the interaction between marital distress and spouses' attributions and expectancies regarding the marital relationship in predicting depressive symptoms in a mixed sample of 59 clinic and nonclinic couples. Best predictor of depression for both sexes was measure of disaffection, reflecting emotional distance and alienation in the…

Longitudinally examined effects of infertility on marital and global life quality with 174 infertile couples and 74 fertile couples. By third interview, 42% of infertile couples and 36% of fertile couples were parents. Psychosocial predictors of life quality were highly similar for members of infertile and fertile couples and for couples with and…

Contrasted communicator styles used within the marital relationship to styles used in general situations. Found that styles used in the relationship were different from those used in general. Also found attributes of a good communicator were affected by the relational aspect. (Author/RC)

Explores the effectiveness of a resource exchange framework in predicting marital satisfaction among 224 couples. Self-administered questionnaires provided information concerning resources received from spouse, shared time, and marital quality. Multiple regression analyses suggested the resource exchange theory was effective in explaining the…

Interviewed 279 mediation-minded individuals and 111 who rejected mediation. Results showed mediation was more attractive to individuals who scored high on traditional socioeconomic indicators. A key factor was the encouragement by private attorneys. Women chose to mediate because mediation was less impersonal than the court. (JAC)

Investigated the causes of happiness and unhappiness among spouses. Results indicated while marital happiness is the most important determinant of overall happiness, job satisfaction is the most important determinant of unhappiness. (Author/BL)

Examined the relationship between commitment to one's marriage at the onset of therapy and changes during marital therapy in a sample of 42 couples. Results showed that wives' commitment level was significant, while results for men were less striking. Discusses the importance of commitment in marital research. (LLL)

Examined relationships between perceptions of marital communication and the choice of male or female sterilization in 313 couples. The wife's perception of marital communication was negatively related to the tendency for the couple to choose female sterilization, conditional on female labor force participation. Communication questions are…

Examined relationships between spousal variables and psychological well-being of husbands and wives in older couples (n=120). Spousal variables significantly predicted wives' well-being with three most influential predictor variables being husbands' perception of the marriage, positive dimension of well-being, and physical health. Spousal…

Examines the relationship between partner physical victimization and a range of psychological and psychosocial functioning in a sample of couples (N=6,453). Explores whether gender interacted with factors to predict victimization. Increased levels of victimization were associated with greater levels of depression but no significant interactions…

Past research suggests that commitment to one's marriage is a variable which should be a contributing factor to marital satisfaction and the process of marital therapy. To examine the predictive utility of commitment, the relationship between commitment to marriage at the onset of therapy and changes during therapy was examined for a sample of 42…

Used data from interviews with 131 older spouse caregivers to explore potential explanations for gender differences in reported caregiver burden. Linear regression model explained 35 percent of variance in caregiver burden. Patient's cognitive and behavioral difficulties emerged as most important predictor of burden, followed by caregiver age,…

Investigates the different ways married men and women view the level of equality in their relationship and the connection between different indexes of marital equality and marital satisfaction with Israeli couples (N=150). Results show that, although equal role sharing and decision making were predictive of women's marital satisfaction, these also…

Examined the circumstances surrounding marriage termination in relation to the aftermath of marital separation. Collected data from a nonprobability sample of 205 individuals. Multiple regression analysis demonstrated that 41 percent of the variance in acceptance of marital termination can be explained by marital history variables. (Author/RC)