Research in the areas of social networks and social support has illustrated some of the complex ways in which those areas contribute to health. A study was conducted to examine the structure of social support among older women, its influences on physical and emotional health status and on behaviors associated with increased risk of chronic…

This study investigates the relative effects of financial and other incentives on the willingness of Army families to extend overseas tours of duty in Europe and touches on some of the underlying reasons why families choose not to extend. A survey was prepared to assess the relative effects of a $50, $100, or $200 per month bonus or a one-time…

Throughout American history, marital property reform has been a concern of farm women. With most of the farm family's business assets in real estate, women without the right of ownership can find that they have limited wealth and no influence in the distribution of the farm's assets. The National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws…

The Retirement Equity Act (REA) sets out requirements for joint and survivor annuity coverage for married individuals who participate in federally regulated retirement plans. REA-mandated provisions do not apply to state and local government retirement systems. Because state and local government employees constitute a significant part of the work…

Because the life expectancy of women is longer than that of men and because men seem to marry younger women, most of the literature on caregivers of the elderly has focusd on women who care for elderly, disabled husbands. In order to explore the role of men as caretakers of disabled wives, 25 elderly widowers (aged 63-93) participated in…

There is growing evidence that the stress of caring for a relative with Alzheimer's disease may have adverse effects on the caregivers. This study was conducted to explore the mental health consequences of caregiving. Psychological data and mental health status information were obtained from 50 Alzheimer's disease spousal caregivers and from 50…

Most of the observational study of marriage has focused on relatively young and highly educated couples from professional backgrounds. Very little is known about the generality of this observational research to couples whose marital philosophies have been influenced by a different array of socioeconomic conditions and secular trends. Satisfied and…

Alcoholism is frequently called a family disease; encouraging and even insisting that family members participate in the treatment of alcoholics has become routine practice in almost every treatment setting. This study examined the relationship between treatment participation by a family member and two measures of recovery for three birth cohorts…

Alzheimer's disease is an insidious, progressively destructive brain disease which leads to the loss of judgment, communication skills, and psychomotor control preventing the victim from living independently. The consequences of caring for victims include emotional, physical, and familial strain as the caregiver is faced with the progressive…

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…

The surfacing of battered wives as a specific problem comes out of the many social changes occurring in Britain and many other countries in the 1960's. It comes in part from the growing number of marriages, the peaking of the baby boom in 1959, a decrease in family size, and a steady growth in female labor force participation. Importantly, women's…

Recent attempts to predict marital success or failure have explored the explanations couples offer for interpersonal events. To investigate whether positive and negative affect would lead to different causal attributions in a conflict-resolution conversation, 20 married couples were asked to observe a conflict-resolution and a control conversation…

Carl Jung's theory of type states that much seemingly chance variation in human behavior results, not from chance, but from basic differences in human functioning. This theory is divided into two major components: fundamental human attitudes (extroversion, introversion) and basic mental processes (sensation, intuition, thinking, feeling).…

Decision-making in dual-career families is a salient issue due to the lack of societal norms for this type of family unit. A process-oriented model of joint decision making served as the basis for questionnaires and interviews used to study the predictive value of communication style on the outcomes of the decision making process in dual-career…