Binding
Marital satisfaction and break-ups differ across on-line and off-line meeting venues
John Cacioppo et al.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 18 June 2013, Pages 10135-10140
Abstract:
Marital discord is costly to children, families, and communities. The advent of the Internet, social networking, and on-line dating has affected how people meet future spouses, but little is known about the prevalence or outcomes of these marriages or the demographics of those involved. We addressed these questions in a nationally representative sample of 19,131 respondents who married between 2005 and 2012. Results indicate that more than one-third of marriages in America now begin on-line. In addition, marriages that began on-line, when compared with those that began through traditional off-line venues, were slightly less likely to result in a marital break-up (separation or divorce) and were associated with slightly higher marital satisfaction among those respondents who remained married. Demographic differences were identified between respondents who met their spouse through on-line vs. traditional off-line venues, but the findings for marital break-up and marital satisfaction remained significant after statistically controlling for these differences. These data suggest that the Internet may be altering the dynamics and outcomes of marriage itself.
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Lesley Verhofstadt & Fanny Weytens
Journal of Gender Studies, Spring 2013, Pages 166-177
Abstract:
The aim of this study was to examine biological sex (male versus female) and gender identity (masculine versus feminine) as predictors of support provision in marriage. Participants were 235 married individuals who completed scenario-based questionnaires designed to measure support provision across a broad range of daily stressors. Our results did not reveal differences between biological males and females in their support provision behaviour. However, a person's support provision was uniquely predicted by his/her gender identity. As compared to feminine individuals, masculine individuals reported providing higher levels of instrumental and unhelpful support for their spouse in distress. Furthermore, feminine individuals reported higher levels of emotional support provision than masculine individuals. This pattern of results appeared to be consistent across stressor type. The present findings contribute to the discussion concerning the origins of the support gap in marriage by revealing that it is not biological sex per se, but people's gender role socialization that determines their skilfulness as a support provider in intimate relationships.
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Gender Dynamics Predict Changes in Marital Love Among African American Couples
Christine Stanik, Susan McHale & Ann Crouter
Journal of Marriage and Family, August 2013, Pages 795-807
Abstract:
This study examined the implications of gender attitudes and spouses' divisions of household labor, time with children, and parental knowledge for their trajectories of love in a sample of 146 African American couples. Multilevel modeling in the context of an accelerated longitudinal design accommodated 3 annual waves of data. The results revealed that traditionality in husbands' gender attitudes was linked to lower levels of love. Furthermore, divisions of household labor and parental knowledge moderated changes in love such that couples with more egalitarian divisions exhibited higher and more stable patterns of love, whereas more traditional couples exhibited significant declines in love over time. Finally, greater similarity between spouses' time with their children was linked to higher levels of marital love. The authors highlight the implications of gender dynamics for marital harmony among African American couples and discuss ways that this work may be applied and extended in practice and future research.
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Alan Hawkins, Paul Amato & Andrea Kinghorn
Family Relations, July 2013, Pages 501-513
Abstract:
This study assesses whether government-supported Healthy Marriage Initiatives (HMIs) - educational programs to help couples form and sustain healthy marriages and relationships - have had a measurable impact on population-level family outcomes. We compiled data on funding for these initiatives between 2000 and 2010 and aggregated these data to the state level for each year. We employed pooled time-series regression with fixed state and year effects to estimate the effects of funding on population-level outcomes taken from the American Community Survey. Cumulative per capita funding for HMIs between 2005 and 2010 was positively associated with small changes in the percentage of married adults in the population and children living with two parents, and it was negatively associated with the percentage of children living with one parent, nonmarital births, and children living in poverty. These results were diminished, however, when an influential outlier - Washington, DC - was removed from the analysis. Interpretations and implications of these findings are discussed.
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The Impact of a Mandatory Cooling-off Period on Divorce
Jungmin Lee
Journal of Law and Economics, February 2013, Pages 227-243
Abstract:
A mandated waiting period between a divorce filing and the issuance of the divorce decree has been adopted in many countries to reduce impetuous divorces and encourage reconciliation. In this paper, I estimate the impact of a compulsory waiting period on the divorce rate. Since 2004, South Korean local courts had been voluntarily adopting the cooling-off policy, and later it became a national law. To evaluate the impact of the policy, I exploit variation in the timing of the policy adoption across local courts. I find that the cooling-off policy significantly decreases the divorce rate, whereas there is no significant effect on the divorce filing rate.
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Marital Quality, Socioeconomic Status, and Physical Health
Heejeong Choi & Nadine Marks
Journal of Marriage and Family, August 2013, Pages 903-919
Abstract:
Recent efforts to promote marriage among the socioeconomically disadvantaged are based on the assumption that marriage is equally beneficial for persons with varying levels of socioeconomic status. Using 3 waves of data from a sample of married adults (the National Survey of Families and Households; N = 1,849), the authors evaluated whether the health benefits of marital happiness and the health costs of marital conflict might vary by education and income levels. They found that increases in marital happiness were associated with increases in self-rated health for individuals with more education. In addition, increases in marital conflict were linked to greater increases in functional impairment for persons with lower income. Although the results were not consistent and effect sizes were modest, the evidence nonetheless tentatively suggests that higher levels of marital happiness may be less beneficial for health and that higher levels of marital conflict may be more detrimental to health among persons with lower socioeconomic status.
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Low Self-Control Promotes the Willingness to Sacrifice in Close Relationships
Francesca Righetti, Catrin Finkenauer & Eli Finkel
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Although previous theories and research have suggested that human behavior is automatically driven by selfish impulses (e.g., vengeance rather than forgiveness), the present research tested the hypothesis that in close relationships, people's impulsive inclination is to be prosocial and to sacrifice for their partner - to pursue the interests of the partner or of the relationship at some costs for the self. Results from four studies demonstrated that people with low self-control, relative to those with high self-control, reported greater willingness to sacrifice for their close others. Furthermore, Study 4 demonstrated that communal orientation was more strongly associated with sacrifice among participants with low self-control than participants with high self-control. This moderational pattern supports the hypothesis that communal orientation functions as a default approach to sacrifice in the context of close relationships. Taken together, these findings suggest that under certain crucial conditions in close relationships, gut-level impulses are more likely than deliberative considerations to promote prorelationship behavior.
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Hormonal contraceptive congruency: Implications for relationship jealousy
Kelly Cobey, Craig Roberts & Abraham Buunk
Personality and Individual Differences, forthcoming
Abstract:
Research shows that women who use hormonal contraceptives (HCs) differ in their mate preferences from women who have regular cycles. It has been proposed that when a partnered woman either begins to use or ceases to use HCs, she may experience changes in her relationship since her preferences become incongruent with those prevalent at the time of her partner choice. This has not yet been directly tested. Here, in doing this, we aim to specifically test whether current and past HC use contributes to present levels of relationship jealousy. We find a significant interaction in levels of jealousy based on current HC use and HC use at the start of the relationship. When current HC use is incongruent with that at the start of the relationship, women report significantly higher levels of jealousy. Results are among the first to suggest that both current and past HC use may influence relationship dynamics.
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Cheating, Breakup, and Divorce: Is Facebook Use to Blame?
Russell Clayton, Alexander Nagurney & Jessica Smith
Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, forthcoming
Abstract:
The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship between using the social networking site known as Facebook and negative interpersonal relationship outcomes. A survey of 205 Facebook users aged 18-82 was conducted using a 16-question online survey to examine whether high levels of Facebook use predicted negative relationship outcomes (breakup/divorce, emotional cheating, and physical cheating). It was hypothesized that those with higher levels of Facebook use would demonstrate more negative relationship outcomes than those with lower use. The study then examined whether these relationships were mediated by Facebook-related conflict. Furthermore, the researchers examined length of relationship as a moderator variable in the aforementioned model. The results indicate that a high level of Facebook usage is associated with negative relationship outcomes, and that these relationships are indeed mediated by Facebook-related conflict. This series of relationships only holds for those who are, or have been, in relatively newer relationships of 3 years or less. The current study adds to the growing body of literature investigating Internet use and relationship outcomes, and may be a precursor to further research investigating whether Facebook use attributes to the divorce rate, emotional cheating, and physical cheating.
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Attachment and Parental Divorce: A Test of the Diffusion and Sensitive Period Hypotheses
Chris Fraley & Marie Heffernan
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
One of the assumptions of attachment theory is that disruptions in parental relationships are prospectively related to insecure attachment patterns in adulthood. The majority of research that has evaluated this hypothesis, however, has been based on retrospective reports of the quality of relationships with parents - research that is subject to retrospective biases. In the present research, the authors examined the impact of parental divorce - an event that can be assessed relatively objectively - on attachment patterns in adulthood across two samples. The data indicate that parental divorce has selective rather than diffuse implications for insecure attachment. Namely, parental divorce was more strongly related to insecure relationships with parents in adulthood than insecure relationships with romantic partners or friends. In addition, parental insecurity was most pronounced when parental divorce took place in early childhood. This finding is consistent with hypotheses about sensitive periods in attachment development.
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Jonathan Sandberg et al.
Journal of Marriage and Family, August 2013, Pages 808-821
Abstract:
Using data from a sample of 281 couples (the Flourishing Families data set), the authors tested a systemic theoretical model that examined the relationship among observed marital interaction, physical and mental health, and work satisfaction. The results showed that negative marital interaction was associated with significantly lower work satisfaction and poorer health for men. Higher negative marital interaction scores were significantly related to elevated depression scores for both women and men. For both men and women, negative couple interaction was associated with work satisfaction through depression and health. Overall, 34% of the variance in work satisfaction for men and 24% for the women was explained by the model. The results suggest that marriage-to-work spillover can be costly for families, organizations, and governments.
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Effects of Mental Health on Couple Relationship Status
Nancy Reichman, Hope Corman & Kelly Noonan
NBER Working Paper, June 2013
Abstract:
We exploit the occurrence of postpartum depression (PPD), which has a random component according to the medical community, to estimate causal effects of a salient form of mental illness on couples' relationship status. We estimate single-equation models as well as bivariate probit models that address the endogeneity of PPD. We find that this relatively prevalent mental illness reduces the probability the couples are married (by 22-24%) as well the probability that they are living together (married or cohabiting) (by 24-26%) three years after the birth of the child. Models stratified by relationship status at the time of the birth indicate that PPD makes it more likely that unions dissolve (particularly among baseline cohabitors) and less likely that unions are formed (particularly among baseline non-cohabitors). The findings contribute to the literature on the effects of mental illness on relationships and to the broader literature on socioeconomic status and health.
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Newlyweds' Optimistic Forecasts of Their Marriage: For Better or for Worse?
Justin Lavner, Benjamin Karney & Thomas Bradbury
Journal of Family Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Newlywed spouses routinely hope and believe that their relationships will thrive, but theoretical accounts differ on whether optimistic projections such as believing that one's marriage will improve are sources of strength, random forecasting errors, or self-protective mechanisms. To test these opposing perspectives, we asked 502 newlywed spouses in 251 marriages to predict how their overall feelings about their relationships would change over the following four years, and we then compared these reports to their prospective marital satisfaction trajectories. Nearly all spouses predicted their marital satisfaction would remain stable or improve over the following four years. Marital satisfaction declined on average despite this high overall level of optimism. Wives with the most optimistic forecasts showed the steepest declines in marital satisfaction. These wives also had lower self-esteem and higher levels of stress and physical aggression toward their partners initially. Thus, believing that one's marriage will improve does not make it so and instead may paradoxically mask risky relationships among women. These findings may be important in helping to understand low rates of premarital counseling utilization by showing that nearly all couples overestimate the durability of their existing satisfied feelings at the start of their marriage. Future research is needed to understand the psychological processes allowing couples to commit to and stay in risky relationships.
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Amie Gordon & Serena Chen
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
Reconciling competing viewpoints suggesting that power helps and hurts perspective-taking in close relationships, in two experiments and two daily experience studies we tested the hypothesis that power's effect on perspective-taking depends on the extent to which people are relatively self- versus other-focused. In Study 1, recalling a time of high (vs. low) power over a romantic partner reduced inclinations to take the partner's perspective for relatively self-focused but not other-focused individuals. Studies 2 and 3 replicated Study 1 using daily variations in power and perspective-taking. In Study 4, being the "in-charge" partner during a conflict conversation reduced empathic accuracy for more self-focused individuals. Self-other focus was assessed with measures of gratitude, relational self-construal, and social value orientation. The current findings provide evidence that, particularly for the more self-focused, relationship power influences people's inclinations to take their romantic partner's perspective in daily life as well as their empathic accuracy during conflict.
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Lisa Neff & Andrew Geers
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, July 2013, Pages 38-60
Abstract:
Do optimistic expectations facilitate or hinder adaptive responses to relationship challenges? Traditionally, optimism has been characterized as a resource that encourages positive coping efforts within relationships. Yet, some work suggests optimism can be a liability, as expecting the best may prevent individuals from taking proactive steps when confronted with difficulties. To reconcile these perspectives, the current article argues that greater attention must be given to the way in which optimistic expectancies are conceptualized. Whereas generalized dispositional optimism may predict constructive responses to relationship difficulties, more focused relationship-specific forms of optimism may predict poor coping responses. A multi-method, longitudinal study of newly married couples confirmed that spouses higher in dispositional optimism (a) reported engaging in more positive problem-solving behaviors on days in which they experienced greater relationship conflict, (b) were observed to display more constructive problem-solving behaviors when discussing important marital issues with their partner in the lab, and (c) experienced fewer declines in marital well-being over the 1st year of marriage. Conversely, spouses higher in relationship-specific optimism (a) reported engaging in fewer constructive problem-solving behaviors on high conflict days, (b) were observed to exhibit worse problem-solving behaviors in the lab - particularly when discussing marital issues of greater importance - and (c) experienced steeper declines in marital well-being over time. All findings held controlling for self-esteem and neuroticism. Together, results suggest that whereas global forms of optimism may represent a relationship asset, specific forms of optimism can place couples at risk for marital deterioration.
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Relationship Transitions Among Older Cohabitors: The Role of Health, Wealth, and Family Ties
Jonathan Vespa
Journal of Marriage and Family, August 2013, Pages 933-949
Abstract:
This study explored how health, wealth, and family ties shape older cohabitors' chances of marrying or separating. Drawing on rational choice and exchange theories, the author argues these factors affect women and men differently because the rewards, alternatives, and barriers of later-life union formation differ by gender. The study used panel data from the 1998-2006 Health and Retirement Study and a sample of cohabitors 50 and older (N = 1,136). For older female cohabitors, large families and entitlement income lower the risk of marrying, whereas close social networks raise the risk of separating. Moreover, health and wealth have an interactive relationship in that the risk of marrying is highest for unhealthy male cohabitors when they are very wealthy but is highest for the poorest female cohabitors when they are in excellent health. Older men may be exchanging economic resources for caregiving, and cohabitation may be an adaptive response to the gendered costs and barriers of later-life union formation.
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Marriage Postponement in Iran: Accounting for Socio-economic and Cultural Change in Time and Space
Fatemeh Torabi et al.
Population, Space and Place, May/June 2013, Pages 258-274
Abstract:
The mean age at marriage of Iranian women increased by three years between the mid-1980s and 2000 during a period of great socio-economic change, particularly affecting the 1971-1975 and 1976-1980 birth cohorts. This paper analyses the marriage timing and life course experience of these cohorts of women and highlights the contribution that ethnicity and changes in the socio-economic context made to the sharp marriage delay experienced by the 1976-1980 birth cohort. A discrete time hazard model is applied to the 2000 Iran Demographic and Health Survey data, which are linked to a range of time-varying district-level contextual variables created from the 1986 and 1996 Iranian censuses. The findings suggest that the marriage postponement experienced by the younger birth cohort is related to improvements in women's education and can partly be explained by the increased opportunity costs of marriage, which resulted from limited access to education after marriage. The findings also suggest that differences in marriage timing between areas predominated by certain ethnic groups became less evident for the younger birth cohort.