Guide to the Constructs:

Marital History    Marital Satisfaction    Beliefs about Similarity and Compatibility
Love and Ambivalence    Dissatisfaction with Interaction
Preferences Regarding Closeness/Independence     Perception of Partners' Traits
Perception of Partners' Social Goals    Commitment

History of the Marriage

Information regarding the spouses' marital status was gathered during each of the four phases of the investigation. The most extensive data, however, were gathered in Phase 4 (1994-95) , thirteen years after the couples were originally wed. The data entered in the database about marital history ordinarily were provided by the marriage partners we first interviewed in 1981. When we were unable to make direct contact with either spouse, we classified couples' marital status using public records, or by relying on reports provided by parents. Table 5a shows the data available pertaining to the history of the marriage

Overview of Spouse's Evaluations of Satisfaction

Behavioral patterns in marriage both cause and reflect the feelings the spouses have about each other and their marriage. To gather information about such experiences, spouses filled out a number of questionnaires during the face-to-face interviews that were carried out during the interviews. These scales measured: (a) marital satisfaction; (b) satisfaction with aspects of the marriage; (c) beliefs about compatibility; (d) love for the partner; (e) ambivalence about the relationship; (f) dissatisfaction with marital activity and interaction patterns (g) desire for more closeness or independence in the relationship; (h) perception of spouse's personality; (I) perception of souses' social motivations (organized in a circumplex); and (j) commitment to the marriage.

Types of Evaluations

Table 5b. Marital Satisfaction 1. Overall Marital Satisfaction 2. Average Daily Satisfaction Rating 3. Satisfaction with Domains of Marriage Own leisure time Division of household work Communication Amount of influence Sexual relationship Time with spouse Time with network Finances

Marital Satisfaction. The Marital Opinion Questionnaire was used to obtain a global assessment of each spouse's satisfaction with the marriage. The questionnaire, adapted from a measure of life satisfaction (Campbell, Converse, & Rogers, 1976), involves two parts: (a) a series of 7-point semantic differential scales in which respondents characterize their relationship with bipolar adjectives, such as miserable-enjoyable, rewarding-disappointing, discouraging-hopeful, and (b) a single-item 7-point global assessment of the respondent's overall satisfaction with the marriage. Participants were asked to rate their overall satisfaction with their marriage over the past two months. Following Campbell and his colleagues, the average rating of the eight semantic differential items that clustered together in a series of actor analyses was added to the score on the overall assessment of marital satisfaction and divided by two to create an index of marital satisfaction with possible scores ranging from low (1) to high (7) marital satisfaction.

The Phase 4 telephone interviews, described earlier, required each spouse to use a 7-point scale anchored with a happy face on one end and a sad face on the other to rate their marital satisfactionn for the day. We aggregated the ratings across the telephone interviews to create an overall evaluation of the marriage relationship.

Satisfaction with Various Aspects of Married Life. Spouses rated their satisfaction with eight aspects of their married life. Participants were told that some aspects of marriage may be more satisfying than others and they were asked to evaluate each domain of their marriage over the past two months , using a 9-point scale, ranging from very dissatisfied (1) to very satisfied (9). With regard to each domain, spouses rated their current marriage shortly after their first anniversary (Phase 2) , and then they thought back to when they were newlyweds and made a retrospective rating of their satisfaction with the same domain. Subsequent to rating their concurrent satisfaction, they provided open-ended explanations of why they gave the ratings they did. If the concurrent satisfaction rating was different than the rating they gave for the year earlier, they were asked to explain why the two ratings were different.

During Phase 3, they rated their satisfaction with each domain and, following each rating, they explained why they gave the rating they did. The long telephone interviews carried out during phase 4 required respondents to rate each domain; respondents were not, however, asked to explain their ratings as they had in the earlier phases.

Table 5c. Beliefs about Similarity and Compatibility 1. Beliefs about Similarity in: Preferred daily patterns (when to go to sleep, etc.) How often to have sex What kind of sex each prefers Goals for own family Ideas about politics Ideas about how to spend and save money Kinds of people as friends Kinds of preferred leisure Gender-role attitudes 2. Importance Placed on: Family Work Having free time Children Having money 3. Ideas about: Having children Raising children Politics 4. Belief about Overall Compatibility

Beliefs about Similarity and Compatibility. The Phase 4 long telephone interviews required husbands and wives to rate their similarity to each other with regard to a number of matters. Since there was no compelling reason to believe, a priori, that similarity is best seen as a single latent variable with multiple indicators, we calculated similarity scores with regard to each item. Spouses were also asked to think about how well they have been getting along on a day-to-day basis and rate their overall compatibility on a 7-point scale.

Love and Ambivalence. The measures of love and ambivalence were the same as those used to gather data about the couples' experiences during courtship. It will be recalled that love was defined in terms of feelings of belonging, closeness, and attachment. Ambivalence was conceived in terms of feelings of confusion concerning the partner and the future of the relationship.

Dissatisfaction with Interaction and Activities. Husbands and wives, using the previous two months of their marriage as a frame of reference, indicated the extent to which they had been satisfied or dissatisfied with the frequency with which particular interpersonal events and activities had taken place in their marriage. During the first three phases, the questionnaire focused on socioemotional behavior; in phase four, the questionnaire was modified so as to deal with a more encompassing range of activities.

Table 5e. Dissatisfaction with Interaction 1. Dissatisfaction with Affectional Expression (Phases 1-3) 2. Dissatisfaction with Level of Negativity (Phases 1-3) 3. Dissatisfaction with Partner's Sexual Interest (Phases 1-3) 4. Dissatisfaction with Leisure (Phase 4) Time with wife's family Time with husband's family Wife's time in own leisure Husband's time in own leisure Wife spending time with her friends Husband spending time with his friends Doing recreational activities with spouse that wife suggests Doing recreational activities with spouse that husband suggests Wife spending time at home with own family Husband spending time at home with own family Husband and wife spending time together with just the two of them 5. Dissatisfaction with Spouse's Sensitivity about Sex (Phase 4) 6. Dissatisfaction with Work and Family Roles (Phase 4) Wife spending time at work or working Husband spending time at work or working

The items used during the first three phases corresponded to those that were used during the telephone diary interviews to gather data about socioemotional behavior patterns. Thus, during the telephone interview, spouses reported how often ( if at all) their partner expressed approval of them or complimented them about something they did. These reports were aggregated across the telephone interviews, and summed across three types of socioemotional (a) affectional behavior; (b) negativity; (c) and sexual interest. To gather information about dissatisfaction with interaction, husbands and wives were read a statement such as "My partner expressing approval of me or complimenting me about something I did" and indicated whether they would like to have seen the behavior occurring more often, less often, or about the same. If they would like the behavior to have seen the behavior occurring either more or less often, they further indicated whether they wanted it to happen "somewhat more (or less)," "much more (or less)", or "very much more (or less)." The items were scored by counting "about the same" as "0" and "very much more (or less)" as "3"; the other two responses were scored "1" and "2" respectively. Scores were derived for each of the three subsets of socioemotional behaviors (dissatisfaction with affectional expression, etc.). The version used in Phase 4 focused around: (a) dissatisfaction with the way spouses have been spending their free time; (b) dissatisfaction with spouse's sensitivity about sexual matters; (c) dissatisfaction with work and family roles; and (d) dissatisfaction with communication about spending money.

Preferences Regarding Closeness/Independence. Christensen's ( 199X ) questionnaire focusing on the extent to which the respondent desires more intimacy in their marriage or more independence was given to the participants to fill-out during Phase 4. This measure no doubt taps a combination of stable individual differences, compatibility between the partners in their dispositions toward intimacy/independence, and the feelings people have about their marriage.

Perceptions of Spouse's Traits. Couples involved in satisfying long-term marriages, when asked to explain the success of their marriage, frequently speak about their mate's admirable qualities. Those who divorce, on the other hand, focus on how difficult their former spouse was to be around. In the PAIR Project, information concerning spouses' perceptions of their partner's traits was gathered each year during the face-to-face interviews. During the first three phases, spouses rated the extent to which their partner possessed forty trait adjective traits, equally divided into positive traits and negative traits. Each trait was printed on a separate card; a row of cards, numbered from one to seven (with "1" being very much unlike the partner and "7" being very much like the partner) was laid out in front of each of the respondents. Respondents were then handed the cards with the traits printed on them and were asked to place each trait adjective under the appropriate card, depending upon the extent to which they believed the particular trait was characteristic of their partner.

Fifteen positive traits and nine negative traits consistently clustered together. By clustered together, we mean that people who saw their partner as possessing one of the traits also tended to see their partner as possessing the others. These traits formed two scales, one of which we labeled "responsiveness," the other "contrariness".

The two clusters that emerged through a series of factor analyses roughly correspond to what personality theories have labeled (a) agreeableness and b) either negative affectivity, neuroticism, emotional stability, or anxiety (John, 1990). The table below shows the traits included in the two scales:

During the fourth phase, a list of 20 adjective traits, divided equally between positive and negative traits, was read to each husband and wife. They were asked to indicate for each how well the trait describes their partner using a 7-point scale. Sixteen of the twenty adjectives are the same as those shown in the table above. Confirmatory factor analyses was used to determine whether similar indices could be derived from the Phase 4 data. The variables pertaining to spouse's perceptions of each other's personality characteristics are shown in the table below:

Perception of Spouse's Social Motivation. During phase 4, spouse's rated the extent to which six interpersonal goals underlie the way their partner behaves (Read, Jones, & Miller, 1990). The items correspond to the items spouses used to make ratings of the strength of their own social motivations, making it possible to compare how a people see themselves with how their partners see them (see Section I).

Commitment. A questionnaire was developed to gather data during the Phase 4 telephone interviews regarding the three types of commitment identified by Johnson (1991) as (a) personal commitment, (b) moral commitment, and (c) structural commitment. The three types of commitment, and their components, are defined in operational terms below (see Johnson, Caughlin, & Huston, 1996):

Personal Commitment is defined as the extent to which the individual wants to continue the relationship. It was measured directly by a single-item question asking the spouses to indicate how strongly they agree or disagree with the statement that they want to stay married to their partner. Personal commitment has three components, which we operationalized as shown to the right.

Moral Commitment, defined as the extent to which the individual feels obligated to continue the relationship, is measured directly by a single item asking the extent to which respondents feel they should stay in the relationship. This type of commitment has three components.

Structural Commitment, defined as the extent to which individuals feel they have to continue the relationship. The type of commitment is measured by means of a single item and through measures of four components as shown to the right.

In addition to these measures taken from Johnson's (1991) framework, for some purposes we created a measure of commitment, defined as a combination of the extent to which individuals felt committed to their partner and attached to their partner. This measure correlates very highly with Rusbult's (1993) measure of commitment which, in turn, covaries only with our measures of personal commitment (Johnson et al., 1996).

Table 5i. Commitment 1. Personal Commitment Personal commitment Marital satisfaction Couple identity Rusbult commitment 2. Moral Commitment Divorce attitudes Contract with partner Consistency Values 3. Structural Commitment Available alternatives Social pressures Termination procedures Investment

This page created & maintained by Shanna Smith, ella@utxsvs.cc.utexas.edu