Author: Benjamin Herschel Seider Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 86
Book Description
Research indicates that positive emotions are associated with satisfied marriages while negative emotions are associated with dissatisfied marriages. Still unknown is whether all negative emotions are equally associated with dissatisfied marriages and all positive emotions equally are associated with satisfied marriages. Also unknown is whether sequences of discrete emotion between spouses (i.e., how each spouse responds to the emotions of their partner) are related to marital satisfaction. This study examined middle-aged (N = 82) and older (N = 74) couples engaged in a 15-minute conflict conversation to determine how discrete emotion sequences between spouses were related to marital satisfaction. It further examined whether age and gender moderated the relationships between discrete emotion sequences and marital satisfaction. Emotional behavior was coded using the Specific Affect Coding System (SPAFF), consisting of five positive codes, ten negative codes, and a neutral code. The study focused on discrete emotion sequences initiated by three antecedent emotions (anger, contempt and sadness) previously associated with distressed marriages. Consequent emotions included any SPAFF code. Conditional probabilities were computed using the method of Allison and Liker (1982). Results revealed significant associations between discrete emotion sequences and marital satisfaction for 11 of the 39 discrete emotion sequences examined. The significant associations were found for discrete emotion sequences with negative emotion consequents, but not positive emotion consequents. The results were consistent with the predicted pattern in all cases with one exception: spouses who had a greater likelihood of expressing sadness consequents in response to anger antecedents were in more satisfied marriages. There was no evidence of differences in the relationships between discrete emotion sequences and marital satisfaction for husbands and wives. The findings indicated that the relationships between discrete emotion sequences and marital satisfaction did not consistently differ as a function of age, but when they did, they tended to be stronger for older couples. This study revealed important differences in how discrete emotion sequences relate to marital satisfaction. It shows that anger, contempt, and sadness, three emotions that have previously been linked to marital distress, are not always associated with less satisfied marriages. Instead, these emotions are associated with distressed marriages when partners respond to them with certain emotions, but not others.
Author: Lian Michal Bloch Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 122
Book Description
Emotion regulation is arguably a social phenomenon: it occurs most frequently in the closest social relationships, serves important social functions and, correspondingly, is related to social outcomes such as relationship satisfaction. Because marriage may be the closest relationship for many adults, it is an important context in which to regulate one's emotions. However, few studies have investigated the connection between how well spouses regulate emotion and how satisfied they are with their marriages. Using a longitudinal sample of middle-aged (40-50 years old) and older (60-70 years old) long-term married couples, I evaluated the association between couples' emotion regulation and couples' marital satisfaction, both concurrently and longitudinally over a 13-year period. The study further evaluated whether the association between couples' emotion regulation and couples' marital satisfaction differed for husbands and wives, as well as for middle-aged compared to older couples. The present study assessed emotion regulation during naturalistic conflict interactions between married spouses. This approximates the real world context in which emotion regulation occurs, an objective that has been often overlooked in existing laboratory-based studies. Emotion regulation was assessed by examining how well couples reduced levels of negative emotional arousal (in the domains of subjective experience, behavior, and physiology) following distressing events that occurred during their interactions. Results showed that couples' emotion regulation positively predicted couples' concurrent marital satisfaction. Specifically, shorter time spent in a negative emotional state predicted greater concurrent marital satisfaction. The effect was driven primarily by the regulation of subjective experience. Furthermore, results showed that wives' emotion regulation was more strongly related to couple's marital satisfaction than that of husbands. Additionally, there was no significant difference between middle-aged and older couples in the association between emotion regulation and marital satisfaction. In terms of longitudinal prediction, after controlling for the concurrent relationship between regulation and satisfaction, regulation did not predict change in marital satisfaction over time. Finally, a comparison of the present study's direct measures of emotion regulation and a questionnaire measure of emotion regulation revealed no correlation. However, both direct and questionnaire measures each contributed uniquely to the prediction of couples' concurrent marital satisfaction. Findings are discussed in terms of the social functions of emotion and the nature and change over time of the marital relationship. Implications with regard to future directions of research and clinical interventions are explored.
Author: Sarah Rachel Holley Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 150
Book Description
The demand-withdraw interaction pattern is a common, deleterious pattern in which one spouse blames or pressures while the other spouse avoids or withdraws (Christensen, 1988). Studies consistently show that: 1) there tends to be gender differentiation in the interaction roles, with women demanding and men withdrawing, and 2) demand-withdraw behaviors are associated with marital dissatisfaction. The existing observational research on marital interactions, however, has been overwhelmingly conducted with relatively young couples and does not take into account other known predictors of marital dissatisfaction. The present study examined demand-withdraw behaviors longitudinally in a sample of middle-aged and older couples. Later life stages may be associated with changes in emotion-related behaviors (e.g., Carstensen, 1991) and in gender roles (e.g., Gutmann, 1987). Studying demand-withdraw behaviors over time in middle-aged and older couples enables a determination of whether the manifestations of this set of behaviors, and its negative association with marital satisfaction, change during the later stages of development. This study further evaluated the effect of demand-withdraw on marital satisfaction in relation to other factors known to be negatively associated with this important outcome (e.g., physiological arousal, self-reported negative affect, and negative emotion behaviors during conflict). A sample of 126 married couples (63 middle-aged, 63 older) were observed at three time points across a 13-year span as they engaged in a 15-minute conversation about an area of relationship conflict. Conversations were videotaped and trained raters used an observational coding system to quantify each partner's demand and withdraw behaviors. During or shortly following the conflict conversations, measures of physiological arousal, self-reported negative affect, and emotion behavior were also collected. The couples also completed self-report measures of marital satisfaction at each of the three time points of observational data collection, as well as at two subsequent time points. Results showed that demand-withdraw behaviors occur during conflict in both middle-age and older couples at overall comparable rates. Combining this finding with previous work indicates that this pattern is found throughout the life course. Importantly, the specific pattern of behaviors changes with age. There appears to be a marked increase in one type of withdraw behavior, avoidance, over time. Moreover, contrary to theories proposed by Gutmann and others that gender differences diminish in later life, gender differentiation appears to become greater over time with wives in the demand role and husbands in the withdrawing role. Results further demonstrated that the relationship between demand-withdraw behaviors and marital dissatisfaction remains the same across the lifespan. That is, for both middle-aged and older couples, demand-withdraw behaviors are negatively associated with concurrent levels of marital satisfaction. Furthermore, these behaviors show significant interactions with other factors known to be associated with lower levels of marital satisfaction (e.g., physiological arousal, self-reported negative affect, and negative emotion behaviors). The general pattern was that demand-withdraw behaviors, while deleterious on their own accord, are particularly pernicious when manifest in the context of other factors associated with marital dissatisfaction. When examining the longitudinal effect of demand-withdraw behaviors, however, results indicated that after controlling for initial levels of marital satisfaction, these behaviors were not strong predictors of the trajectory of change in marital satisfaction over time. The findings are discussed in terms of socioemotional changes couples undergo as they move from middle-age into late life. This study offers evidence not only about changes in demand-withdraw behaviors themselves but also as to how marital processes and gender roles may change over the life course. Future work will be valuable in further elucidating changes in the nature of demand-withdraw behaviors and in the consequence of this interaction pattern for marital satisfaction at different life stages.
Author: Robert J. Sternberg Publisher: Guilford Press ISBN: 9781572302174 Category : Psychology Languages : en Pages : 448
Book Description
With the premise that close relationships are subjected to extraordinary scrutiny in contemporary society, the authors go on to say that this generation values individual fulfilment more than any before us. We are able to leave existing relationships with relative ease, demand a high level of satisfaction from our intimate relationships, and are frustrated at those times when we fail to achieve it.; This volume presents a range Of Theoretical And Clinical Approaches To Understanding And Promoting relationship satisfaction. Integrating findings from social, clinical and counselling psychology, researchers illuminate what it means to be satisfied within a love relationship and identify the factors that allow couples to create successful relationships over time.
Author: Patricia K. Kerig Publisher: Taylor & Francis ISBN: 1135629811 Category : Psychology Languages : en Pages : 388
Book Description
A companion volume to Family Observational Coding Systems, this book moves from the triad to the dyad and provides a showcase for significant developments in the coding of intimate couple interactions. The hope is that this book will contribute to the broadening and deepening of the field by disseminating information both about the coding systems that have been developed, as well as the conceptual and methodological issues involved in couple observational research. The first three chapters present overviews of conceptual and methodological issues in the study of couple processes. The remaining chapters describe contributions to the field by 16 teams of researchers. Each chapter provides information about the conceptual underpinnings and structure of the coding system developed by the authors and evidence for its psychometric properties. Couple Observational Coding Systems will be of interest to researchers studying couple interactions as well as clinicians who work with couples.
Author: National Research Council Publisher: National Academies Press ISBN: 0309172195 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 285
Book Description
Possible new breakthroughs in understanding the aging mind that can be used to benefit older people are now emerging from research. This volume identifies the key scientific advances and the opportunities they bring. For example, science has learned that among older adults who do not suffer from Alzheimer's disease or other dementias, cognitive decline may depend less on loss of brain cells than on changes in the health of neurons and neural networks. Research on the processes that maintain neural health shows promise of revealing new ways to promote cognitive functioning in older people. Research is also showing how cognitive functioning depends on the conjunction of biology and culture. The ways older people adapt to changes in their nervous systems, and perhaps the changes themselves, are shaped by past life experiences, present living situations, changing motives, cultural expectations, and emerging technology, as well as by their physical health status and sensory-motor capabilities. Improved understanding of how physical and contextual factors interact can help explain why some cognitive functions are impaired in aging while others are spared and why cognitive capability is impaired in some older adults and spared in others. On the basis of these exciting findings, the report makes specific recommends that the U.S. government support three major new initiatives as the next steps for research.
Author: Benjamin Herschel Seider
Author: Benjamin Herschel Seider
Author: Patrick Kenneth Whalen
Author: Cenita Sterling Kupperbusch
Author: Lian Michal Bloch
Author: Sarah Rachel Holley
Author: Nancy Jean Allen
Author: Robert J. Sternberg
Author: Patricia K. Kerig
Author: National Research Council