Work

Dyadic Processes in Early Marriage: Attributions, Behavior, and Marital Quality

Year: 2011

Type: article

Abstract: Marital processes in early marriage are important for understanding couples' future marital quality. Spouses' attributions about a partner's behavior have been linked to marital quality, yet the mechanisms underlying this association remain largely unknown. Using couple data from the Family Transitions Project (N = 280 couples) across the first four years of marriage, results from actor-partner interdependence modeling demonstrated that early marriage responsibility attributions were associated with marital quality four years later, after controlling for initial marital quality. Further, couple's warm and hostile behavior two years into the marriage mediated the attribution-marital quality association. The results suggest that interventions designed to facilitate change in romantic relationships may benefit from addressing attributions for the partner's behavior, in addition to changing behaviors, as part of a dyadic process unfolding across time.

Source: Family Relations

DOI: 10.1111/j.1741-3729.2011.00655.x

Authors: Jared A. Durtschi, Frank D. Fincham, Ming Cui, Frederick O. Lorenz, Rand D. Conger

Institutions: Kansas State University, Florida State University, Iowa State University, University of California, Davis

Language: English

Topic: Attachment and Relationship Dynamics

Subfield: Social Psychology

Field: Psychology

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: green

Funder: Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development

Award: Economic Stress & Child Development Across 3 Generations