Marriage in Context: External Factors and Relationship Maintenance

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。该项目的目标是通过评估婚姻质量和夫妻在婚姻初期的关系技巧来检查外部压力和关系行为之间的联系，从而扩展当前的婚姻发展模型。具体来说，该项目旨在为先前的研究提供一个新的视角，该研究认为，拥有良好的人际关系技巧可以保护婚姻免受各种压力因素的有害影响。关系技巧可能会恶化，而不是缓冲婚姻，因此实际上代表了某些因素影响婚姻质量的机制。该项目将评估夫妻解决出现的问题所拥有的资源，以便确定可能促进婚姻质量恢复的因素。调查人员将收集150对首次结婚的新婚夫妇在婚姻头三年的五个时间点的数据。符合条件的夫妇将被安排参加一个实验室会议，并邮寄一个包含自我报告措施的初始包，以便在家中完成，以及每个配偶的信封。夫妇们将被要求在不征求对方意见的情况下完成调查问卷，将表格密封在单独的信封中，并将信封带到实验室。在实验期间，每对夫妇都将参与视频解决问题的讨论，以评估冲突行为。课程结束后，夫妇们将被要求连续七晚每天晚上完成一页的日记问卷。包括婚姻结果、适应过程、外部压力源、应对资源和婚姻经验的各种测量方法。因此，配偶的亲关系行为将以多种方式进行评估。该项目旨在揭示可能阻碍成功关系运作的生活事件。了解成功婚姻结果的动力和背景，反过来，通过帮助告知有助于婚姻单位的实践，并将资源导向最有可能有效加强家庭的实践，对社会产生更广泛的影响。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).The goal of this project is to extend current models of marital development by examining the links between external stress and relationship behaviors through the assessment of marital quality, and relationship skills of couples over the early years of marriage. Specifically, the project aims to offer a new perspective on prior research arguing that possessing good relationship skills may protect a marriage from the detrimental effects of associated with various stressors. Rather than buffering the marriage, relationship skills may deteriorate and thus actually represent the mechanism through which certain factors impact marital quality. The project will assess the resources couples have for addressing problems that arise, in order to identify factors that may promote resilience in marital quality. The investigator will collect data from a sample of 150 first time married, newlywed couples at five time points over the first three years of their marriage. Eligible couples will be scheduled for a laboratory session and mailed an initial packet containing self-report measures to complete at home, as well as envelopes for each spouse. Couples will be instructed to complete their questionnaires without consulting one another, seal their forms in the individual envelopes, and bring their envelopes to the lab session. During the lab session, each couple will engage in videotaped problem-solving discussions to assess conflict behaviors. After the session, couples will be asked to complete a one-page diary questionnaire each evening for seven nights. A wide variety of measures of marital outcomes, adaptive processes, external stressors, coping resources, and marital experiences will be included. Thus, spouses' pro-relationship behaviors will be assessed in multiple ways. This project aims to shed light on the life events that may inhibit successful relationship functioning. Understanding the dynamics and contexts that account for successful marital outcomes should, in turn, have a broader impact on society by helping to inform practices that help the marital unit, and direct resources toward practices most likely to be effective in strengthening families.