INTIMACY PROCESSES IN MARRIAGE--A DAILY DIARY APPROACH

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DESCRIPTION (Applicant's Abstract): This Minority NIMH Dissertation Grant application outlines a research project and the career goals of the minority candidate which focus on understanding the development and role of intimacy in marriage. The application describes an empirical investigation containing multiple research objectives within a single data collection procedure. Difficulties in marital relationships have been the most frequently raised complaints for which individuals seek psychological treatment and, in particular, problems with intimacy have been identified as the largest area of complaints. Failure to develop a close, confiding, intimate relationship in marriage has been associated with the development of mood disorders, problematic family structures, and marital dissatisfaction. Intimacy, is to test the validity of important aspects of a recently developed, comprehensive model of intimacy in couples. In this model, intimacy is conceptualized as a transactional, interpersonal process consisting of both self-disclosure and partner responsiveness. As suggested by this model, intimacy will be investigated through repeated, daily measurements of marital interactions over time A second research objective is to evaluate sex differences in the intimacy process that may exist between husbands and wives through examination of the importance of self-disclosure and partner responsiveness. Additionally, this research furthers the development of a longitudinal, idiographic research methodology for future use in investigating processes in marital and personal relationships. The potential for future use in investigating processes in marital and personal relationships.The potential findings from this project may not only provide support for a conceptualization of how intimacy in marriage is developed and maintained across time, but may also provide a way of understanding how to intervene when the intimacy process goes awry in couples.