PS370: Marriage & Interpersonal Relationships

Historically…

• Study of marital relationships was domain of family sociologists

• Over last several decades, growing interest among psychologist who study young children’s development

• Emphasis in the research has often been on “marital quality” as indexed by an individuals report of marital satisfaction or happiness

  • Ways to characterize relationships

  • Constructs that is hard to operationalize

Process-oriented research

• how and why might marital conflict influence child development and when might it influence child development.

  • How to support healthy child development

  • Things that happen in schools necessitate the process oriented research

His and her marriage

• The 1970s popular books describing “his” marriage compared to “her” marriage

  • Within the SNAF structure, there are many inequities

  • Second shift of work: women taking care of vast majority of the household duties

  • The Future of Marriage book, shows household distribution of work

• While attitudes and desires have changed, behavior has not 

  • Second shift

Marriage as an institution

• Not married, don’t sleep in the same room is an example of institution marriage

• The deinstitutionalization of marriage

  • Demographic changes: children outside of marriage, cohabitation before marriage

Pure relationships

transition from a focus on the structural things that come along with the institution of marriage (kids, house, SNAF), to an increase on pure relationships, the valuing of the happiness and quality of individuals

The Marriage Go Round

• Cherlin argues that women’s higher earning capacity, and the declining economic prospects of young men without a college degree, are key factors contributing to the decline in marriage in recent years.

• However, the probability of an adult getting married at some point during their lifetime is still nearly 90 percent (although down from 96% in 1950s)

Why is marriage still happening?

• Enforceable Trust

  • We like tangible signals and signs of things to make them official in the context of marriage, publicly making vows adds security that may be there regardless

• Other reasons?

  • Idea of marriage is still very appealing to people

  • Structural functionalism: marriage is a structure that helps us understand committed relationships and the function they serve in society, cultural expectations

  • Society we live in is set up around the structure of marriage

    • I.e. taking kid to the doctor, structure of marriage assumes ownership over making healthcare decisions for children

Cohabitation

• Cohabitating is more common (only 10% in 60s), making commitments more common

  • 40% have children, 33% own homes

• Alternative or precursor?

• Importance of being on the same page (Lichter & Qian, 2008; Rhoades, Stanley, Markman, & Allen, 2015).

Common law marriages

• 7-9 states + DC recognize (NH only for purposes of inheritance)

  • NH only recognizes it when someone dies

• Wide variability by state, but once officially recognized, dissolution requires divorce (or similar), some states don’t allow new ones, some states call them something different (informal marriage)

  • Give access to things that are benefits to families

Covenant marriages

• Restricts a couple’s ability to divorce.

  • Can look different depending on the state, typically developed by the individuals in a relationship, goal is to set up and make an agreement

  • NC: have to be legally separated for 6 months in order to file for divorce

• No difference in marital satisfaction (Baker et al. 2009)

Baehr v. Lewin 1993

Argued that restrictions on marriage violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution (1)

Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) 1994

Explicitly defined marriages as a union between one man and one woman (2)

2009 Federal Legislation

Before the United States federally legalized same-sex marriage across the nation, 38 states had legalized it and 35% of state and local governments provided benefits for same-sex domestic partners (3)

Domestic partnerships

• Separate, but equal?

• Limited access to support/inheritance, etc.

• (4)

Process in lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender relationships

• Intimate relationships appear very similar in structure and function

• Ex. Mohr, Selterman, & Fassinger, 2013; Stiers, 1999

• (5)

Consanguineal

family of origin favored

Affinal

marital relationship given priority

Three models of intercultural assimilation

• Cultural assimilation

  • Dress, rituals, daily practices

• Structural assimilation

  • Educational, employment, political values

  • Making decisions about education, parenting, job training, etc.

• Marital assimilation

  • These processes unfold through marriage – family practices favored

Health and marriage (Waite & Gallagher, 2000)

• In a 20-year longitudinal study, marriage was found to protect people by lowering their risk of dying, in comparison to those who were never married, divorced, or widowed

  • Quality of committed relationships

• Unhappily married people are at greater risk for poor health and even mortality compared to people who have never been married.

  • Conflicts within marriage are related to heart rate elevations, increased stress hormone circulation, and poor immune functioning.

  • Due to quality of relationships

Health benefits for women and men

• The benefits of marriage on health to be greater for men than for women

  • The protection from mortality is 50% higher for married versus unmarried women but 250% higher for married versus unmarried men (Robles & Kiecolt-Glaser, 2003).

McEwan and Seeman (1999) explain four possible ways marital struggles can lead to physical dysfunction

1. Through repeated hits to the immune system (chronic marital conflict leads to proportionally greater physiological stress responses)

2. Spouse inability to adapt to continuing stressors (such as criticisms by partner)

3. Inability to control physiological responses to marital stressors (e.g., continually elevated heart rate)

4. Inadequate response to stressors (such as drinking alcohol or screaming, which worsen health problems

Psychophysiological synchrony

• Timmons et al (2015) found that high stress system activity → lower relationship satisfaction

  • Not just behavior, but feeling the presence of a stress response leads to dissatisfaction (i.e. cortisol levels)

•  Synchrony associated with better bonding and attachment

  • Ex. talk about fun memories, same brain functions, high synchrony means better emotional attachment

•  But, if too synchronous one partner’s stress can tank the other partner

  • One dyad is dysregulated then they can bring down their partner too

Support

• Received vs perceived (which do you think is more important?)

  •  Only perceived support is related to positive health outcomes

  • Not just in relationships

  • Ex. I have people that I can talk to when I feel depressed → knowing that you have people leads to better protection against negative health outcomes

Marriage and Psychological Wellbeing: the role of social support