Relationship Expectations, Behavior Interactions and Commitment: A Dyadic Study Among Dual-Earner Couples

Previous researchers have analyzed the links between relationship expectations and commitment in cohabiting and married couples. The present study examines a dyadic model where couple's reported behavior interactions (RBI) are suggested as potential mediators and Work-Family Conflict (WFC) as a moderator. The association among these variables was tested by recruiting 111 (N = 222) dual-earner couples to complete questionnaires. To examine the dyadic model, we used the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model on the hypothesized model. The results showed that actor's RBI was seen as a significant mediator of the associations between relationship expectations and both partner's commitment. The partner's affective behavior interactions emerged as a significant mediator between the actor's expectations-actor's commitment link but not with the partner's commitment. In addition, actor's WFC significantly moderated the effect of partner's RBI on their commitment. These findings extended our knowledge of possible factors that play a role in promoting relationship commitment among dual-earners couples in long-term relationships. Through the integration of the Investment Model this study illuminates the pathways by which relationship expectations affect commitment via RBI of married and cohabiting couples. Furthermore, the study elucidates the behavioral component of cohabiting couples in long-term relationships from a dyadic perspective. From a practical perspective, clinicians and counselors working with couples experiencing relational difficulties, may want to inquire as to their clients' relationship expectations and behavior interactions for better understanding commitment among couples.

Perhaps It Was Too Soon: College Students' Reflections on the Timing of Their Sexual Debut

Early sexual debut has been a focus of social scientific research due to its association with adverse circumstances and negative outcomes. However, there has been a recent shift to considering not only chronological age, but also the degree to which the event is viewed to be optimally timed (i.e., the perception that it occurred at the "right time" versus too soon). The purpose of this study was to assess how individual/family background variables and contextual aspects of the experience (including partner and relationship aspects) are associated with both the actual age at sexual debut and the perceived acceptability of the timing of the event. Using data collected from students at a U.S. university between 1990 and 2019 (N = 6,430), several factors (in addition to chronological age) were associated with the perceived acceptability of the timing of sexual debut. Strong gender differences were found - women perceived their timing to be less acceptable, even though they did not differ from men in actual age at sexual debut. Other robust predictors of perceived acceptability included (lower) religious involvement and recalling desire (for the experience), pleasure, and lower guilt at the time. Only slight changes occurred over the 30-year period in age at sexual debut and perceived acceptability of the timing. Suggestions for future research are provided and implications for sex education/sexual health interventions are discussed.

Unforgiveness Motivations in Romantic Relationships Experiencing Infidelity: Negative Affect and Anxious Attachment to the Partner as Predictors

Infidelity is considered an unforgivable betrayal. However, not all behaviors considered unfaithful affect the person who suffers them in the same way. Therefore, to have a better understanding of unforgiveness according to different extradyadic behaviors, two studies were designed. Study 1 (N = 240) explored which extradyadic behaviors are considered as more indicative of infidelity. The results revealed that sexual behaviors were considered more unfaithful when compared with technological, emotional/affective, and solitary behaviors. Study 2 (N = 378) examined the influence of experienced extradyadic behaviors on unforgiveness, negative affect, and anxious attachment to the partner. The results showed that (a) sexual and technological behaviors were less frequently forgiven and promoted a more intense negative affect, (b) anxious attachment was predictive of unforgiveness for sexual and technological behaviors, and (c) negative affect mediated the relationship between anxious attachment and unforgiveness for sexual and technological behaviors. These findings and their possible implications for romantic relationships are discussed.

The Role of Family of Origin in Current Lifestyle Choices: A Qualitative Secondary Data Analysis of Interracial and Same-Race Couples

Many Americans are in poor health. This is acute for racial/ethnic minorities compared with the Non-Hispanic white population. A grounded theory approach was used to analyze semistructured qualitative interviews to identify perceptions of family-of-origin lifestyle choices in same-race and interracial couples. Several central themes emerged from the data including influence of family-of-origin eating patterns, lack of family-of-origin importance for physical activity, and romantic partner influence in eating and exercise. Findings provide evidence for the socialization of family of origin on lifestyle choices into adulthood and also suggest promising changes due to romantic partner.

Unemployment and Marital Quality in Great Recession America: An Exploratory Canonical Correlation Analysis

To contribute to the literature on unemployment and marital quality in light of rapid social, economic, and political changes that characterized the past decade (2008-2018), this exploratory study assessed how unemployment during the Great Recession affected marital quality based on participants’ beliefs about marital roles (on a continuum from more traditional to more progressive) and on their levels of education, duration of marriage, and duration and frequency of unemployment. Nationwide, 129 participants completed an online questionnaire consisting of two scales of marital quality (Dyadic Adjustment Scale and Revised Kansas Marital Satisfaction Scale) plus demographic items. Although the canonical correlation analysis was not significant, a number of trends emerged that suggested possibilities worthy of discussion and that provide a foundation for further research. For example, the results suggested the possibility that humanistic theorizing on unemployment and marriage might not be confined to ideological beliefs about gender-based marital roles, and that marital quality in the face of unemployment may be more directly affected by education level. Moreover, repeated measures analyses of variance suggested that, although most participants experienced situational distress, faith in and commitment to the relationship seemed to sustain marriages despite the short-term obstacle of unemployment, which echoes humanistic psychologists’ focus on resilience in relationships.

Romantic relationships as shared reality defense

A model of meaning maintenance in relationships is proposed to explain how relationships function to regulate threats to shared systems of meaning posed by life's capricious and unexpected events. This model assumes that people flexibility compensate for unexpected events in the world by affirming the expected in their relationship and compensate for unexpected events in the relationship by affirming the expected in the world. Supportive evidence is reviewed that reveals how people in more or less satisfying relationships flexibly maintain a sense of life's meaning in the face of unexpected events.