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Scholarly Works (3 results)

  • Thesis
  • Peer Reviewed
UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations (2021)

Communication plays a key role in promoting the success of intimate relationships, but counterintuitive findings suggest that basic questions remain about how communication successfully promotes healthy relationships. This gap in understanding is likely due to three chief problems with current approaches to studying communication, all of which may inadequately describe the phenomenon: 1) Behaviors are traditionally characterized as either positive or negative, 2) Behavior is typically studied at the individual level, instead of as dyadic interactions, 3) Behavior is typically analyzed at the global, summative level, without acknowledging the most important momentary events within the interaction. The current dissertation proposed a new framework and accompanying coding system for studying communication that relies on two dimensions of behavior: cooperation (i.e., task-focused behavior) and affiliation (i.e., relationship-focused behavior). This work proposed that affiliation is the behavioral dimension that dictates the success of communication in promoting relationship quality, while cooperation is only associated with relationship wellbeing to the extent that it is accompanied by affiliation or disaffiliation. Study 1 tested these ideas at the individual mean level, while also examining how dyadic sequences of interaction predict relationship satisfaction over time. At the individual level, affiliation and its interaction with cooperation were associated with relationship satisfaction cross-sectionally, while dyadic sequences of sustained affiliative or disaffiliative reciprocity distinguished between levels of satisfaction cross-sectionally and accounted for variability in trajectories over time. Study 1 suggests that relationship-focused behavior is the key element of communication that accounts for variability in relationship satisfaction levels and trajectories. Study 2 of this dissertation challenges the notions that all behaviors occurring within an interaction contribute equally to relationship satisfaction, and instead draws from the peak-end rule (Kahneman, 2000) to propose that communication quality at three brief moments in couple conversations—namely, at its most positive peak, at its least negative valley, and at the ending moments of the conversation—may be more strongly associated with partners’ global judgments of relationship satisfaction. Higher peak values of husbands’ cooperative behavior were associated with slower declines in wives’ satisfaction, while higher valley values of husbands’ affiliative behavior slowed declines in husbands’ satisfaction, and higher ending values of wives’ affiliative behavior slowed declines in wives’ satisfaction. In sum, specific moments in couples’ conversations appear to have greater predictive value than the overall aggregated valence of their behavior. These two studies reveal that considering relationship-focused behaviors, dyad-level processes, and uniquely meaningful moments of interaction is essential to understanding the constructive or destructive nature of communication processes.

    Cover page: Understanding Marital Communication among Ethnically Diverse Newlywed Couples Living with Low Incomes
    • Article
    • Peer Reviewed
    UCLA Previously Published Works (2018)
    Despite evidence that empirically supported couple therapies improve marital relationships, relatively few couples seek help when they need it. Low-income couples are particularly unlikely to engage in relationship interventions despite being at greater risk for distress and dissolution than their higher-income counterparts. The present study aimed to clarify how premarital education influences couples' progression through different stages of later help-seeking, as identified in prior research. Using 5 waves of self-report data from a sample of 431 ethnically diverse newlywed couples living in low-income neighborhoods, analyses revealed that wives who received premarital education later considered seeking therapy at a higher level of relationship satisfaction and lower level of problem severity than those who did not receive premarital education, though this was not true for husbands. Wives who received premarital education were also more likely as newlyweds to say that they would seek therapy if their relationship was in trouble, though husbands were not. Spouses who considered seeking therapy were more likely to follow through with participation if they had received premarital education, whereas if they had not received premarital education they were more likely to consider seeking therapy without following through. Similarly, among couples who received therapy, those who also received premarital education sought therapy earlier than those who did not receive premarital education, though not at a higher level of relationship satisfaction. Taken together, these results suggest that participation in premarital education is linked with later help-seeking by empowering couples to take steps throughout their marriage to maintain their relationship. (PsycINFO Database Record
      Cover page: Premarital Education and Later Relationship Help-Seeking
      • Article
      • Peer Reviewed
      UCLA Previously Published Works (2022)

      Objective

      Efforts to understand why some marriages thrive while others falter are (a) not well integrated conceptually and (b) rely heavily on data collected from White middle-class samples. The Vulnerability-Stress-Adaptation Model (VSA; Karney and Bradbury, 1995) is used here to integrate prior efforts and is tested using data collected from couples living with low incomes.

      Background

      The VSA Model assumes (a) that enduring vulnerabilities, stress, and couple communication account for unique variance in relationship satisfaction, (b) that communication mediates the effects of vulnerabilities and stress on satisfaction, and (c) that the predictors of satisfaction generalize across socioeconomic levels. To date, these assumptions remain untested.

      Materials and methods

      With 388 couples from diverse backgrounds (88% Black or Hispanic), we used latent variable structural equation models to examine enduring vulnerabilities, chronic stress, and observed communication as predictors of 4-wave, 27-month satisfaction trajectories, first as main effects and then interacting with a validated 10-item index of sociodemographic risk.

      Results

      (a) The three variable sets independently predict satisfaction trajectories; (b) couple communication does not mediate the effects of enduring vulnerabilities or stress on satisfaction; and (c) in 19% of tests, effects were stronger among couples with higher sociodemographic risk.

      Conclusion

      Effects of established predictor domains on satisfaction replicate in a diverse sample of newlywed couples, and most findings generalize across levels of sociodemographic risk. The failure of couple communication to mediate effects of enduring personal vulnerabilities and stress raises new questions about how these two domains undermine committed partnerships.
        Cover page: Three tests of the Vulnerability-Stress-Adaptation Model: Independent prediction, mediation, and generalizability
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