Stressful experiences external to a marriage (e.g., work stress, finances) are often associated with poor relationship functioning and lowered marital satisfaction, a phenomenon called stress spillover. To date, however, little attention has been devoted to understanding the specific mechanisms through which stress may lead to maladaptive relationship patterns. Drawing from theories of self-regulatory depletion, it was predicted that coping with external stress is an effortful process that consumes spouses' regulatory resources, leaving spouses with less energy to effectively respond to their relationship issues. The current study relied on a sample of 171 newly-married couples to examine whether self-regulatory depletion may mediate the link between external stress and relationship well-being. Couples were asked to complete a 14-day daily diary, which assessed their daily stress, their state of self-regulatory depletion, their marital behaviors, and their daily marital appraisals. Within-person analyses revealed that, on average, couples experienced stress spillover, such that on days when their stress was higher than usual they reported enacting more negative behaviors towards their partner and endorsed less positive appraisals of the relationship. Further evidence revealed that self-regulatory depletion accounted for a majority of these spillover effects. These findings suggest that even happy and committed couples may find it difficult to engage in adaptive relationship processes under conditions of stress. / text

Relationship maintenance represents an important understudied relational construct. Three studies were conducted to examine the correlates of relationship maintenance across five factors: positivity, openness, assurances, social networks, and sharing tasks. Study one is a meta-analytic review of the existing literature on relationship maintenance and its correlates. Studies two and three are empirical examinations of the predictors of and barriers to relationship maintenance enactment in same-sex couples using a variety of methodological and statistical approaches.Study one is a meta-analysis that focuses on synthesizing the existing literature on relationship maintenance and several relational outcomes including satisfaction, commitment, mutuality, liking, love, and relationship duration as well as gender differences in the enactment of maintenance behaviors. Results suggest that relationship maintenance and the first five correlates are positivity related and these effects are moderate to large in magnitude. Relationship duration was negatively related to three of the five relationship maintenance factors, positively related to social networks, and not related to sharing tasks. Additionally, women tend to perform slightly more maintenance behaviors than men.Study two examines the association between relationship maintenance and commitment using a cross-lagged, actor-partner interdependence model to assess the direction of this relationship among same-sex couples. A sample of 98 couples was measured over 14 days. Results show support for a causal pathway from commitment to relationship maintenance and do not support the opposite pathway. Support for this causal pathway was also demonstrated through the examination of cross-partner effects.Study three explores the potential barriers to relationship maintenance enactment. Daily conflict was examined as it predicts relationship maintenance behaviors and the moderational effects of constructive and destructive (demand-withdraw) communication styles were examined. Results illustrate a negative relationship between conflict and relationship maintenance suggesting that engaging in interpersonal conflict results in decreased relationship maintenance enactment. The detrimental influence of conflict was minimized, however, when couples utilized a constructive rather than destructive communication style. To the contrary, destructive communication styles enhanced the negative effects of conflict with the exception of the actor-demand, partner-withdraw pattern, which reduced the negative effect of conflict.

Doctor of Philosophy / Family Studies and Human Services / Jared R. Anderson / Cyclical romantic relationships—those characterized by breaking up and getting back together or having on/off periods—are a frequent phenomenon in the emerging adult population. These dating relationships maintain some distinctions from other more stable relationships, including the ways that partners strive to sustain relationship health. The purpose of this phenomenological qualitative inquiry was to increase in-depth understanding of how emerging adult dating partners’ relationship effort affects relationship transitions within cyclical dating relationships. Ten heterosexual emerging adult couples (10 men, 10 women) currently in cyclical dating relationships were interviewed about their experiences with relationship effort and maintenance. Participant interviews were analyzed according to the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) method. Specific themes emerged from the data, focusing on how perceived individual effort in the relationship, perceived partner effort in the relationship, and specific maintenance behaviors couples used to sustain relational health affected couple decisions about relationship transitioning. Implications regarding relationship education and clinical intervention among cyclical emerging adult couples are discussed. Future research could focus on continued expansion of understanding when in relationship history cyclical patterns begin, and how partners navigate transitions when both perceive reduced relationship effort.

A great deal of the existing literature on parental divorce focuses on the negative influences it has on children and young adults in regards to such areas as their relationships (romantic and familial) and their academic standing. The implications of such research are that parental divorce will always bring harm to families and, consequentially, should be avoided for the sake of the children's wellbeing. What is often missing from this research is a focus on the potential positive outcomes of parental divorce. The intent of this thesis is to explore the effects of parental divorce on young adults' ability to form and maintain romantic relationships, focusing on the positive outcomes of parental divorce on young adults and seeking to answer the question of whether or not young adults can actually benefit from their parents' divorce. By surveying a sample of 233 students from divorced and intact families from a large university on their experiences with parental divorce and/or romantic relationships, in conjunction with face to face interviews, the current study provides a deeper insight into the social factors that help define divorce as positive and explores the effects of family structure, gender of child, economic situation, and pre-existing parental conflict on young adults of divorced parents. Findings suggest that these young adults do experience positive outcomes after the divorce and that these outcomes are dependent on a variety of familial and social factors that shape the divorce experience.

In this study, equity theory and relationship maintenance were employed as the framework through which couples' perceptions of and use of diet- and exercise- related social influence strategies were examined. Additionally, this research investigated whether people's perceptions of social influence were associated with their health maintenance behaviors and relationship quality, as well as whether their perceived diet- and exercise-related support from the partner moderated these associations. Finally, individuals' motivation to use influence strategies to encourage their partners to be healthier was also be evaluated. This study included a sample of 192 cohabiting or married couples. The results of the Actor Partner Interdependence Models indicated that actors' perceived relationship maintenance and control mutuality were positively associated with their perceptions of positive influence strategies from the partner. Additionally, actors' perceived positive influence strategies from their partners were associated with greater health maintenance and relationship satisfaction, with the inverse being true for actors' perceived negative influence strategies from their partners. Individuals' reports of using social influence strategies varied depending on their various motivations for using social influence strategies (i.e., perceived partner ability and willingness to change, reasons for using social influence, and reasons for not using social influence). Finally, individuals reported engaging in more health maintenance behaviors when they also perceived more positive social influence and more diet- and exercise-related support from their partners. These results suggest that relationship functioning is related to individuals' perceptions of influence strategies from the partner, which are also associated with individuals' health maintenance behaviors and relationship quality. Consequently, romantic relationships appear to be an important context in which to examine diet- and exercise- related social influence strategies.

Abstract 1,000,000,000,000 people use Instagram and many use it on a daily basis, yet surprisingly few studies have been conducted to better understand how this social media platform affects our lives. This study is proposed to better understand how people use specific functions within the application for relationship maintenance. Participants will complete an online survey in which they will be randomly assigned to a hypothetical Instagram post. They will be told to imagine that it is either posted by a close friend or by an acquaintance in order to better understand how people treat in-group or out-group members. Their liking, commenting and unfollowing behaviors will be assessed, followed by various open-ended questions asking them about their reasoning for why they would like or not like the post, and so on. The results are expected to show that participants are more lenient and accepting of their friend’s offensive posts. They will also like and comment more on their friend’s post than on the acquaintance’s post, and will only unfollow an acquaintance. The severity of offensiveness will not matter as much for friend posts as it will for acquaintances. In the open-ended response section, their reasoning for why these findings are true will relate to Social Identity Theory because they will want to support their in-group members more, showing preferential treatment. It will also support Social Exchange Theory as they will run a cost-benefit analysis, evaluating whether or not it would be more harmful to the relationship if they did not interact, or more harmful to their reputation if they interact.

Various challenges can threaten the security of personal relationships, but one of the most difficult problems to manage is geographic distance. As more people live apart from someone about whom they care, the prevalence of long-distance relationships will increase. However, research on how long-distance friendships are characterized and accomplished lags behind. Therefore, the present study was designed to uncover how women define and maintain their long-distance friendships. A total of 34 interviews were conducted with first-year undergraduate students, first-year graduate students, and recently-hired faculty members at a large university. The interview transcripts were analyzed inductively, which resulted in the creation of nine categories. These were eventually reduced to six maintenance behaviors: openness, assurances, positivity, joint activities, personal networks, and mediated communication. Participants also challenged definitions of long-distance friendship based upon geography and replaced them with definitions based upon communication (access to interaction, use of mediated communication, level of closeness, and a commitment to expend the necessary time and energy to make it work). Although long-distance friendships may require more effort and involve more mediated communication, this study demonstrates that long-distance friends rely on similar maintenance behaviors as geographically-close friends. This indicates that long-distance friendships may not be as dramatically different or as perplexing as commonly thought. Overall, the present study reveals that long-distance friendships can be satisfying and maintained successfully, which challenges both cultural assumptions and traditional social science research. Many long-distance friendships are well-equipped to weather both changes and challenges, making them flexible, not fragile.

This study compares same-sex friendships, cross-sex friendships and romantic relationships in young adulthood in terms of the negative effects of various conflict issues, the different conflict management strategies and relationship maintenance strategies employed in these relationships, as well as the perceived rewards and costs, the integration of the networks, and perceived overall quality. The main purpose is to investigate cross-sex friendships and discern its similarities to and differences from romantic relationships and same-sex friendships, as well as the gender differences that emerge. Data is collected by means of questionnaires, from a sample of 298 Middle East Technical University Students. Cross-sex friendships were rated as the poorest relationship in terms of quality, rewards/costs, or the frequency of maintenance behaviors and conflict occurred at very low levels in these friendships. Women employed more relationship maintenance strategies in their same- and cross-sex friendships compared to men. In addition, men preferred the dominating and women the accommodating strategies of conflict management in their same-sex friendships. It was concluded that same-sex friendships remain to be the accepted and approved form of friendship among this sample of Turkish young adults and cross-sex friendships were distant and inferior to the other two relationships. Finally, there were some differences across these relationships as to what predicted relational quality, yet in general the rewards and maintenance strategies predicted quality better than costs and conflict behaviors

Social media usage is a paradigm shift in mass communication history, and members of the diasporic communities use social media for building and maintaining relationships. Social media have taken an important step by allowing the users to communicate in their native languages online. Because of this new step, communication through social media has become easier for the diasporic people who lack language and communication skills in their host countries. The diasporic people can communicate with the members of the same diasporic community in the host society and also with friends and family back home by using their native languages. Diasporic people have various motivations for using social media including gratifications. This dissertation examines patterns of use of social media among the South Asian diaspora living in the U.S. In doing so, the study uses a broader framework of bridging and bonding social capital to examine how South Asian people in the U.S. maintain relationships with friends both back home and in their host society via social media. Moreover, the influence of language for socio-cultural adjustment of the South Asian immigrant people was also explored in this study. An online survey following a snowballing technique was conducted among 535 South Asian people in the U.S. The results found that bonding relationships are related to native language use in social media, information sharing about back home and frequencies of social media use. Bridging relationships are related to relationship maintenance with friends in the U.S. and frequencies of social media use. The results of this study show the English language preference is not related to cultural and psychological behaviors in social media. However, English language preference is related to home country media related behaviors.

隨著電腦科技的普及，網路逐漸成為親子溝通的工具之一，父母和孩子也與其他的關係一樣，在網路上相處、溝通與互動，然而目前的網路研究中，親子溝通鮮少成為研究的對象，而家庭傳播中對網路的討論，則大多將焦點集中在新科技使用與家庭生活時間的互斥與否的爭議之上，網路在此研究脈絡中喪失了溝通互動的性質，本研究並不企圖否定過去對電腦與家庭關係中的互動討論，而是期望加入目前實際生活中，網路在親子關係中所發揮的溝通功能，而使網路在親子溝通的角色可以更加完備。 本文以網路問卷調查的方式，期望瞭解在強調父母威權（社會取徑）與鼓勵與子女互動（概念取徑）的兩種不同家庭中，子女對媒介特質的感知有何差異，以及是否會有不同的網路關係維持行為。研究結果指出，家庭中越是強調父母權威，子女越能感受到：網路讓他們比較敢向父母表達自身想法，並且也越能在與父母溝通前有更多時間好好地組織自己想法，而越是重視父母權威的家庭，子女也越會傾向在網路中與父母分享心事與表現出對父母的體諒，網路讓這些原來關係緊張的親子之間有了更多親密互動的可能。 / With the population of the computer technology, internet has become one of the tools of parent-child communication. Parents and children nowadays also interacted and communicated on line, just like any other relationships. However, parental communication rarely became the topic in the study about the internet. In family communication research, the researchers always talked about whether the internet interaction reduces the actual interaction in family life. In this thesis, the context of this idea lacked the communicative function of the internet., This study investigates how children have different perception of media characteristics and different internet communication behavior in the social oriented families (that emphasis parent’s power) and concept oriented families (that encourage children to share their opinions). Firstly, the study finds that the children from social oriented families are more likely to feel that they have more various topics which are unable to show while being together with their parents by face-to-face. Secondly, they consider that they are able to arrange their ideas more perfectly before talking with their parents. Moreover, the finding also indicates that the children from social oriented families are willing to share their secrets and express understanding for their parents on line. Thus, for the social oriented families, the internet provides another way to improve parental relationships.