Introduction: The desire to have children and form a family is for many people central for life fulfilment and the desire does not differ by sexual orientation. Due a series of societal changes during the last decade, today we see a lesbian baby boom. Planned lesbian families are a relatively new group of patients and parents in reproductive health care, yet little is known about psychological wellbeing during the transition to parenthood in these families. Aim: The overall aim of this thesis was to fill a gap of knowledge about the psychological aspects of undergoing treatment with donated sperm, at the time of pregnancy and during early parenthood that affect lesbian couples forming a family. Method: This is a multicentre study comprising all 7 university clinics that perform gamete donation. The study includes lesbian couples undergoing treatment with donated sperm and heterosexual couples undergoing IVF treatment with their own gametes. Participants were recruited consecutively during 2005 and 2008. 165 lesbian couples and 151 heterosexual couples participated in the study. Participants responded questionnaires at three time points (T); time point 1 (T1) at the commencement of treatment, (T2) after the first round of treatment, around 2 month after T1 and (T3) 12-18 months after first treatment when a presumptive child had reached 1 year. Data was analysed with statistical methodology. Results: Lesbian couples reported an all over high satisfaction with relationship quality, good psychological wellbeing and low parenting stress. Heterosexual couples also reported good satisfaction with relationship quality, however somewhat lower than the lesbian couples. Parenting stress in the heterosexual couples was similar to the lesbian couples. A strong association was found between high relationship satisfaction and low parenting stress. Conclusions: Lesbian couples forming a family through sperm donation treatment are satisfied with their relationships, they report a good psychological health and experiences of low parenting stress.

Introduction: The desire to have children and form a family is for many people central for life fulfilment and the desire does not differ by sexual orientation. Due a series of societal changes during the last decade, today we see a lesbian baby boom. Planned lesbian families are a relatively new group of patients and parents in reproductive health care, yet little is known about psychological wellbeing during the transition to parenthood in these families. Aim: The overall aim of this thesis was to fill a gap of knowledge about the psychological aspects of undergoing treatment with donated sperm, at the time of pregnancy and during early parenthood that affect lesbian couples forming a family. Method: This is a multicentre study comprising all 7 university clinics that perform gamete donation. The study includes lesbian couples undergoing treatment with donated sperm and heterosexual couples undergoing IVF treatment with their own gametes. Participants were recruited consecutively during 2005 and 2008. 165 lesbian couples and 151 heterosexual couples participated in the study. Participants responded questionnaires at three time points (T); time point 1 (T1) at the commencement of treatment, (T2) after the first round of treatment, around 2 month after T1 and (T3) 12-18 months after first treatment when a presumptive child had reached 1 year. Data was analysed with statistical methodology. Results: Lesbian couples reported an all over high satisfaction with relationship quality, good psychological wellbeing and low parenting stress. Heterosexual couples also reported good satisfaction with relationship quality, however somewhat lower than the lesbian couples. Parenting stress in the heterosexual couples was similar to the lesbian couples. A strong association was found between high relationship satisfaction and low parenting stress. Conclusions: Lesbian couples forming a family through sperm donation treatment are satisfied with their relationships, they report a good psychological health and experiences of low parenting stress. / <p>Name change: Paper 2, "Psychological health in lesbian and heterosexual couples undergoing assisted reproduction" in the list of papers has been changed to "Symptoms of anxiety and depression in lesbian couples treated with donated sperm: a descriptive study"</p>

In the United States, familial caregivers provide approximately 80% of the long term elderly care and are at risk for mental health problems. As family members provide care, relationships shift from mutual support to increasing dependency on the caregivers, who in turn often experience a shift in self-concept from their prior relational role to include identification as caregiver for the care recipient. Affectional solidarity, or emotional relationship quality, can influence how caregivers experience their shifting role in relationship to a loved one. The study examined whether role importance is associated with caregiver depression over time, and tested the moderating role of affectional solidarity in this association. A subset of caregivers (N = 57) from the Longitudinal Study of Generations constituted the sample from which role importance, affectional solidarity, and Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression reports were analyzed using longitudinal hierarchical regression. Findings did not support hypotheses. Results suggested that affectional solidarity may be important to consider among familial caregivers as a potential protective factor for depression. Implications for future research and practitioners are discussed.

Export performance has an important role for firm survival, profitability and growth. Given these benefits and the challenges that firms may face when exporting, scholars have dedicated considerable efforts to understand the factors that enable export success. The current study investigates the role of experiential foreign market knowledge and exporter-importer (EI) relationship quality for export performance. A conceptual model involving the relationship between the role of experiential foreign market knowledge, E-I relationship quality and export performance satisfaction is developed and empirically tested using data from 264 Thai exporting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Findings suggest SME managers' knowledge of foreign customers, culture and political environment have a positive influence on E-I relationship quality and satisfaction with export performance. Drawing upon the relational exchange theory, goodwill trust was found to be the most significant aspect that builds long-term E-I relationship quality. Secondly, the findings show that calculative approach (e.g. commitment based on cost and benefits) is a mainstream type of commitment between exporters and importers. However, a personalised tie between the exchange partners has a positive influence on commitment, resulting in the affective commitment to E-I relationship. Thirdly, in a collaborative business partnership, decision-makers emphasise information exchange and coordinating actions for taking strategic decisions, which are informed by the feedback recived in their collaboration. In addition, the study finds that political instability negatively moderates the link of competence trust and information exchange on export performance satisfaction. Theoretical, managerial and policy implications of these findings are discussed and areas for future research are proposed.

The SMART Florida project was implemented in five strategically identified counties across Florida (i.e., Santa Rosa, Duval, Manatee, Citrus, Palm Beach). These counties are representative of the breadth and depth of Florida’s rural and urban residents geographically, ethnically, and socioeconomically. A broad array of comprehensive research- and evidence-informed SMART and community partner (CP) programs, services, and resources that address the social, emotional, and economic stability needs and well-being of low-income individuals, couples, and at-risk youth in the identified geographic locations is being provided at two levels of integration (Level I: Information Dissemination; Level II: Training) during the duration of the grant to assist highly supported, trained, and networked County UF/IFAS Extension Agents and their community partners to strengthen marriages, relationships, and families among Florida residents across ethnicities and income levels in four statutory activity areas: 1) Education in High Schools (Activity I); 2) Premarital Education (Activity II); 3) Marriage and Relationship Education/Skills (MRES) (Activity III); and, 4) Marriage Enhancement (Marriage and Remarriage) (Activity IV). At-risk youth, those preparing for marriage, married and remarried couples, parents, and active military and veteran couples with a particular focus on participants who are vulnerable to low-income, low-resource, substance abuse, mental health, domestic violence and child abuse issues are some of the special interest target populations served through the SMART Florida project. Implications and outcomes from Year 2 of the grant cycle will be discussed. Relationship quality and satisfaction among couples has been a topic of interest for decades, with the 1970s marking the initiation of a dramatic expansion of research in this area. The 1970’s also saw the beginning of what was to become a continuing decline in marital quality and satisfaction among first-time married couples (Amato, Johnson, Booth, & Rogers, 2003; Schramm & Harris, 2010). This interest in dyadic couple relationship quality was likely driven by the expanding awareness that quality of marital relationships influences a broad range of positive and negative outcomes; healthy, satisfying marriages provide numerous benefits important to individuals and society, while marital dissolution has a profoundly negative effect (Amato, 2010; Cowan & Cowan, 2005; Harris, Schramm, Marshall, & Lee, 2012; Schramm & Harris, 2010). Furthermore, subjective levels of marital quality and satisfaction are predictive of both marital stability and marital dissolution (Gottman, 1994; Gottman & Notarius, 2000). Family fragmentation costs state and local taxpayers in Florida almost two billion dollars per year in forgone tax revenues, justice system expenses, TANF, Medicaid, SCHIP, and Child Welfare program expenditures. The purpose of this study was to assess associations between relationship quality and satisfaction, intimate partner consensus, and relevant contextual factors among married and unmarried cohabiting couples in a general sample of Floridians (n=1002). This study constitutes an initial baseline study of dyadic couple trends in Florida’s Northwest, North, West Coast, East Coast, and South regions and is the precursor to research currently being conducted over the next five years through a federal healthy marriages and relationships grant. Results indicate that variability in relationship quality is best explained by patterns of negative interaction, consensus, and context respectively. Specific implications for use of relationship education as an intervention in Florida are proposed.

The purpose of this study was to examine the possible mediating effect of self-esteem on the relationship between attachment security and relationship quality. Previous studies have found a positive association between attachment style and relationship quality. One possible explanation for this link may be self-esteem, which has been shown to consistently predict relationship quality. Therefore, I hypothesized that self-esteem may mediate the relationship between attachment and relationship quality. A sample of 680 married couples that completed the sections on attachment, self-esteem, marital satisfaction, marital stability, and problem areas in the relationship of the RELATE questionnaire between 2011 and 2013 was used. The data were analyzed using an Actor-Partner Interdependence Model (APIM) to help account for shared variance. Results found that there is a positive link between one's attachment and their level of self-esteem and their own relationship quality. However, results also found negative trend-level effects for the links between attachment and partner's level of self-esteem and self-esteem and own relationship quality. There was no mediating effect of self-esteem on the relationship between attachment and relationship quality.

The purpose of this study was to test whether video game use is associated with more problems with spending time together among married couples, whether problems with time together are associated with relationship quality, and whether attachment behaviors can moderate the association between time together as a problem and relationship quality. Previous studies have found a negative association between excessive video game use and couple relationship outcomes. Excessive video game use may negatively impact relationships by taking away from time spent on shared leisure and relationship maintenance activities. The Double ABCx model provided a theoretical framework for understanding how attachment behaviors such as accessibility, responsiveness, and engagement may act as protective factors that buffer the stress created by video game use and perceiving time together as a problem on couple relationships. A sample of 415 married couples who took the Relationship Evaluation Questionnaire between 2011 and 2013 and indicated that one or both partners played video games was used. Results indicated that there was a negative indirect effect of women's sports and music game use on women's relationship quality via women's reports of time together as a problem in the relationship. There was also a positive indirect effect of women's exercise game use on relationship quality. There was also a negative association between men's and women's reports of time together as a problem on own relationship quality. Men's attachment behaviors moderated the association between women's reports of time together as a problem and women's relationship quality. Clinical implications include more thoroughly assessing why video game use may be a problem in the relationship and fostering healthy attachment behaviors.

This mixed methods dissertation is comprised of three papers that consider interrelated ways in which social bonds, within the context of parenting, are experienced by women recently involved with the corrections system. Types of social bonds considered include agency professionals, romantic partners, and children--all previously theorized to play a role during the reentry period. These social bonds are considered within the context of the challenges experienced during this period, and how and why these social bonds may--or may not--support women as they transition back into the community.

This dissertation identified and developed indicators of a new potential predictor of relationship satisfaction and intimate partner violence (IPV): discrepancies between the ideal and perceived gendered characteristics of romantic partners. Past research has overlooked the implicitly gendered nature of these "partner-ideals." Two pilot studies were conducted to develop measures of gendered partner-ideals and -perceptions based on existing measures of gender ideology. The main study examined survey data collected online from adults (n = 643) living in the U.S. who were in a heterosexual romantic relationship for at least six months. Three main hypotheses were tested regarding the associations among gender ideology, gendered partner-ideals, gendered partner-perceptions, gendered partner-ideal discrepancies, relationship satisfaction, and experiences with IPV. While confirmatory factor analyses supported the reliability of the new measures of masculine-ideals and -perceptions, results did not support the hypothesized factor structure of the feminine measures. Thus, only hypotheses utilizing women's data were tested. This measurement limitation resulted in an unanticipated focus on women's IPV perpetration for Hypothesis Two. However, these data are valuable in their uniqueness. Hypothesis One was supported: women's masculinity ideology positively correlated with the corresponding masculine-ideal for each subscale of the respective measures as well as for the aggregate measures. Tests of Hypothesis Two showed that women's masculine-ideal discrepancies predicted their emotional abuse perpetration, but not their physical assault or injury perpetration, mediated by relationship satisfaction. However, this effect was small. Hypothesis Three had mixed support. Women's aggregate masculine-partner perceptions were positively associated with their reports of emotional abuse victimization. Additionally, women's reports of most types of IPV victimization positively correlated with perceptions of their male partners' conformity to the specific norms of negativity toward sexual minorities and restrictive emotionality. Contributions of this dissertation and implications of the results are discussed. A major contribution is the creation of masculine-ideals and -perceptions measures that can be used in future research on relationships. Study results suggest that gendered partner-ideals and -perceptions, beyond gender-ideology, have relevance to the functioning of romantic relationships--including both relationship satisfaction and some kinds of IPV. Future research should continue to investigate the validity of the created measures and explore the possibility of using discrepancies between gendered partner-ideals and -perceptions to prevent and intervene in abusive romantic relationships.

The inextricable ties between work and family have been extensively studied, however, with both societal and organizational change there is a continuing need for organizational research to elucidate the effects work can have on family, individual, and job well-being. Through three studies, this body of work demonstrates the role of supervisors, psychological contextual factors, and workplace work-family resources for improving employee and spouse family well-being and employee psychological and job well-being. This dissertation drew upon data from the Study for Employment Retention of Veterans (SERVe) and the Work-family Health Network (WFHN). Study 1 investigated the link between a supportive supervisor training and employee and spouse ratings of spouse and parent-child relationship quality at 3 and 9 months, while examining the moderating effects of baseline stress. Results revealed that the supportive supervisor training is associated with improved spouse reports of spousal relationship quality 3 months following the training. Additionally, results suggested that the training protects against employee and spouse declines in relationship quality under conditions of higher baseline employee stress. Study 2 examined the daily within and between-person link between work-to-family conflict (WFC) and affective well-being for employees and their spouses, with a focus on how daily family supportive supervisor behaviors (FSSB) can protect against WFC associated declines in mood. Findings from Study 2 revealed that daily WFC is related to declines in both employee and spouse mood at the within and between-person levels, however the associations between WFC and spouse mood are nuanced. Specifically, employee WFC was associated with spouse positive mood at the within-person level, but with spouse negative mood at the between-person level. Furthermore, FSSB protected against daily within-person WFC associated declines in employee positive mood. Study 3 utilized a novel theoretical integration of COR theory and climate framework, multi-level methodology, and a time-lagged design in order to elucidate the relationships between supervisor work-family views, unit-level work-family resources (e.g., FSSB and schedule control), and individual well-being. Results revealed that positive supervisor views about flexible work arrangements (FWA) for employees was associated with higher unit levels of FSSB, and that unit level FSSB and schedule control were both strongly related to subsequent employee burnout. Additionally, supervisor FWA was indirectly associated with job-burnout via FSSB. These three studies drew upon multi-level, multi-time points, and multi-source data to further work-family literature and theory, and demonstrate the importance of work-family resources for protecting employees and their families from stress related resource loss. The unique contributions of this dissertation and future directions are discussed.