In Rural Water, Amos Durand struggles to bring in the year's corn crop amid constant rain, marital strife, and his son's peculiar role in a murder investigation.

The current study aims to explore the potential mediating role of emotional experiences and expression during conflictual situations in marital relationships. Past studies have documented a strong relationship between attachment dimensions and/or styles and relationship satisfaction. It was also shown that negative emotions and dysfunctional and destructive expression of emotions have detrimental effect on marital functioning. The current study aims to empirically tie these two areas of research by exploring the mediating role of emotional experience and expression in the relationship between attachment dimensions (i.e., attachment anxiety and avoidance) and marital adjustment of couples using the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model (APIM, Kashy &amp / Kenny, 2000). It was expected that attachment dimensions of wives and husbands would predict the experience of three negative emotions, namely, anger, sadness, and guilt and destructive expression of these emotions, and in turn, these emotions would predict both partners&rsquo / marital dissatisfaction. Initially, two pilot studies using both qualitative and quantitative methods were conducted to see whether there were culture-specific ways of emotional experience and expression in Turkish cultural context. The findings confirmed the reliability and validity of the three separate emotional experiences scales assessing anger, sadness, and guilt. Based on the findings of the initial studies, the main study involving a sample of 167 married couples who were in the early years of their marriages was conducted. Couples separately completed multiple measures of adult attachment and experience and expression of emotions, and marital quality. Mediating effects of emotional experience and expression in the relationship between the attachment dimensions and marital adjustment were tested utilizing a series of path analyses using the APIM analyses. The results revealed that attachment avoidance, rather than attachment anxiety, of both wives and husbands was the strongest predictor of own and partners&rsquo / marital adjustment in the conflictual situations. In terms of emotional experience, wives&rsquo / regret and husbands&rsquo / anger were the marker mediating emotions. Regarding anger expression, wives&rsquo / and husbands&rsquo / distributive aggression styles mediated the relationship between attachment dimensions and marital adjustment. Analyses on sadness expression yielded only one significant actor mediation effect suggesting that avoidant husbands used more solitude/negative behavior, and this in turn, decreased their marital adjustment. However, guilt expression styles of wives and husbands did not mediate the relationship between attachment dimensions and marital adjustment of both partners. The current study extended the previous studies by providing evidence on the influence of the each partner&rsquo / s attachment orientation on the emotional experience and expression during marital conflict and marital adjustment of both spouses. The implications of the study for theory, practice, and future research were discussed.

Relationship conflict is robustly linked to negative physiological responses that have serious implications for partners’ overall physical health. The link between relationship conflict and physiological reactivity, however, has been studied almost exclusively in a laboratory setting. The first aim of this study was to assess the link between conflict and physiological function in couples’ home environments. Newlywed spouses reported occurrences of marital conflict in a daily diary and concurrently provided morning and evening saliva samples for the calculation of daily diurnal cortisol slopes. Spouses experienced less steep (i.e., less healthy) diurnal cortisol slopes on days of greater marital conflict. The second aim of this study was to examine whether spouses’ connections with close others outside their marriages (i.e., quantity and quality of perceived network support) moderate physiological responses to marital conflict. Whereas the quantity of network support did not influence spouses’ responses to conflict, the quality of spouses’ network support attenuated the association between daily marital conflict and diurnal cortisol. Specifically, whereas those spouses who were less satisfied with their network support experienced less steep diurnal cortisol on days of greater marital conflict, those spouses who were more satisfied with their network support exhibited no effects of daily marital conflict on diurnal cortisol. Implications for maintaining quality social relationships outside a marriage are discussed. / text

This study examined how marital conflict and marital environment contribute to change in marital status over time; while controlling for gender and other demographic characteristics. The current study used all three waves, 1987-1988, 1992-1994, 2001-2002, of the nationally representative dataset National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH). Four longitudinal models were tested using path analysis and the Bayesian estimation technique. Findings indicate there is no effect of marital conflict on change in marital status when demographic and marital environment variables are in the model. Age has the strongest direct and indirect effects. An increase in number of times married consistently increases the chance of a change in marital status. Variables measuring the marital environment—with the exception of the effects of unfairness of chores and spending money in the male models—primarily, contribute direct and mediating effects on the two measures of marital conflict. Overall, when considering all models, the variable with the strongest direct and indirect effects, is age of the respondent. This finding indicates that the dominate influence on marital environment and marital conflict, and, ultimately, change in marital status, is that of age as a proxy for developmental change over the lifecycle.

The timing of pubertal development has important mental and physical health consequences. Individuals who enter puberty off-time are at greater risk for psychological disorders, social difficulties, and physical morbidity. One variable associated with early pubertal development is marital conflict. Life History Theory proposes that marital conflict signals an unreliable environment and promotes advanced pubertal timing to enhance reproductive fitness. Such calibrations allow individuals to unconsciously invest more resources in reproduction, following a quantity over quality approach. Despite research supporting the role of marital conflict in early-onset puberty, research has struggled to find a mechanism for this relationship. The current study examined two possible mediators: emotional insecurity and cortisol levels in a sample of children aged 6-12 years from 2-parent families. Neither variable was supported as a mediator of this relationship. However, parental depression significantly predicted pubertal development for girls. Findings regarding the role of parental depression in the timing of girl’s puberty support life history theory.

The purpose of this study was to explore the marital adjustment of older adult couples with breast cancer, prostate cancer, and couples who have experienced neither. Participants were 64 couples in which at least one of the spouses was over 55 years of age, including 19 breast cancer couples, 20 prostate cancer couples, 25 couples who had experienced neither of these cancers. Most participants were young-old, Protestant, Caucasians from a high socioeconomic class. The breast cancer and prostate cancer participants had completed treatment an average of 39.5 months prior to participation. The methodology was a mail survey. Participants completed a demographic questionnaire, the Marital Satisfaction Questionnaire for Older Adults (MSQFOP) (Haynes et al., 1992), Primary Communication Inventory (PCI) (Navran, 1967), Miller Social Intimacy Scale (MSIS) (Miller & Lefcourt, 1982), and the Index of Sexual Satisfaction (ISS) (Hudson et al., 1981).There were no differences in the amount of discordance between the couples groups' level of marital satisfaction, communication, intimacy, and sexual satisfaction. In addition, there were no differences in the level of marital satisfaction, communication, intimacy, and sexual satisfaction between the participant groups. There was a significantly greater correlation between the prostate cancer couples' scores on the ISS than the correlation between the breast cancer couples' scores and the scores of the couples who had not experienced breast cancer or prostate cancer.The level of marital satisfaction, communication, intimacy, and sexual satisfaction reported was similar to that of the normative samples. There was no difference between the marital adjustment of the cancer couples and older couples who had experienced neither type of cancer. These results are good news for breast and prostate cancer survivors, and professionals. Older adults may be better able to incorporate the experience of cancer into their lives or are better prepared for chronic illness through anticipatory socialization. The high degree of agreement between the prostate cancer spouses on the ISS may be related to the sexual dysfunction that frequently accompanies treatment for this cancer. Future research should be qualitative and longitudinal and continue to explore the psychosocial implications of prostate cancer. / Center for Gerontology

This study examined the influence of parenting-related factors to emerging adults’ emotion regulation, especially in the context of interparental conflict. Specifically, the purpose of the study was to examine how interparental conflict, parenting (defined as parental psychological control, autonomy support, and behavioral control), and parentchild relations (defined as parent-child attachment) are related to emerging adults’ emotion regulation. In addition, do parenting behaviors (psychological control, autonomy support, and behavioral control) and parent-child attachment mediate the relations between interparental conflict and emotion regulation? A total of 361 college students reported their perceptions of interparental conflict, their parents’ parenting practices, parent-child attachment, as well as their emotion regulation capabilities. The majority of the participants were females (n = 292), and Caucasians (n = 322) with an average age of 20.23 (SD = 1.39) years. In general, the participants reported moderate interparental conflict, relatively low psychological control and behavioral control, moderate levels of parental autonomy support, and high parent-child attachment, along with relatively high emotion regulation capabilities. With regression analyses, the results showed that emerging adults who reported higher levels of resolution of interparental conflict, moderate levels of parental behavioral control, greater attachment communication, and lower levels of alienation from parents were associated with better emotion regulation. Path analyses were used to test the role of parenting and attachment in mediating the relations between interparental conflict and emotion regulation. Results demonstrated that parental behavioral control, autonomy support, and parent-child attachment partially mediated the role of resolution of interparental conflict on emotion regulation. In addition, parental behavioral control and autonomy support partially mediated the impact of resolution of interparental conflict on emerging adults’ alienation from parents. In particular, resolution of interparental conflict was the strongest predictor of emerging adults’ emotion regulation capability, even when parenting practices and parent-child attachment were controlled. / Department of Educational Psychology

Thesis (M. A.)--University of Notre Dame, 2005. / Thesis directed by E. Mark Cummings for the Department of Psychology. "July 2005." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 77-82).

Thesis (M.S.)--University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2007. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Feb. 29, 2008). Directed by Cheryl Buehler; submitted to the School of Human Environmental Sciences. Includes bibliographical references (p. 108-127).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Auburn University, 2007. / Abstract. Vita. Includes survey instruments. Includes bibliographic references (ℓ. 133-154)