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Southern Romance: Relationship Quality, Consensus, and Context Among Cohabiting Couples in the Gulf States.

Relationship quality, satisfaction and stability have been topics of interest for some time, as marriage and family structure have undergone significant changes since the 1970s. Researchers have observed 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). Furthermore, subjective levels of marital quality and satisfaction are predictive of both marital stability and marital dissolution (Gottman, 1994; Gottman & Notarius, 2000).
This study represents a continuing line of research into correlations between relationship quality and satisfaction, intimate partner consensus, and relevant contextual factors among married and unmarried cohabiting couples in a sample of residents in the Gulf States region, which encompasses the States of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas and included 1,360 respondents. The current study proceeds from an initial baseline study of dyadic couple trends in this region and is part of an ongoing line of research scheduled to continue over the next four years through a federal healthy marriages and relationships grant.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:ETSU/oai:dc.etsu.edu:secfr-conf-1030
Date10 March 2018
CreatorsHarris, Victor W., Visconti, Brian
PublisherDigital Commons @ East Tennessee State University
Source SetsEast Tennessee State University
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
SourceSoutheastern Council on Family Relations Conference

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