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This article was downloaded by: [University of Stellenbosch]On: 10 October 2014, At: 01:44Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH,UK
Journal of FamilyCommunicationPublication details, including instructions forauthors and subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/hjfc20
The Impact of RelationalMaintenance Behaviorson Marital Satisfaction: ALongitudinal AnalysisDaniel J. Weigel & Deborah S. Ballard-ReischPublished online: 13 Nov 2009.
To cite this article: Daniel J. Weigel & Deborah S. Ballard-Reisch (2001) The Impactof Relational Maintenance Behaviors on Marital Satisfaction: A Longitudinal Analysis,Journal of Family Communication, 1:4, 265-279, DOI: 10.1207/S15327698JFC0104_03
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/S15327698JFC0104_03
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The Impact of Relational MaintenanceBehaviors on Marital Satisfaction:
A Longitudinal Analysis
Daniel J. WeigelCooperative Extension
University of Nevada, Reno
Deborah S. Ballard-ReischHealth Ecology
University of Nevada, Reno
In this study we investigate the longitudinal relation between maintenance behaviorsand marital satisfaction. Forty married couples completed measures of maintenancebehaviors and marital satisfaction at Time 1. The couples again completed the mea-sure of marital satisfaction 1 year later. Analyses revealed that the use of maintenancebehaviors at Time 1 was related to perceptions of satisfaction at Time 2. Further, cer-tain maintenance behaviors seem to be more influential than others in predicting laterperceptions of marital satisfaction. The findings suggest that the maintenance behav-iors of wives and husbands are systemically and dynamically connected, and that themaintenance of marriages is a highly complex process.
For most Americans, being married remains a highly valued goal. In their lifetime,90% of American adults will get married (Gottman & Carrere, 1994). However,given that nearly two out of three marriages end in divorce (Martin & Bumpass,1989), a better understanding of how couples can maintain healthy, happy marriagesis critical. Communication scholars have become particularly interested in the spe-cific kinds of interaction behaviors used to preserve ongoing relationships. As a con-sequence, a number of studies have attempted to identify the types of communica-tion behaviors couples use to sustain their relationships (Baxter & Dindia, 1990;Canary & Stafford, 1992; Dainton & Stafford, 1993; Stafford & Canary, 1991).
THE JOURNAL OF FAMILY COMMUNICATION, 1(4), 265–279Copyright © 2001, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
Correspondence concerning this article should be sent to Daniel J. Weigel, Extension Human De-velopment & Family Life Specialist, University of Nevada Cooperative Extension, P.O. Box 11130,Reno, NV 89520. E-mail: [email protected]
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Canary and Stafford (1992, 1994), for instance, identified several, everyday be-havioral strategies which both maintain a relationship and are associated withgreater satisfaction, commitment, and liking. People report maintaining their rela-tionships through behaviors such as interacting with a partner in a cheerful, opti-mistic, and uncritical manner (positivity); directly discussing the nature of the rela-tionship (openness); stressing one’s desire to continue in the relationship(assurances); interacting with or relying on common affiliations and relatives (net-work); and performing one’s responsibilities, such as household chores (tasks; Ca-nary & Stafford, 1992). Further, the use of such behaviors may be strategic or rou-tine (Canary & Stafford, 1994). At times, people may consciously employ abehavior in hopes of maintaining the current status quo in their relationship. Atother times, however, maintenance behaviors become ingrained as part of the cou-ples’ ongoing communication pattern, that is, “the everyday interaction and con-versations that make the relationship what it is” (Duck, 1994, p. 46).
Beyond just identifying maintenance behaviors, it is important to uncover theways in which the use of those behaviors is linked to fundamental perceptions ofthe relationship. A key proposition outlined by Canary and Stafford (1994) is thatmaintenance behaviors are used to sustain desired relational definitions. By rela-tional definitions Canary and Stafford mean the important features that indicate theoverall character or quality of the relationship. Specifically, they contend thatwhen married couples use maintenance behaviors it leads to more positive percep-tions of the marriage, including greater marital satisfaction. Marital satisfactionprovides a global assessment of the current state of the relationship and, asSabatelli (1988) pointed out, it is one of the most widely studied indicators ofhappy, stable relationships.
The fundamental premise of these analyses is that differences in patterns inthe use of maintenance behaviors influence variations in perceptions of rela-tional satisfaction. For example, Stafford and Canary (1991) found that themaintenance behaviors of positivity, openness, assurances, network, and sharingtasks were related to satisfaction. Likewise, Dainton, Stafford, and Canary(1994) found a link between an individual’s satisfaction and perceptions of hisor her partner’s maintenance behaviors. Finally, Weigel and Ballard-Reisch(1996) found that husbands’ use of network, openness, positivity, and assuranceswere most strongly associated with their perceptions of satisfaction, whereaswives’ use of assurances, positivity, openness, and tasks were most strongly as-sociated with wives’ perceptions of satisfaction.
Recent empirical studies provide additional support for this assumption.Stafford, Dainton, and Haas (2000) found that the use of positivity, openness, as-surances, networks, and tasks were all positively correlated with perceptions ofmarital satisfaction. Further, using multiple regression, those same researchersfound that the use of assurances, networks, and openness were predictive of per-ceptions of satisfaction. In a study of individuals involved in romantic relation-
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ships, Dainton (2000) found that the use of assurances, positivity, and opennesswere significantly related to perceptions of satisfaction.
The aforementioned findings, however, only document the existence of an asso-ciation between maintenance behaviors and marital satisfaction. They do not ad-dress the fundamental premise that pervades current theoretical analyses of main-tenance behaviors in close relationships. Briefly stated, it has been argued thatmaintenance behaviors are used to preserve the status quo of the relationship (Ca-nary & Stafford, 1993); in other words, maintenance behaviors are causally relatedto marital satisfaction. If maintenance behaviors are used to sustain desired rela-tional conditions, it would make sense that when they are effective, maintenancebehaviors would be expected to relate to subsequent perceptions of satisfaction. Todevelop a better grasp of the role of maintenance behaviors in marriages it be-comes important to examine how the use of maintenance behaviors relates to fu-ture perceptions of marital satisfaction. The use of maintenance behaviors nowshould ensure positive satisfaction later.
It is important to resolve the question of causality for both theoretical and appliedreasons. The prominence of maintenance behaviors at a theoretical level would begreatly diminished if data fail to demonstrate that maintenance behaviors are caus-ally related to marital satisfaction. At an applied level, practitioners have long main-tained that the feelings and behaviors of wives and husbands are connected systemi-cally and that how one spouse feels and behaves influences the other spouse. AsWeigel and Ballard-Reisch (1999) argued, married individuals might be able to in-fluence the quality of their own marriages by strategically changing their own use ofmaintenance behaviors—and these changes may very well change how their part-ners’ feel about the relationships and their partners’subsequent use of maintenancebehaviors. In other words, in a systemic model of marriage, it may be possible to en-courage individuals to consider how their use of maintenance behaviors might notonly benefit themselves but their partners as well. However, if maintenance behav-iors are not causally related to satisfaction, there is no compelling reason that theyshould be encouraged for therapeutic use.
As Carver and Teachman (1995) pointed out, perhaps the most viable means ofgathering data that address a possible causal relation is to conduct longitudinal re-search. This study sought to extend the literature by examining the connections be-tween maintenance behaviors and perceptions of marital satisfaction across a 1-yeartime frame. Most of the literature on the use of maintenance behaviors to date hasbeen cross-sectional. An exception is Guerrero, Eloy, and Wabnik (1993), who stud-ied the use of maintenance behaviors of dating college students over an 8-week pe-riod. They found that perceptions of openness and assurances increased over time inescalating relationships, whereas perceptions of positivity, assurances, and the shar-ing of tasks decreased in de-escalating relationships. Otherwise, the relation betweenmaintenance behaviors and marital satisfaction has been assessed at one point intimeonlyandno long-termassociationsbetweenthevariableshavebeenexamined.
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A complete account of the longitudinal relation between the use of maintenancebehaviors and marital satisfaction also needs to account for the interdependencebetween spouses. Relationships, as Kenny (1996) pointed out, are two-sided.One’s perceptions and behaviors are not independent from one’s spouse, ratherthey are interdependent. Kenny and Kashy (1991) pointed out that married couplesare likely to have an established communication pattern, to have similar back-grounds, and to be exposed to similar influences and contexts. The perceptions andbehavior of one is likely to be related to the perceptions and behavior of the other.To create a more accurate picture of the marriage, it becomes important for re-searchers to study the relationship from the interrelated perspectives of both wivesand husbands. The advantage of collecting couple data is that systemic relationsbetween maintenance behaviors and satisfaction in the marriage can be examined.This possibility generates a much more powerful and complete picture of how cou-ples maintain their marriages.
Weigel and Ballard-Reisch (1999) conducted a cross-sectional study examiningboth the self and cross-spouse relations between the use of maintenance behaviorsand perceptions of satisfaction. Results of the study indicated that wives’ use oftasks was related to their personal perceptions of satisfaction, whereas husbands’use of positivity, openness, and network were associated with husbands’ personalperceptions of satisfaction. Cross-spouse findings from the study revealed thatwives’ use of positivity, openness, assurances, and tasks were all related to hus-bands’perceptions of satisfaction, but no cross-spouse effects were found betweenhusbands’ use of maintenance behaviors and wives’ perceptions of satisfaction.
In this study, we conducted a 1-year follow-up of the Weigel and Ballard-Reisch(1999) study to examine the long-term effects of maintenance behaviors. We exam-ined both self and cross-spouse effects in the use of maintenance behaviors in pre-dicting satisfaction 1 year later. We gathered data from both spouses at both time pe-riods,whichallowedus todetermine theextent towhichreporteduseofmaintenancebehaviors at Time 1 predicted perceptions of marital satisfaction 1 year later at Time2. Specifically, based on the literature, the following hypothesis was tested:
H. The reported frequency of use of maintenance behaviors at Time 1 will bepositively related to perceptions of marital satisfaction at Time 2.
METHOD
Sample
Following procedures outlined by Canary and Stafford (1992) and Dainton andStafford (1993), couples were recruited by students of interpersonal communica-tion classes taught by the authors at a Western university. Questionnaires were dis-
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tributed in classes to students in sealed packets and students were offered extracredit to recruit married couples to complete the questionnaire. Students thenasked married couples to complete the packets which included separate envelopesof questionnaires for husbands and wives. Students were instructed that couplesshould be married for at least 1 year. Directions instructed spouses to sign in-formed consent forms and complete their questionnaires separately, and question-naires were returned to the researchers in sealed envelopes.
A total of 143 couples completed the Time 1 assessments. The average age ofthe participants was 41 years (ranging from 22 to 68). Reported years marriedranged from 1 to 41, with a mean of 13. The entire sample had completed highschool, and 55% had obtained a 4-year college degree or higher. Seventy-five per-cent of the participants were employed full-time outside the home, and 60% ofthose were in professional or managerial positions. Most of the sample was White(90%), whereas 2% was African American, 1% Hispanic, 2% Asian, and 5% chosenot to indicate their ethnic background. The median family income was between$35,000 and $40,000.
One year later all couples were mailed a second questionnaire with a post-age-paid return envelope. Completed questionnaires were returned by 40 couples,creating a Time 2 return rate of 28%. This study included only those 40 coupleswho completed both Time 1 and Time 2 questionnaires.
Measures
Marital satisfaction. Perceptions of marital satisfaction at Time 1 and Time2 were measured using the Kansas Marital Satisfaction Scale (KMSS; Schumm et.al., 1986). Based on Spanier and Cole’s (1976) conceptual model, the KMSS wascomposed of three items that assessed feelings of satisfaction with the marriage,with one’s partner as a spouse, and with one’s relationship with one’s spouse. Eventhough the KMSS has a limited number of items, in a critique of marital satisfac-tion and quality measures, Sabatelli (1988) pointed out that the KMSS has the ad-vantage of not being confounded with related variables, such as satisfaction withcommunication, affection, and conflict management, a problem with many largermeasures of marital satisfaction. Further, the KMSS correlates with the DyadicAdjustment Scale and the Quality of Marriage Index, and has a test–retest reliabil-ity of .71 (Schumm et. al., 1986). Responses ranged from (1) very dissatisfied to(5) very satisfied. Higher scores indicated greater satisfaction and Cronbach’s al-pha reliability for both wives and husbands at Time 1 was .97 in this study.
Maintenance behaviors. Canary and Stafford ’s (1992) Relational Mainte-nance Strategy Scale was used at Time 1 to assess those behaviors couples used tomaintain their relationships. The scale consisted of 29 items assessing how fre-quently a person engaged in a specific relational maintenance behavior. The total
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scale was comprised of five subscales. The positivity subscale referred to interact-ing with one’s spouse in a cheerful, optimistic, and uncritical manner (e.g., “I actcheerful and positive when with him or her”). Openness contained items tappingbehaviors directly related to discussing the nature of the relationship (e.g., “I likehaving periodic talks about our relationship”). The assurances subscale assessedmessages that stress one’s continuation in the relationship (e.g., “I show my lovefor him or her”). The networks subscale referred to the use of a common social net-work and support (e.g., “I like to spend time with our same friends”). Finally, be-haviors involving performing one’s responsibilities in the relationship were foundin the tasks subscale (e.g., “I do my fair share of the work we have to do”). A 1(low) to 5 (high) Likert-type scale was used. The following alpha reliabilities forthe subscales were obtained in this study: assurances (.81 for wives, .86 for hus-bands), positivity (.86 for wives, .88 for husbands), openness (.83 for wives, .89 forhusbands), network (.73 for wives, .83 for husbands), and tasks (.68 for wives, 79for husbands).
RESULTS
Before conducting the analyses, sample attrition bias was checked. Demographicdifferences between those participants who did and did not return their Time 2questionnaires were examined and no significant differences were found betweenthe two groups. Further, differences in perceptions in the use of maintenance be-haviors and satisfaction were examined between Time 1 only participants andTime 1 to Time 2 participants. The only significant difference was in husbands’useof network. Those husbands completing both Time 1 and Time 2 questionnaires re-ported significantly higher scores in the use of networks at Time 1 than those hus-bands who participated at Time 1 only (t = 5.57, p < .05). Therefore, it appears thatparticipants who did and did not return their Time 2 questionnaires held mostlysimilar perceptions.
Canonical correlation was used to examine the extent to which self-reported useof maintenance behaviors at Time 1 predicted perceived marital satisfaction atTime 2. Before conducting the regression analyses, however, bivariate correlationswere conducted and Table 1 presents the correlations between all measures used inthe study. As Table 1 shows, the highest correlations were found among the respec-tive maintenance behaviors, particularly for husbands. The remaining significantcorrelations were moderate to small.
Canonical correlation was used to analyze the data because it allows for an ex-amination of interrelations among sets of multiple dependent and multiple inde-pendent variables (Hare, Anderson, Tatham, & Black, 1998). Whereas multiple re-gression predicts a single dependent variable from a set of multiple independentvariables, canonical correlations simultaneously predicts multiple dependent vari-
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271
TABLE 1Correlations Among Wives’ and Husbands’ Maintenance
Behaviors and Marital Satisfaction
Variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
1. W Positivity 1.002. W Openness .45* 1.003. W Assurance .57* .65* 1.004. W Network .27 .03 .25 1.005. W Tasks .40* .14 .21 .26 1.006. H Positivity .44* .30 .36* .36* .30 1.007. H Openness .46* .35* .29 .34* .28 .77* 1.008. H Assurance .37 .44* .21 .19 .41* .66* .69* 1.009. H Network .19 .02 .10 .52* .15 .65* .49* .43* 1.0010. H Tasks .05 .27 .12 –.11 .19 .54* .53* .38* .30 1.0011. W Satisfaction1 .27 .44* .61* .47* .36* .38* .13 .08 .20 .09 1.0012. W Satisfaction2 .26 .06 .34* .42* –.11 .22 .07 –.02 .34* –.25 .24 1.0013. H Satisfaction1 .30 –.45* .44* .11 .06 .09 .18 –.03 .15 –.08 .30 .29 1.0014. H Satisfaction2 .22 –.31 .52* .11 –.34 –.02 –.05 –.20 –.09 –.26 .37 .60* .46* 1.00
Note. W = wife; H = husband.*p < .05.
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ables from multiple independent variables. In this study we were interested in ex-amining the interrelations among wives’ and husbands’ relational maintenance be-haviors at Time 1 (independent set of variables) with wives’ and husbands’perceptions of marital satisfaction at Time 2 (dependent set of variables). In thisstudy, the first canonical function produced was found to be significant, yielding acanonical correlation of .79, F(20, 54) = 2.13, p < .05, indicating that 69% of thevariance in one canonical variate could be explained by the other canonical variate.The second canonical function was not statistically significant.
Canonical correlation also allows for the assessment of how much each individ-ual variable contributes to a canonical function. Table 2 presents two measures ofthe contribution of each variable to the canonical variates. The first measure is thecanonical loading, or the correlation between individual variables and the set’s ca-nonical variate. The canonical loading is the product–moment correlation of theindividual variable with the canonical function, and the greater the magnitude ofthe loading, the more it reflects the canonical function. Tabachnick and Fidell(1989) recommended that only variables with loadings of .30 or greater should beinterpreted as meaningful. The second measure in Table 2 is the percentage of the
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TABLE 2Canonical Correlation: Wife and Husband Relational
Maintenance Behaviors and Time 2 Satisfaction
LoadingCorrelation Squared as aPercentage of Sum (%)
Maintenance behaviorsWife positivity .44 16Wife openness .19 3Wife assurances .50 20Wife network .58 27Wife tasks .01 0Husband positivity .30 7Husband openness –.07 0Husband assurances .09 1Husband network .47 18Husband tasks –.32 8
Percent of variance .09Redundancy .13Marital satisfaction
Wife satisfaction .98 69Husband satisfaction .66 31
Percent of variance .72Redundancy .33Canonical correlation .79*
*p < .05.
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sum of squared correlations for each variable. This measure can aid in determiningthe relative magnitude of the relation of the variables to the canonical function.
Examination of Table 2 shows that six Time 1 maintenance behaviors contrib-uted to the interrelation between maintenance behaviors and marital satisfaction.Wives’ use of positivity, assurances, and network, as well as husbands’ use ofpositivity and network, all positively contributed to the canonical variate for main-tenance behaviors. Husbands’ use of tasks was negatively related to the canonicalvariate. Inspection of the percentage of the sum of squared correlations for eachvariable shows that wives’ use of network accounted for the greatest percentage ofvariance in the maintenance behavior canonical variate, followed by wives’ assur-ances, husbands’ network, wives’ positivity, husbands’ tasks, and husbands’positivity. Thus, wives’ greater use of positivity, assurances, and network, as wellas husbands’ greater use of positivity and network, but lower use of tasks, werefound to be key in predicting marital satisfaction 1 year later.
Also seen in Table 2, both wives’ and husbands’ perceptions of marital satisfac-tion at Time 2 contributed to the canonical variate for the set of marital satisfactionvariables. Wives’ perceptions of satisfaction accounted for 69% of the variance inthe marital satisfaction variate, whereas husbands’ satisfaction accounted for 31%.These results suggest that the perceptions of both wives and husbands contributedto a couple-level state of satisfaction, although wives’ satisfaction had a somewhatstronger contribution.
DISCUSSION
Previous research on maintenance behaviors has created a general understandingof how the use of maintenance behaviors are related to wives’or husbands’percep-tions of their marriages. Unfortunately, this research has been limited in that thelongitudinal connections between the use of maintenance behaviors and maritalsatisfaction have not been examined. The results of this study provide preliminarydata about the causal relation assumed to exist between the use of maintenance be-haviors and relationship satisfaction. Several conclusions can be drawn from thefindings.
First, the data from this study provide support for the supposition that mainte-nance behaviors are used to sustain desired relational definitions (Canary &Stafford, 1994), and when they are effective, maintenance behaviors should pre-dict future perceptions of satisfaction. The results indicate that as a whole,spouses’ use of maintenance behaviors at Time 1 is related to perceptions ofmarital satisfaction 1 year later. More specifically, the results uncovered a rela-tion in which higher ratings of wives’ positivity, assurances, and network, higherratings of husbands’ positivity and network, and lower ratings of husbands’
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tasks, were related to higher ratings of marital satisfaction reported by bothwives and husbands at Time 2.
It is interesting to note that causal relations between the use of maintenancebehaviors and marital satisfaction were found across the 1-year time frame. Itcould be argued that the length of time might be too long to expect significanteffects between maintenance behaviors and satisfaction. The findings of thisstudy can be seen to support the robustness of maintenance behaviors and it isquite possible, as Duck (1994) contended, that maintenance behaviors can be-come ingrained as part of couples’ everyday communication patterns. Readersneed to keep in mind, however, that the maintenance behaviors accounted foronly 13% of the variance in the association with marital satisfaction. Clearly,over the span of 1 year a myriad of factors will impinge on perceptions of satis-faction. Future studies should attempt to confirm the results of this study usingshorter time frames of months, weeks, or even days. If the causal relations holdin these shorter time frames, then maintenance behaviors may be seen as impor-tant contributors in creating satisfied marriages.
A second conclusion from the study is that certain maintenance behaviorsseem to be more influential than others in regard to later perceptions of maritalsatisfaction. For example, perceptions of satisfaction at Time 2 were higherwhen both wives and husbands used more positivity at Time 1. Positivity in-volves creating pleasant interaction including giving compliments, acting cheer-ful and optimistic, and accommodating one’s partner’s wishes. The positive at-mosphere created by spouse’s use of positivity apparently has a carry-over effecton wives’ satisfaction at Time 2. This finding supports research on the impor-tance of positivity and negativity in marriages. Gottman’s (1994) work, for in-stance, showed that happy couples tend to limit their use of negative behaviors,whereas distressed couples often engage in sequences of negative behaviors, in-cluding complaining and criticizing, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling.In fact, based on these findings, Gottman and Levenson (1992) contended thatmarried couples should engage in at least a 1-to-5 ratio of negative-to-positivebehaviors to maintain satisfaction.
Similarly, perceptions of satisfaction at Time 2 were higher when wives usedmore assurances at Time 1. Assurances have consistently been found to be signifi-cantly related to perceptions of satisfaction (Canary & Stafford, 1992; Dainton,2000; Stafford et al., 2000). The use of assurances—messages designed to stressone’s desire to stay in the relationship—may be seen as a very specific type of dis-closure about the state of the relationship. It is possible that when wives disclosetheir desire to continue in the relationship through assurances, it strengthens boththeir own and their husbands’evaluations of the relationship. Perhaps wives’assur-ances provide couples encouragement about the future stability of the relationship.
The data also revealed that spouses’ satisfaction at Time 2 was higher whenboth wives and husbands used networks at Time 1. In other words, both wives and
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husbands’ reported use of spending time with similar social networks and in jointactivities predicted couples’ later satisfaction. Much work has illustrated the im-portance of social networks to positive perceptions of romantic relationships. Cot-ton, Antill, and Cunningham (1993) reported that wives and husbands experiencedgreater marital satisfaction when they shared mutual friends and extended family.Sprecher and Felmlee (2000) stated that social networks can serve as sources ofapproval or disapproval of the relationship, and Bryant and Conger (1999) foundthat perceptions of approval of the relationship by one’s social network were posi-tively predictive of satisfaction in marriages.
In addition to sources of approval and disapproval, Milardo andHelms-Erickson (2000) contended that as couples become increasingly interde-pendent, they develop increasingly interdependent social lives and overlap in theirsocial networks—and when spouses maintain overlapping networks and share lei-sure activities it can have positive effects on their relationship. The importance ofnetwork in this study may reflect couples’ independence. Moreover, it is possiblethat time spent together is a consistent, public reminder of the importance of the re-lationship for couples. Time spent doing things together may be an important ba-rometer that couples use to infer the overall state of the relationship.
In this study, the more husbands reported performing tasks and chores in the re-lationship at Time 1, the less satisfied spouses were at Time 2. Wives’ reported useof tasks at Time 1 had no relation with couple satisfaction at Time 2. These find-ings appear to reflect the gendered nature of tasks and roles in marriages. Genderconstruction theory (Coltrane, 2000), suggests “that women and men perform dif-ferent tasks because such practices affirm and reproduce gendered selves, thus re-producing a gendered interaction” (p. 1213). In other words, performing specifichousehold tasks allows a person to demonstrate to himself or herself and to othersthat he or she is a competent member of a sex category with the ability and desire toperform appropriately gendered behaviors (Coltrane, 2000). Thus, for those hus-bands in this study, performing marital tasks may not confirm their status and com-petence as men, thereby leading to lower satisfaction.
In addition, Osmond and Thorne (1993) contended that marital roles often havedifferent levels of prestige and power associated with them, and wives often findthemselves in positions of less power and influence. Roles most frequently ful-filled by wives are less valued than those fulfilled by husbands. It is possible thatwives have resigned themselves to the fact that their roles typically have less powerand influence, and therefore have looked elsewhere for sources of satisfaction.Further, some research indicates that wives may not be as concerned about roleswhen it comes to their satisfaction and commitment. Despite a typically unequalallocation of family roles, Sanchez and Kane (1996) found that women’s satisfac-tion might be influenced more by the quality of connectedness and responsivenessin the marital relationship. Likewise, Thompson (1991) contended that the mean-ings constructed around roles may be more salient in assessments of fairness and
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satisfaction than the actual allocation itself. The findings from this study lend sup-port to this literature in that wives’ perceptions of their use of tasks had no signifi-cant relations with overall satisfaction marriages 1 year later.
A final conclusion that may be drawn from the findings is that in the canonicalanalysis, husbands’ and wives’ perceptions of satisfaction both contributed to themarital satisfaction covariate, that is, a couple-level perception of satisfaction.There has been increasing agreement among scholars studying marriages that themarital relationship is more than just the sum of the individual perceptions of hus-bands and wives. As with any system, spouses create their own unique realitieswith their own processes, structures, and routines. Couple realities are constructedand maintained through partner communication. Duck (1994) pointed out that talkprovides the means through which couples share one another’s worlds and rein-force the joint couple reality. Likewise, Wood (1995) contended that couple reali-ties arise directly out of communication, and it is the “small and large conversa-tions through which individuals weave their lives together” (p. 170). Thus,communication activities such as the use of maintenance behaviors are a primarymeans through which couples construct and sustain their couple reality and theirrelationship.
Wives’ perceptions of satisfaction did, however, account for a somewhatlarger portion of the variance in the marital satisfaction covariate. This findinglends support to the contention that in general, women may be more relation-ship-oriented than men. For example, Acitelli (1992) claimed that women focuson, talk about, and attend to relationship issues more frequently than men.Ragsdale (1996) also pointed out that relationships and marriage tend to be moreimportant for women than men, and that women are more sensitive to and moreaware of relationship issues than men. However, our findings suggest that husbands’perceptions still are an important component of the couple’s conception of satis-faction in the relationship and should not be overlooked in conceptualizations ofsatisfaction in marriages.
IMPLICATIONS AND LIMITATIONS
The study illustrates how the behaviors and perceptions of wives and husbands areconnected systemically. Researchers and practitioners have long maintained thathow one spouse behaves and perceives influences the other spouse. This study pro-vides additional empirical support for that claim. The data point out that a person’sbehaviors and perceptions in a marriage dynamically interact with their spouse’sbehaviors and perceptions. In a systemic model of marriage, it may be possible toencourage spouses to consider how changing what they do in response to how theyfeel about a relationship might not only benefit themselves but their partners aswell. In this way, as suggested by Weigel and Ballard-Reisch (1999), married indi-
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viduals could be encouraged to influence the quality of their own marriages bystrategically changing their own use of maintenance behaviors—and thesechanges may change their partners’ feelings about the relationships and their part-ners’ subsequent use of maintenance behaviors.
The results of the study, however, indicate that the systemic connection betweenfeelings and behaviors may be somewhat different for wives and husbands. There-fore, when working with couples, researchers and practitioners need to be sensitiveto the similarities and differences between wives and husbands in how they viewvarious aspects of behaviors and perceptions in the marriage. For the couples inthis study, the reported use of positivity and networks by both spouses were posi-tively linked to future marital satisfaction, but wives’ use of assurances and hus-bands’ use of tasks were differently associated with satisfaction. Counselors andfamily life educators can help couples become aware of these possible differences.Further, this awareness can provide a starting point for either healthy acceptance ofthe differences or a springboard for relational change.
Several limitations with this study should be noted. First, although the re-sults of this study suggest a causal relation between the use of relational main-tenance behaviors and future marital satisfaction, the study is correlational innature. An experimental design would better test these causal relations andtease out potential hidden factors that might be influencing the associations.Second, although the sample had the advantage of both partners being sur-veyed, still it was a nonrepresentative sample that limits the generalizability ofthe findings. Third, the sample size was somewhat small. Although this is un-derstandable given the difficulty of securing cooperation from couples at twotime periods separated by 12 months, it would be helpful if future investigatorsattempted to obtain larger, more diverse samples. Such samples would providean opportunity to conduct more sensitive tests of links between maintenancebehaviors and marital satisfaction. Lastly, all of the measures involved self-report.Thus, some of the observed relations could have been due to shared method vari-ance. In future research, it would be helpful to obtain external corroboration oflater relationship outcomes, either in the form of behavioral observation orthird person informants.
Despite these concerns, the findings from this study extend previous researchon the use of maintenance behaviors in marriage. The study illustrates how the per-ceptions and behaviors of wives and husbands are connected systemically andtemporally. The use of maintenance behaviors appears to be connected with bothimmediate and future perceptions of the marriage. Further, the data point out thatpeople’s behaviors and feelings in a relationship dynamically interact with theirpartners’ behaviors and feelings. The study of the use of maintenance behaviors inmarriages across time has much potential, but clearly, it is just one piece of the puz-zle, and additional work is needed to provide a more complete picture of the func-tion of maintenance behaviors in the lives of married couples.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on anearlier version of this paper. We also wish to acknowledge the assistance of Eliza-beth Christiansen with data analysis. A version of this paper was presented at theannual conference of the National Communication Association, Seattle, 2000.
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