Main Questions
Lavner et al. (2013) sought to answer two important questions. The first question is whether trusting that one’s marriage is safe from undesired outcomes increases the probability of having a successful marriage in the future. The researchers also analyzed whether being optimistic in one’s marriage and having positive expectations, for instance, trusting that one’s marital relationship will get better with time, lead to more satisfying marriages, or whether these hopeful expectations demonstrate an unsatisfying relationship. These two questions are significant since most newlyweds and even unmarried individuals trust that their marriages will be successful despite the much evidence showing the high rates of divorce. Partners in romantic relationships are often involved in various cognitive processes that make them view each other and perceive their relationship in a hopeful light and keep their commitments to one another. Therefore, the questions are important as they address whether these hopeful views contribute to a long-lasting romantic relationship.
Research Hypotheses
To answer the research questions, newlyweds were asked to project the extent to which their feelings regarding each other and their relationships would change in four years trajectories, and then those reports were evaluated subsequently in association with their four years. The researchers hypothesized positive projections have an inverse relationship with real marital satisfaction. Lavner et al. (2013) expected less serious deteriorations in matrimonial satisfaction among the spouses with positive marital trajectories if being optimistic about one’s romantic relationship is beneficial for the general marital wellbeing. Additionally, the researchers predicted more serious deteriorations in matrimonial satisfaction among the partners with an optimistic forecast if the positive projections yield unreasonable anticipations and demonstrate troubled marriages. The researchers used positive marital projections as the predictor variable and matrimonial satisfaction as the outcome variable.
Basic Methods of the Study
The researchers conducted two surveys in a Central Florida community. The study comprised a total of 251 couples, 82 couples in the first study and 169 couples in the second study. Community newspaper advertisements and advertisements in bridal shops were utilized to recruit the participants. Also, official invitations were sent to qualified couples that had successfully finished their marriage license applications in Florida. Eligibility tests were conducted via a phone interview. To be eligible, the couples needed to be in their first marriages and that they had been married for not more than six months. Additionally, the qualified partners were over 18 years old, communicated in English, and had finished not less than ten years of education. All the couples did not have children and husbands were slightly older than their wives.
The first laboratory session was done using questionnaires that were mailed to the participants’ homes. They were asked to bring the filled questionnaires during their appointment. The qualified romantic partners signed written consent forms upon arrival for their initial appointment. The Florida human subjects review board officiated the consent forms. it was a paid participation. Subsequent questionnaires were mailed to the participants at six months intervals but were not called for laboratory assessments except during the fifth time.
Key Measures
Marital satisfaction; marital satisfaction describes an emotional state that indicates the supposed benefits of a marriage to an individual spouse. It was examined a total of eight times in six months intervals over four years. The researchers utilized two different measures of satisfaction to make sure that the results were not characteristic of a particular instrument. The first instrument used was the Quality of Marriage Index (QMI), a six-item scale requiring partners to describe the level of their agreement and disagreements regarding their marriage in general. Five items required the participants to report on a scale of seven, while one item asked them to report on a scale of ten. The scores were between 6 and 45. High scores indicated higher levels of marital satisfaction. Semantic Differential (SMD) required married partners to rate their view of their marriage on a scale of seven between 15 opposing pairs of answers, such as bad or good.
Marital forecasting and trait optimism; marital forecasting was done during the start of the study, that is, 6 months into the marriage, and another during the final examination (four years of marriage). The married partners projected the changes in their marital satisfaction over the future four years. They were asked to describe how their feelings would change, for instance, if they would become better or get worse. On the other hand, trait optimism refers to the propensity of the spouses to anticipate positive outcomes in their marriages. Life Orientation Test-Revised instrument was used to evaluate the extent of optimism. The spouses described eight items rated on a scale of 4 to indicate their level of positivity, whereby higher scores illustrated greater optimism.
Observed negative communication; Communication was used to assess the changes in marital behavior. This was done by videotaping spouses while they engaged in a ten-minute discussion regarding a problematic issue in their marriage. Each spouse was allowed to select a topic for the discussion. The researchers utilized the Verbal Tactics Coding Scheme to record the negative behavior. Interactions were coded as negative if they included sarcasm, blaming, harsh questions, and condemnation. A compilation of all the negative communication for each spouse was done and a proportion was estimated dividing by the overall number of codes for each partner by the overall speaking turns in the discussion. The scores ranged from 0.0 (no negative communication) and 1.0 for negative interaction.
Results
The findings indicated that wives with greater optimistic projections experienced more severe declines than the ones with moderately positive expectations. The results for QMI and SMD were the same. There were indistinguishable results when comparing the first extent of marital satisfaction for wives with more optimistic anticipations and those with moderate expectations. Additionally, the findings indicated a higher divorce rate for the spouses with moderately positive forecasts over the course of four years than those with higher expectations. Despite experiencing a more serious decline in marital satisfaction among the wives with initial greater positive forecasts than the ones with initial moderate positive anticipation, the former still predicted positive changes in the course of their marriages. Therefore, the overall findings confirmed the hypothesis that positive projections the marital wellbeing.
My reactions to the article
First, the data from the article enlightened me on the relationship between marital wellbeing and positive projections. Trusting that one’s marriage will get better with time does not guarantee marital satisfaction (Smith 2015). Secondly, women are more optimistic about their marriages than men (Berk, 2018). They later tend to get more disappointed when their predictions turn out negatively. However, further research on partners’ projections regarding the future of their marriages as well as the psychological processes that make partners committed to each other should be done.
References
Berk, L. E. (2018). Development through the lifespan. (7th ed). Pearson
Lavner, J. A., Karney, B. R., & Bradbury, T. N. (2013). Newlyweds’ optimistic forecasts of their marriage: For better or for worse? Journal of Family Psychology, 27(4), 531. Web.
Smith, A. R. (2015). Mindfulness and marital satisfaction: Direct and indirect effects (Doctoral dissertation, Colorado State University).