Please Refer to the Printed Reader, Readings in Social Psychology 3/E, for the Text Of

Please Refer to the Printed Reader, Readings in Social Psychology 3/E, for the Text Of

READING 9

The Nature and Predictors of the Trajectory of Change in Marital Quality for Husbands and Wives Over the First 10 Years of Marriage by Kurdek (1999)

Please refer to the printed reader, Readings in Social Psychology 3/e, for the text of this article.

Overview

At some point in their lives, most people enjoy an intimate romantic relationship, many get married, and some get divorced. How do intimate relationships progress over time? Is there a typical developmental pattern? Clearly, all marriages are different and cannot be squeezed into single mold. But recent studies show that some general patterns do emerge when large numbers of marital partners are periodically surveyed about their satisfaction. Recently, Kurdek (1999) reported on a longitudinal study of married couples in which he measured each partner’s level of satisfaction every year for ten years. How did he measure satisfaction and what did he find? Is marriage an extended honeymoon? Do married couples in general become more satisfied over time, or less satisfied, or is there an uneven pattern of change? In the following article, Kurdek sought to answer these questions while, at the same time, noting that everyone is different and that no two marriages are alike.

Critical Thinking Questions

1. Kurdek suggests several ways in which his study differs from other research that has examined marital satisfaction over time. Describe three specific ways in which the methodology of this study improves on previous research.

2. Kurdek reports that of the close to 8,000 couples receiving a letter about the study, 18% expressed an interest in participating, and only 38% of those couples returned the survey in Year 1. What are the implications of these participation rates when it comes to interpreting the present findings? In other words, how do these rates complicate the effort to draw conclusions about marital satisfaction in the population at large?

3. How would you summarize the main findings of this study regarding the trajectory of marital satisfaction over the course of 10 years? What explanation(s) can you give for this pattern?

4. How would you summarize the main findings of this study regarding gender differences in marital satisfaction over time? Chapter 9 discusses evolutionary and sociocultural perspectives in studying relationship preferences and behavior—are either of these perspectives helpful in explaining the present gender effects?

5. How would you summarize the main findings of this study regarding the influence of having children (biological and step) on marital satisfaction? How would you explain these results?

6. How does the present discussion of marital satisfaction relate to Chapter 14’s analysis of adaptation-level theory?

Answers to Critical Thinking Questions

1. Kurdek cites several improvements of his study over previous research. First, the present study includes in its sample not only newlyweds in first marriages, but also newlyweds in remarriages. Given that only 54% of all marriages are first marriages for both spouses, it important to include remarriages in any attempt to obtain a representative sample of newlyweds. Second, the duration of Kurdek’s study was 10 years, which is considerably longer than most longitudinal studies of marriage. This allows him to conduct more sophisticated analyses regarding the trajectory of change in marital quality over time. Third, Kurdek examined the extent to which divorce history predicted variability in participants’ marital trajectories. The sample of this study was much more diverse in terms of divorce history than the populations typically used in this type of research.

2. These rates certainly complicate the effort to extrapolate from Kurdek’s findings to more general conclusions about martial trajectory in the population at large. Only 7% of the 8,000 couples originally receiving a letter about the study completed a questionnaire in Year 1. If this were a randomly selected 7% of a randomly selected larger sample, generalizing these results would be more straightforward. But this 7% is not necessarily a random proportion. Perhaps individuals with particularly unhappy marriages were unlikely to respond to the letter. Perhaps individuals with more kids, who presumably have less free time, were also less likely to participate. Any systematic differences between responders and non-responders complicate the effort to generalize the present findings.

3. Kurdek’s findings indicate that marital satisfaction declines at a fairly rapid pace over the first four years of marriage before stabilizing for a few years. Then at Year 8, satisfaction rates again decline sharply. The first decline could be explained as the “honeymoon is over” effect, where people’s initially high expectations for marriage come into conflict with the real-world, day-to-day challenges of sustaining a marriage. The second decline reported by Kurdek is relatively consistent with the idea of the “seven-year-itch.” After a period of stability in the marriage, spouses might start to grow weary of their marital routine or complacent in the effort they put into the relationship.

4. The marital satisfaction trajectories of both women and men seem to demonstrate similar patterns of decline, though throughout the marriage (or at least until Year 10) men report lower satisfaction than women. An evolutionary psychologist might explain this gender difference as resulting from men’s desire for multiple partners. As the theory goes, the best way for men to ensure their genetic material survives into future generations is to reproduce with multiple partners. Women, on the other hand, do better to seek out long-term relationships with stable men who will provide resources and protection for their offspring. This could explain why women seem more satisfied in committed marriages than men. A more sociocultural take on this gender difference would focus on the fact that our society permits, and even sometimes encourages men to seek out multiple partners or to engage in infidelity. Perhaps this is why men are less satisfied in marriage than women, who are socialized to seek stable, monogamous relationships or else face disapproval and other social repercussions.

5. The data indicate that having children leads to lower initial marital satisfaction and a steeper rate of decline in the marital satisfaction trajectory. These effects are strongest when examining biological kids as opposed to stepchildren. A plausible explanation for these effects is that having children takes up a lot of the couple’s time, energy, and other more tangible resources. Though children likely bring their parents a great deal of happiness, having kids appears to place stress of the happiness of the marriage itself. Couples without children likely have more free time, greater disposable income, and fewer life stressors than couples with children.

6. Adaptation-level theory proposes that people become accustomed to their life situation over time and adjust their expectations for life satisfaction accordingly. Whereas winning the lottery often leads to a short-term increase in happiness and life satisfaction, over time lottery winners adapt to their new life situation and soon become no happier than people who did not win. If this phenomenon were occurring in the present study, one might expect marital satisfaction to remain relatively stable over time as couples adjust their marital expectations downward with the passage of years. The results do not indicate such an overall pattern, though it is possible that the period of stability observed in Years 4-8 reflects an adjustment of expectations after a few years of marriage. This theory might also suggest that if you followed couples for more than 10 years, eventually their marital satisfaction trajectories would level off.

Links For Further Investigation

As Kurdek relates, 90% of Americans are married by the age of 45. Therefore, marital satisfaction is a topic of great interest to psychologists as well as laypeople. For a detailed glimpse of one psychological measure of marital satisfaction, including a background article and a manual explaining how to use the scale, see A less scientific look at assessing relationships can be found at Take this on-line test for specific suggestions on how to improve your own relationship satisfaction.

For additional information on marriage, you can visit This site offers frequently asked questions, advice, articles, and other links for people who are married or just thinking about taking the plunge. From wedding planning and being newlyweds to handling extramarital affairs and considering divorce, you can find information on almost any topic a couple might experience during the ups-and-downs of the marital trajectory.