Date of Award:

5-1999

Document Type:

Thesis

Degree Name:

Master of Science (MS)

Department:

Human Development and Family Studies

Department name when degree awarded

Family and Human Development

Committee Chair(s)

Scot M. Allgood

Committee

Scot M. Allgood

Committee

Randy Jones

Committee

Jay Schvaneveldt

Abstract

Research for this thesis investigated factors predictive of how committed married couples are to make positive efforts for their marriage. Respondents consisted of 72 husbands and wives from a semi-urban area. For each gender, correlations were conducted between marital commitment to invest and egalitarian ism, decision-making power, and conflict communication style. Finally, regress ions were conducted with these measures and nine demographic variables.

As projected, commitment to invest in marriage correlated negatively with husband demand-withdrawal communication and positively with husband and wife mutually constructive communication. The stepwise regression predicting husband commitment to invest included demand-withdrawal communication and total months knowing one's spouse. For wives, the regress ion consisted of mutually constructive communication. Finally, the couple regress ion included mutually constructive communication and total months knowing one's spouse. The main implication of this thesis is that conflict communication styles may be assessed for and incorporated into marital therapy because of their possible saliency with commitment to invest.

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