Margaret A. Bugaighis

Concurrent and discriminant validity of the Kansas Marital Satisfaction Scale.

The Kansas Marital Satisfaction (KMS) Scale is found to correlate substantially with both Spaniers (1976) Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS) and Nortons (1983) Quality Marriage Index (QMI), but not to correlate significantly more than those two scales with a variety of other satisfaction items designed to assess the discriminant validity of the KMS scale. Other characteristics of the KMS scale are similar to those reported in previous research and compare favorably with those of the DAS and the QMI, even though the latter scales contain more items than the KMS scale. It is concluded that the KMS scale may serve as a useful brief measure of marital satisfaction in future research with married couples.

Characteristics of the Kansas Family Life Satisfaction Scale in a Regional Sample

In a regional sample of 620 families, the four items of the Kansas Family Life Satisfaction Scale demonstrated adequate internal consistency reliability and limited construct validity. As with other satisfaction scales, however, the scale did not manifest a normal distribution of responses. The scales social desirability characteristics were not assessed and remain unknown.

Marital Quality over the Marital Career: Alternative Explanations.

In a cross-sectional study of 196 wives, Anderson, Russell, and Schumm (1983) were able to explain a little more than 8% of variance in marital satisfaction as a function of family life-cycle categories. The same sample is reanalyzed here from the perspective of integrating the combined effects of preschool children, employment, social class, and marital social desirability. Results indicate that much of the observed decline in marital satisfaction during the middle stages of the life cycle can be explained as the result of the impact of preschool children on a specific group of low-income mothers who were employed fulltime and were finding too little time to discuss daily matters with their husbands, even though they perceived their husbands as just as caring and understanding as did other, lessstressed wives. Rather than indicating a mild problem for all wives, the family life-cycle data actually reflected a very severe source of distress for a small group of wives.

His and Her Marriage Revisited

Glenn (1975) and Bernard (1975) have debated the relative benefits of marriage for men and women. An analysis of data from three samples of midwestern married couples yielded partial support for both positions. While men and women were equally happy on the average, when there was an extremely wide difference in marital satisfaction, it was almost always the woman who was less satisfied—“her” marriage was quite different from “his”—much worse.

Alternative Measures of Perceived Locus of Control

A 30-item questionnaire comprised of Rotters I-E scale (minus 6 filler items), 6 independent questions derived from the I-E scale, and 1 independent question was administered to 93 college students. Common factor analysis assessed the dimensionality of the I-E scale, and 4 factors were identified. The relationship between the measures of locus of control was assessed, yielding evidence that the single-item measure is a valid alternative brief measure of locus of control.

Locus of Control and Marital Satisfaction

Summary This study replicates, to some extent, the only two previous studies that had examined the relationship of locus of control and marital satisfaction (Mlott and Lira, 1977, and Doherty, 1980), whose findings indicated that when the wife was more externally oriented and the husband more internal there were high levels of marital dissatisfaction. Both studies had focused on young, recently married couples. The present study focused on older couples, 83 from rural and 98 from urban communities in southeastern Kansas, who had remained in marriages longer. Findings indicated that locus of control was indeed associated with marital satisfaction—the greater the internal locus of control for the wife, the higher the marital satisfaction—and that such an association is not an artifact of social desirability.

Differences between Anglo and Mexican American family members on satisfaction with family life.

Previous researchers have suggested that many of the characteristics of Mexican American families compare unfavorably with those of other groups, especially Anglos. In spite of the controversy associated with such contentions, relatively little research has compared the perceptions of multiple family members in Anglo and Hispanic families regarding their satisfaction with multiple aspects of family life. In the present study, based upon random samples of rural and urban intact families in 14 states, perceptions of parents and one adolescent family member were compared on four aspects of family life satisfaction. The Hispanic family members reported higher satisfaction in most areas, with the significant differences remaining even after controls for duration of residence in state, area of residence, education, income, and family size.

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE KANSAS MARITAL SATISFACTION SCALE AMONG FEMALE PARTICIPANTS IN COMMUNITY CHILDBIRTH EDUCATION CLASSES

The Kansas Marital Satisfaction Scale was administered to 61 female participants in community childbirth preparation classes. Further support for the internal consistency reliability of the scale (alpha = 0.90) was obtained, and patterns of differences between item means were similar to those of previous research. The scale was correlated, in expected directions, with church attendance and income, as well as with two measures of spouses supportiveness of the participant.

Construct Validity of the Dyadic Trust Scale

Larzelere and Huston defined trust as “the extent that a person believes another person (or persons) to be benevolent and honest” (1980), p. 596) and developed a scale alleged to have excellent construct validity as well as high reliability. An independent analysis of their Dyadic Trust Scale for a sample of 79 married couples partially supports the construct validity but suggests that the scale is measuring benevolence more than honesty or trust.

Relationship characteristics of couples married thirty years or more: A four-sample replication

A secondary analysis of four samples from earlier studies was used to test two hypotheses concerning long-term marriages. First, it was hypothesized that couples from marriages of 30 years or more duration would be characterized by higher levels of relationship quality, with the overall pattern between duration of marriage and relationship quality being curvilinear; across four samples of husbands and wives, only weak support was found for this hypothesis. A second hypothesis, that elements of intrinsic communication including positive regard, empathy, and congruence would be less important for couples from older marriages, received no support. Thus, it appears that relatively intrinsic components of the marital relationship are just as important currently for older couples as they are for younger couples, in spite of popular opinion to the contrary.