Scott S. Hall

Marital Meaning Exploring Young Adults’ Belief Systems About Marriage

The purpose of the study is to examine the meaning that the institution of marriage can hold for young, unmarried adults, based on their systems (or collections) of beliefs about marriage. Based on symbolic interactionism, it is argued that marital meaning has implications for how people behave prior to and during marriage that may relate to marital functioning. A qualitative content analysis of scholarly literature reveals that marital meaning is multifaceted and can be conceptualized as including five distinct dimensions. A confirmatory factor analysis identifies beliefs that are scaled to represent their respective dimensions. A cluster analysis categorizes participants into three groups based on participants’ scores along these dimensions. Similarities and distinctions across the three groups are discussed to highlight the complexity of belief systems that young adults can have about the institution of marriage.

Marital Paradigms: A Conceptual Framework for Marital Attitudes, Values, and Beliefs

This article outlines a conceptual framework for summarizing the marital beliefs and values of individuals regardless of marital status. Drawing on concepts from symbolic interactionism and recent midrange theories of marital attitudes, we propose that marital beliefs can be conceptualized as an individual marital paradigm, which comprises both beliefs about getting married and beliefs about being married. Six interconnected dimensions of marital paradigms are proposed: marital salience, marital timing, martial context, marital processes, marital permanence, and marital centrality. We proceed to make connections between the proposed model and relevant recent research on marital attitudes.

Role Ambiguity in Family Caregiving

Role ambiguity occurs when specifications for expected roles are incomplete. The dyadic relationship of primary and secondary caregivers, the dyadic relationship of each caregiver and the care recipient, life stage of caregivers, changes in the caregiving conditions, and the work of caregiving are among the factors that may affect caregiver role ambiguity. A primary caregiver and a secondary caregiver to a family member who had experienced a heart attack were interviewed formally and informally about family caregiving over a period of 10 months. Thematic analysis revealed caregivers held inconsistent expectations about the secondary caregiver’s support to the primary caregiver, caregivers held inconsistent beliefs about the independence level of the care recipient, and role ambiguity was heightened during the times that the care recipient’s health condition changed and the primary caregiver’s other role responsibilities were more demanding. The utility of the role ambiguity concept in studies of family caregiving is discussed.

Change in Paternal Involvement from 1977 to 1997: A Cohort Analysis

Contemporary social expectations of fathering promote an image of fathers more heavily involved in child rearing than their counterparts from past decades. However, some have questioned whether or not the actual “conduct” of fatherhood has changed over time. Fathers from two nationally representative data sets and from two distinct time periods—1977 and 1997—were selected to test whether there has been a change in the amount of time that fathers spend with their children. The results of a cohort analysis indicated that fathers from each of the age cohorts in 1997 reported spending more time with children on both workdays and non-workdays than comparable fathers in 1977. In addition, younger fathers from both time periods generally reported spending more time with their children than did older fathers. Common predictors of paternal involvement differed somewhat in each time period.

Marriage Matters But How Much? Marital Centrality Among Young Adults

ABSTRACT Marriage, once a gateway to adulthood, is no longer as widely considered a requirement for achieving adult status. With declining marriage rates and delayed marital transitions, some have wondered whether current young adults have rejected the traditional notion of marriage. Utilizing a sample of 571 young adults, the present study explored how marital centrality (the expected importance to be placed on the marital role relative to other adult roles) functioned as a unique and previously unexplored marital belief among young adults. Results suggested that marriage remains an important role for many young adults. On average, young adults expected that marriage would be more important to their life than parenting, careers, or leisure activities. Marital centrality profiles were found to significantly differ based on both gender and religiosity. Marital centrality was also associated with various outcomes including binge-drinking and sexual activity. Specifically, the more central marriage was expected to be, the less young adults engaged in risk-taking or sexual behaviors.

Enthusiasts, Delayers, and the Ambiguous Middle Marital Paradigms Among Emerging Adults

Utilizing a sample of 571 college students, we examined the varying marital paradigms held by emerging adults. Drawing on Marital Paradigm Theory, we explored how beliefs about Marital Salience, timing, process, context, permanence, and centrality created unique paradigms about marriage. We found evidence that emerging adults can be separated into at least three marital paradigms, labeled Enthusiast, Delayer, and Hesitant. We found that most emerging adults hold a Hesitant marital paradigm highlighted by a strong belief in the importance of marriage and a desire to marry but a general belief in the lack of Marital Permanence and a hesitation to marry quickly. Other results suggested that marital paradigms are linked to demographic characteristics such as age and religiosity and also linked to risk-taking behaviors, particularly alcohol use and binge drinking rates. Specifically, those emerging adults who held an Enthusiast paradigm reported less alcohol or binge drinking compared to those in the Hesitant class.

Implicit Theories of the Marital Institution

Building on existing theory and literature regarding implicit theories, I propose an application of implicit theories that focuses on assumptions about the potentially changeable nature of the institution of marriage. Implicit Theories of the Marital Institution (ITMI) distinguish beliefs about how fixed or malleable marriage is and can potentially be used in investigating how such beliefs are formed and interplay with other variables that influence premarital and marital behavior. Research and theoretical implications of ITMI are discussed.

Exploring Family-Oriented Markers of Adulthood: Political and Personal Variations Among Emerging Adults

Previous studies have demonstrated a propensity for many emerging adults to minimize traditional indicators of adulthood, such as marriage and parenting. Beliefs about marriage and family are often ideological, especially within a contemporary, pluralistic society in which marriage and family have undergone significant transformations. The purpose of the current study was to investigate variation in how family-oriented roles and abilities were perceived as criteria for adulthood in a sample of emerging adult college students from several college campuses (N = 651). An emphasis of the investigation was on possible associations with political ideology and factors related to identity and day-to-day intentions. A cluster analysis approach was used to identify four groups of individuals based on the importance they assigned to the markers. Multivariate analysis of covariance results revealed multiple differences among the cluster groups as they related to other markers of adulthood, political tendencies, and variables related to day-to-day intentions and well-being.

Paternal Influences on Daughters’ Heterosexual Relationship Socialization: Attachment Style and Disposition toward Marriage

A common perception is that fathers play an important, if not distinct, role in influencing their young daughters’ future, heterosexual relationships, though the means by which paternal influence and relational outcomes are linked is unclear. The current study explores associations between positive paternal influences (paternal support, a father’s treatment of the daughter’s mother) and attachment styles and dispositions toward marriage (beliefs, attitudes, intentions) of young adult women, with emphasis on unique associations for the father-daughter dyad compared to other parent-child pairings. A multivariate multiple regression and follow-up regression models yielded some but limited support for unique associations between fathers and daughters. Especially apparent, however, was the tendency for a daughter to be attracted to relationship partners who reminded her of her father when she reported higher levels of positive paternal influences from her childhood. A growing body of research has demonstrated that having a present, involved, and caring father corresponds with a variety of healthy outcomes for children (see reviews by Cabrera, Tamis-LeMonda, Bradley, Hofferth, Lamb, 2000; Pleck & Masciadrelli, 2004). Some outcomes may vary depending on the gender of a child in that fathers tend to interact with or differentially influence male and female children in distinct ways (Noller & Fitzpatrick, 1993; Lovas, 2005; Nielsen, 2007; Pleck & Masciadrelli, 2004; Updegraff, McHale, Crouter, & Kupanoff, 2001). This research typically reveals that fathers have less direct, intense, and physical involvement with girls than boys. Furthermore, research specific to daughters’ outcomes has been dominated by a focus on sexually abusive and otherwise negative relationships (Morgan, Wilcoxon, & Satcher, 2003; Nielsen, 2005), thus limiting understanding of healthy father-daughter interaction. A major theoretical emphasis within the father-daughter literature has been the role a father plays for his daughter’s future heterosexual, romantic relationships (e.g., Goulter & Minninger, 1993; Kavaler, 1988; Williamson, 2004). Within such literature, it is commonly suspected that daughters generalize their experiences with their fathers to boys and men as potential romantic partners and husbands. This assertion is generally more speculative than empirical, and the exact means by which this generalization process occurs are not clear. If indeed fathers play a critical role in the future marital success of their daughters, understanding this role—in light of contemporary societal concerns about high divorce rates and subsequent family instability—may enhance efforts toward encouraging effective premarital preparation. Such an understanding may also contribute to efforts aimed at developing and improving parenting interventions that seek to deter the intergenerational transmission of family dysfunction. The purpose of the current study was to further the investigation of how childhood paternal influences relate to future marital success of daughters. Specifically, it focused on daughters’ attachment styles and on several key beliefs/attitudes/intentions (disposition for short) relevant to an eventual marital relationship of young, single adult daughters. Direct correspondence to Dr. Scott Hall at Ball State University, AT 150, Muncie, IN 47306, Tele: 765-285-5943, E-mail: sshall@bsu.edu, Fax: 765-285-2314 Paternal Influences 2 Review of Literature Paternal involvement literature has focused on the variety of ways that fathers interact with their daughters that yield positive child outcomes. Paternal support as been associated with lower levels/degrees of negative outcomes, such as childhood depression (Dubowitz et al., 2001), distress (Lempers & Clark-Lempers, 1990), delinquency (Kosterman, Haggerty, Spoth, & Redmond, 2004), and early onset of sexual behavior (Regnerus & Luchies, 2006) during adolescence, and emotional hostility during young adulthood (Nicholas & Bieber, 1996). However, relatively little research has specifically focused on long-term effects of the fatherdaughter relationship on daughters’ future outcomes (Morgan et al., 2003; Perkins, 2001). Romantic relationship socialization. There are reasons to suspect that fathers can make an important contribution to the eventual romantic relationships of their daughters, and that it is different from the contribution of mothers, and different from fathers’ contributions to their sons. As noted, there is a tendency for mothers and fathers to interact in some distinct ways with their daughters. It is possible that because of this tendency fathers are particularly salient for specific domains of their daughters’ development (Laible, Carlo, & Raffaelli, 2004). Gender may also influence the roles and type of interaction in the home that can shape unique father-daughter relationship characteristics (Russell & Saebel, 1997). For example, in predicting a child’s selfesteem, physical affection from fathers mattered much more for daughters’ outcomes than for sons’ (Barber & Thomas, 1986; Duncan, Hill, & Jeung, 1996). Similarly, spending time with their fathers was strongly related to school-aged girls’ feelings of closeness with their fathers, but that was much less the case for boys (Crouter & Crowley, 1990). Prosocial parenting from fathers predicted less childhood delinquency by daughters—but comparable maternal influences were not associated with this outcome (Kosterman et al., 2004). Overall, these studies illustrate that fathers can serve some distinct functions in the lives of daughters, demonstrating the plausibility that fathers likewise contribute uniquely to their daughters’ eventual marital functioning. According to Reciprocal Role Theory (Johnson, 1975), daughters learn to behave in ways that complement a father’s masculine behavior, thus shaping their future behavior with other males. Paired with a Psychodynamic perspective, this socialization process would be especially salient for a daughter’s future relationships because her father is her “first love,” and she may even fantasize romantically about him (Freud, 1988; Williamson, 2004). Though relatively sparse, some research exists that is consistent with this reasoning. For example, adults have shown a tendency to select romantic partners with similar eye and hair colors as their opposite-sex parent (Little, Penton-Voak, Burt, & Perrett, 2003). Also, those born to older parents (age 30 or older) were more likely than those born to younger parents to find older faces of the opposite sex attractive, suggesting that childhood attraction to one’s opposite-sex parent (and thus the age of the face influencing what is perceived as attractive) may be generalized to potential relationship partners (Perrett et al., 2002). Additionally, women with more positive childhood relationships with their parents were more likely to identify stimulus faces as attractive that shared similar features with their own father’s features (Wiszewska, Pawlowski, & Boothroyd, 2007). Fathers may make a lasting impression on their daughters’ romantic preferences, though relatively little is known about what factors in the father-daughter relationship account for this connection. However, it is likely that more supportive and less abusive fathering nurture positive Paternal Influences 3 assumptions and expectations about relations with males, though this assertion has been made based more on anecdotes and clinical observations than empirical research (Perrett et al., 2002). In addition to the nature of relationship a daughter experiences with her father, what she observes about her father’s marriage-related behavior also may be influential on her future relationships. Consistent with Social Learning Theory (Bandura, 1977), a father’s relationship with the daughter’s mother may model heterosexual interaction that the daughter accepts as normal or desirable (or undesirable) and then generalizes to future romantic relationships. Arguably, daughters would pay special attention to a father’s treatment of her mother to learn how good men treat a wife (Freud, 1988). A close look at the reviewed body of research reveals that parental marital characteristics have typically been measured as a dyadic unit (e.g., overall marital quality or conflict), without isolating a father’s treatment of the mother. Thus, potential specific associations between a father’s modeling of how to treat a wife and the daughter’s romantic relationship-related outcomes have typically been untested. From socialization to future relationships. Though fathers are arguably in a unique position to influence daughters’ heterosexual relationships, understanding how such influence transfers to the future relationships requires continued exploration (Mounts, 2008). One possible means for this transfer is through beliefs and assumptions daughters have about relationships (especially marriage). Studies show that unrealistic relationship beliefs relate to relational distress and dissatisfaction (Addis & Bernard, 2002; McNulty & Karney, 2004; Stackert & Bursik, 2003), as well as communication and conflict resolution behaviors within relationships (Bradbury & Fincham, 1993; Vangelisti & Alexander, 2002). Premarital literature has identified common expectations about getting married that could impact future marital adjustment. These include the belief that spouses are destined or meant for each other (Knee, 1998) and that couples should prove their relationship will work before marriage (Larson, 1992). These types of beliefs can be influenced by the nature of relationships in one’s family of origin (Hall, 2006; Weigel, 2007). Attitudes toward the importance of marriage are also influenced by what children experience and observe in the home (Musick & Bumpass, 1999; Riggio & Weisner, 2008). For reasons already discussed, fathers particularly would be influential on daughters’ overall disposition (beliefs,

Cognitive Coping Strategies of Newlyweds Adjusting to Marriage

The current study focused on the cognitive strategies newlyweds used to cope with distress due to adjustments during the transition to marriage. Forty-two recently married husbands and wives (21 couples) were interviewed, and a qualitative thematic analysis was used in the investigation. Several themes emerged regarding the types of cognitive coping strategies that have potential to add nuanced understanding of some formerly identified cognitive processes, which may have helped maintain satisfying relationships in the midst of unexpected adjustments. The implications for explaining the paradoxical nature of the transition to marriage and for further research and application toward premarital education are discussed.