Manifestations of responsiveness and control in husbands‟ and wives‟ marital and parental communication

Research has long been interested in understanding marital and parent-child dynamics and the role communication plays in shaping a variety of outcomes for spouses, parents, and children separately. Family systems theory (Bowen, 1978; Minuchin, 1974) highlights the interdependent relationships that exist among family members and subsystems within the family. This study applied assumptions from family systems theory and the theoretical foundations underlie Fitzpatrick’s (1988) marital typology and Baumrind’s (1967, 1971, 1991a) parenting styles typology to explore similarities and differences within and across marital and parental subsystems and to examine how they contribute to marital quality. The first goal of this dissertation is to examine the extent to which individuals enact similar communication behaviors in their roles as spouses and parents. The second goal is to explore how co-parenting relationship in the form of similarity of spouses’ parental communication and their perceptions of relational power, explain marital outcomes. Specifically, this dissertation investigates the extent to which husbands and wives perceive and demonstrate similar communication behaviors of responsiveness and control in their parental interactions and the impact that such inter-parental similarity may have on marital outcomes in terms of relational satisfaction and appraisals of a partner’s parenting behavior. The third goal of this study is to examine how members’ perceived marital and parental communication are consistent or inconsistent with the way independent coders observe that communication. The final goal of this dissertation is to examine how biases in perceived versus observed marital communication predict marital satisfaction. 51 heterosexual couples and their first biological, 3-6 year old child participated in this study. Spouses first completed close-ended survey questions about their marital relationship, their beliefs about marriage, and their attitudes about parenting. Next, each parent was asked to work individually with the child on two tasks that were challenging for their child. While one parent worked with the child, the other parent watched the parent-child interaction from a different room and evaluated his/her spouse’s parenting strategies using a variety of closed-ended survey items. After the first spouse had completed the tasks with the child the spouses switched roles. Finally, the parents engaged in a conversation about their thoughts on the interactions with the child, followed by completing a questionnaire about their perceptions of the marital interaction. Independent coders rated marital and parent-child interactions for observed marital and parental responsiveness and control. Results indicated that responsiveness was correlated across marital and parental subsystems, but control was not. In terms of inter-parental similarity, observed parental responsiveness and both perceived and observed parental control were positively correlated across spouses. Multi-level modeling (HLM) revealed that similarity of observed responsiveness and observed control were each associated with more positive evaluations of a partner’s parenting behavior. In addition, similarity across spouses in terms of observed parental responsiveness and perceived and observed parental control were positively associated with marital satisfaction. Marital communication was correlated across participants’ reports and coders’ ratings but not parental communication. Finally, marital satisfaction increased when perceived marital responsiveness was higher than observed marital responsiveness, and when perceived marital control was lower than observed marital control. These findings are discussed in terms of their theoretical, operational, and practical implications, and directions for future research are suggested.Ph. D.Includes bibliographical referencesIncludes vitaby Roi Estlei