The prediction of marital satisfaction by creativity level and sex role variables

Vita.The major purpose of this study was to investigate whether or not creativity level affects marital satisfaction. A review of the literature produced almost no references to creativity and marriage. Studies have been made of the relationships and social interaction of creative persons, as well as numerous studies regarding the personality traits distinguishing creative from less creative individuals. In recent years there has been a great upsurge in studies investigating sex roles, masculinity, femininity, and the concept of androgyny. Although there are conflicting results, researchers have found that sex role flexibility in husbands and wives is correlated with marital satisfaction. More flex-ibility in sex roles has also been correlated with creativity in some studies; descriptions of creative persons have often included comments on this role flexibility. Thus, the present research was an attempt to tie together these two lines of research with particular interest in the unstudied area of creativity and marriage. The revised edition of the Marital Satisfaction Inventory was selected as the criterion measure. Sixty-two married couples participated in the study and completed the following measures: The Personal Data Inventory, used to gather descriptive data of the sample investigated; a Creative Achievement Checklist, developed by the researcher; "Circles", "Incomplete Figures", and "Unusual Uses" from the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking; and the Bern Sex Role Inventory, one of the more widely used instruments which can measure masculinity and femininity as separate variables. Data analysis, other than descriptive statistics, used various multiple regression models to ascertain the predictiveness of research variables. The results of this study indicate that marital satisfaction scores of husbands can be predicted by creativity variables, but the weighting of variables is mixed in direction. Greater predictability is not found by holding sex role variables constant. Trends found through correlative data indicate that an androgynous sex role for men is related to more creative achievements while a masculine sex role is related to creative ability..