| This study examines an understudied aspect of couple relationships--- relational schemas---and the role that schemas play in marital quality over time. Relational schemas are broad representations of intimate relationships that define salient qualities or recurring themes in a couple's life and cut across specific contexts and events. Using a sample of 53 long-term marriages (18-50 years in length), ten dimensions of relational schemas (e.g., we-ness vs. separateness, relational efficacy vs. futility) were measured through narrative coding of a two-hour videotaped home interview, in which couples told the story of their relationship. The emotional quality of marital interaction was assessed in the laboratory while couples engaged in three conversations. Results indicate that when couples' relational schemas are positive, the emotional quality of their conversations is more positive and less negative, and their reports of marital satisfaction and stability are higher. Relational schemas significantly predicted changes in marital satisfaction and the occurrence of divorce twelve years later. Moreover, relational schemas were found to mediate and moderate the relationship between negative marital behavior and marital dissatisfaction. With regard to moderator effects, it appears that positive schemas can buffer the connection between negative behavior and marital dissatisfaction. Comparisons of husbands and wives suggest that schemas play a larger role in the way that husbands express affect in marital conversations, but play a larger role in the way that wives subjectively and physiologically experience marital interactions. Finally, relational schemas explained incremental variance in marital satisfaction, beyond what is explained by negative affective marital behavior. Given that research has traditionally emphasized marital behavior in efforts to predict marital distress, it appears that the study of relational schemas offers unique and important insight into our understanding of marital functioning. |
