Marital Dining Practices: Affecting Change in Marital Satisfaction Through Marital Self-Efficacy

Marital culture is ever-evolving, having changed dramatically in the past half-century. Endemic in marital culture are traditional family practices, rituals, and routines. One significant practice is family dining. While a breadth of literature exists on the relationship of dining practice with childhood well-being, no contemporary studies investigate this relationship in the marital dyad. Through the theoretical lens of Social Cognitive Theory the hypothesis of this study is that through routine successes of task completion (e.g., preparing a meal together) couples marital self-efficacy will increase. Marital self-efficacy is an individual’s personal belief in their capability to enact change in their marital relationship and handle marital difficulties. Related to increased marital self-efficacy, positive change in marital satisfaction was also predicted. Three different randomly assigned groups were tested: a control group, couples prompted to dine together as a family, and couples prompted to prepare meals together. Following a one-month intervention interval no significant main effects of group assignment on the variables of marital self-efficacy and marital satisfaction were observed. There was a significant positive correlation between the variables of marital self-efficacy and marital satisfaction. Implications and future research opportunities are discussed.