In religious society of Iran, the use of Iranian-Islamic psychological interventions for couples with marital conflicts has been ignored; thus, the present research was conducted with the aim of ...designing an educational package of Islamic happiness and its feasibility in the dimensions of psychological resilience of couples with marital conflicts. In the qualitative phase, the theme analysis by inductive method, and in the quantitative phase, a quasi-experimental method with a pretest-posttest design and with a control group and a two-month follow-up phase was applied. The population included couples with marital conflicts referring to the counseling centers in the east of Tehran during the first six months of 2020. In this research, 26 couples were purposefully selected and randomly placed in the test group (28 people) and in the control group (24 people). The test group received eight sessions of an educational package of Islamic happiness for two months. The questionnaires of marital conflict (Barati and Sanaei, 1996) and psychological resilience (Conner and Davidson, 2003) were applied. The data were analyzed with mixed ANOVA. The results showed that, according to the experts' view, the educational package of Islamic happiness has an appropriate content and execution validity. In addition, the education of Islamic happiness influences the dimensions of psychological resilience of couples with marital conflicts (P<0.0001), while this intervention does not have any significant influence on just the subscale of spiritual effects. Based on the findings of this research, the education of Islamic happiness can be used as an efficient method to improve the resilience of couples by taking advantage of creating a safe, supportive, and empathetic relationship, educating the concept of forgiveness, paying attention to the positive consequences of patience, and identifying the inherent abilities and talents of couples in reaching happiness.
•Studies of marital quality and health have targeted conflict as the key mechanism.•As conflict declines over time, partner distress may grow more central.•Recent work has linked partner distress to ...proinflammatory reactivity.•This study was the first to compare reactivity to partner distress and conflict.•Proinflammatory gene expression rose further with partner distress than conflict.
Marital quality shares ties to inflammatory conditions like cardiovascular disease and diabetes. For decades, research has focused on marital conflict as a primary mechanism given its potential to trigger inflammatory responses. However, longitudinal evidence suggests that marital conflict declines over time, and little attention has been paid to the inflammatory aftermath of other types of marital exchanges. A spouse’s emotional distress is an important but overlooked marital context, as partners are exposed to each other’s upsetting emotions throughout adulthood. To directly compare reactivity in proinflammatory gene expression to these two marital stressors and to examine differences by age and marital satisfaction, 203 community adults ages 25–90 (N = 102 couples) provided blood samples and rated their negative mood before and after they 1) watched their partner relive an upsetting personal memory and, in a separate visit 1–2 weeks later, 2) discussed a conflictual topic in their relationship. Controlling for age, sex, race/ethnicity, BMI, alcohol use, smoking, and comorbidities, increases in proinflammatory gene expression were significantly larger after the partner’s upsetting disclosure than after marital conflict (B = 0.073, SE = 0.031, p = .018). This pattern paralleled emotional reactivity to the tasks, wherein negative mood rose more in response to the partner’s disclosure than to marital conflict (B = 4.305, SE = 1.468, p = .004). In sum, proinflammatory and mood reactivity to spousal distress exceeded reactivity to marital conflict, a well-established marital stressor. Findings reveal spousal distress as a novel mechanism that may link marriage to inflammation-related diseases, and even pose risks for both happy and unhappy couples across adulthood.
Since 2000, approximately 440,000 Mexicans have migrated to the United States every year. Tens of thousands have left children behind in Mexico to do so. For these parents, migration is a sacrifice. ...What do parents expect to accomplish by dividing their families across borders? How do families manage when they are living apart? More importantly, do parents' relocations yield the intended results? Probing the experiences of migrant parents, children in Mexico, and their caregivers, Joanna Dreby offers an up-close and personal account of the lives of families divided by borders. What she finds is that the difficulties endured by transnational families make it nearly impossible for parents' sacrifices to result in the benefits they expect. Yet, paradoxically, these hardships reinforce family members' commitments to each other. A story both of adversity and the intensity of family ties, Divided by Borders is an engaging and insightful investigation of the ways Mexican families struggle and ultimately persevere in a global economy.
Not all youth exposed to hostile marital interactions develop negative responses to marital conflict. Cooperative marital conflict has long been considered as an important way of managing conflict ...and may serve as an important context in which hostility might convey during marital interactions. In light of little prior attention placed on the positive side of conflict processes, the main and moderating effects of cooperative marital conflict on youth responses to marital conflict were examined in a sample of 416 2-parent families using a multimethod, 2-year prospective design. Cooperative marital conflict was associated with decreases in youth emotional dysregulation, perceived threat, and behavioral dysregulation, and increases in constructive family representations and coping efficacy. As a specific dimension of cooperation, effective conflict resolution was associated uniquely with elevated youth coping efficacy, and decreased emotional and behavioral dysregulation; marital warmth was associated uniquely with increased constructive family representations. Significant interactions between marital hostility and marital cooperation also were found. These findings highlight the importance of examining cooperation above and beyond hostility in studies of marital conflict in order to better understand youth development during early adolescence.
Marriage has become an increasingly important topic in academic and policy research. A burgeoning literature suggests that marriage has a wide range of benefits, including improvements in ...individuals' economic well-being and mental and physical health, as well as the well-being of their children. Inspired, in part, by these potential benefits of marriage, several large-scale federal initiatives have been launched in recent years that aim to encourage and support marriage. In general, married people are healthier than those who are not married across a wide array of health outcomes. This new and important book gathers the latest research from around the globe on marital quality and relationship narratives, domestic violence, marital conflict and child maladjustment, trauma and transitions in the marital relationship and other related topics.
Abstract
Objective
This study examines the relationship between domestic outsourcing, housework evaluations, and marital conflict, while also comparing the effects of parents' informal help and paid ...domestic workers' formal help on marital relations.
Background
Whereas the role‐strain perspective asserts that shifting the housework burden to a third party can reduce marital conflict arising from housework division, the conflict perspective contends otherwise, especially when an additional family member is involved.
Methods
We analyzed household survey data with a representative sample of full‐time dual‐earning married couples in Hong Kong (
N
= 1,197). We used bivariate analysis and linear regression models to evaluate the relationship between domestic outsourcing, housework evaluations, and marital conflict.
Results
Results showed that getting help had significant indirect effects on marital conflict through housework evaluations. However, the two types of help were also positively associated with marital conflicts. The two types of help had simultaneously positive direct effects and negative indirect effects on marital conflicts, canceling out the effect of each other.
Implications
Our study illuminates the positive effect of outsourcing through housework evaluation. However, the benefit of domestic outsourcing cannot be realized if the conflicts induced by domestic outsourcing are not resolved.
Objective
This study aimed to examine associations between mothers' COVID‐19 stress, marital conflict, and parenting, focusing on mothers raising children ages 3–5. Specifically, we examined the ...potentially protective role of mothers' social capital for parenting behaviors.
Background
Despite numerous studies reporting the negative impacts of mothers' stress on marital relationships and parenting behaviors, little is known about how mothers' stress due to COVID‐19 is associated with marital conflict and parenting behaviors.
Method
We collected data from 306 mothers in South Korea in 2021 during the early stages of the COVID‐19 pandemic.
Results
We found that marital conflict significantly mediated the relationship between mothers' COVID‐19 stress and positive parenting behaviors. The moderating effect of social capital was not significant in the negative relationship between COVID‐19 stress and positive parenting behaviors but was significant in the negative relationship between marital conflict and positive parenting behaviors. Further analysis showed a significant negative relationship between marital conflict and positive parenting only when the level of social capital was equal to the mean value or higher, and the relationship was stronger with higher levels of social capital.
Conclusion
The findings show that mothers' stress due to COVID‐19 can be associated with increased marital conflict and decreased parental functioning.
Implications
The significant moderating effect of social capital in the relationship between marital conflict and positive parenting behaviors highlights the need to examine social capital's role in the COVID‐19 pandemic.
Aim and Background: Women with marital conflict have less resilience in their lives, for this reason, the present study was conducted to determine the effectiveness of the therapeutic package of ...originality in the three worlds based on Rollo May existential theory on the resilience of women with marital conflict. Methods and Materials: The current research method was quantitative and of the type of quasi-experimental studies and pre-test and post-test design with a control group and a two-month follow-up period. The statistical population of this study included women who refer to the psychological clinics of Isfahan city, from which 26 were selected by convenience sampling method and randomly placed in two experimental and control groups. Resilience questionnaires were used to collect information. The experimental group received the therapeutic package during 14 sessions of 75 minutes, and the control group did not receive any intervention during this period. Data analysis was done with spss-24 software and with the statistical method of analysis of variance with repeated measures and chi-square test at the level of 0.05. Findings: Based on the chi-square test, no significant difference was observed in terms of age, education, and job between the two groups (P <0.05). On the other hand, this educational package has caused a significant increase in the score Subscales of competence, acceptance, trust in instincts and spiritual influences the experimental group compared to the control group (p<0.05). Conclusions: The results of the research indicate the significant effectiveness of the educational program of originality in the three worlds based on Rollo May existential theory on resilience in women with marital conflict. Therefore, this educational package can be used to promote the resilience of women with marital conflict.
This study examined the associations of child behavioral problems with parental adjustment and whether family processes mediated such associations. Cross-sectional data were collected from the ...fathers, mothers, and class teachers of 186 kindergarten-aged children with special educational needs from Hong Kong, China (mean age = 61.6 months, and 136 of them were boys). Using questionnaires, parents reported their children's behavioral problems and their own adjustment and family processes. Meanwhile, class teachers rated children's behavioral problems. Multigroup analyses supported a mediation model that was invariant across fathers and mothers. Controlling for child and family demographic information, child behavioral problems were linked positively to parental depression and negatively to parental life satisfaction. Moreover, the link of child behavioral problems with parental depression was fully mediated by family economic pressures, marital conflict, and parent-child conflict, whereas the link of child behavioral problems with parental life satisfaction was fully mediated by family economic pressures and marital conflict. Theoretically, our findings pointed to the importance of considering multiple family processes in understanding the relationship between child characteristics and parental well-being among families with children with special educational needs. Practically, our findings highlighted the possible utility of equipping fathers and mothers of children with special educational needs with skills to reduce children's problem behaviors, cope with financial hardship, and manage marital and parent-child conflict. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).