How Marriage Works and Why Marital Education (Usually) Fails

1. How Marriage Works and Why Marital Education (Usually) Fails Benjamin R. Karney Department of Psychology, UCLA October 1, 2010

2. Marriage is Important and Valued Over 90% of Americans will marry in their lifetimes. Those in satisfying marriages live longer, healthier lives. Satisfaction with marriage predicts life satisfaction better than satisfaction with other domains.

3. Marriage Under Attack! “Our national goal should be no less than to rebuild a marriage culture.” -David Popenoe, Professor of Sociology, Rutgers University, Testimony Before the Subcommittee on Human Resources, Committee on Ways and Means, United States House of Representatives, Washington, DC, May 22, 2001 “The Decline of Marriage” -  Editorial by James Q. Wilson, San Diego Union-Tribune, February 17, 2002 “’Culture of Marriage’ Disappearing” -Headline in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, January 2, 2005

4. U.S. Divorce Rates Over Time Source: National Center for Health Statistics

5. Marriage Rates Among Young Adults Ages 25-34, 1965-2010 (Percent) • Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2000 Census and American Community Survey.

6. SES and the Probability of Divorce Benjamin Karney, RAND Corporation Source: Bramlett & Mosher, 2002, Figure 26

7. From Welfare Reform to Marriage Promotion • Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PROWRA) • Expired in 2002 – extended 20 times before reauthorization was passed in February, 2006 • Final version allocated $150 million of TANF money per year toward demonstrations and research.

8. Advertising campaigns on the value of marriage Education in high schools on marriage values & relationship skills Education programs for non-married expectant & recent parents Education & skills training for engaged couples & for couples & individuals interested in marriage Skills training programs for married couples Divorce reduction programs that teach relationship skills Marriage mentoring programs “Programs to reduce the disincentives to marriage in means-tested aid programs, if offered in conjunction with any activity described in this subparagraph.” How to Spend 750 Million Promoting Marriage

9. That Was Five Years Ago …did it work?

10. The Building Strong Families Study • The Fragile Families study • The promise of the “magic moment” • From basic research to intervention • GOAL: • “To learn whether well-designed interventions can help couples fulfill their aspirations for a healthy relationship, marriage, and a strong family.”

12. Putting on the Brakes If the best study of marital education ever conducted shows no effects, then we’ve got a problem. What’s the problem? How can we solve it and do better at improving the lives of families?

13. Goals of This Talk Identify the assumptions of current marital education efforts Describe research evaluating those assumptions Present an expanded model of how marriages actually work Discuss the implications of that model for family polices and programs

14. What Is The Theory Behind Current Marital Education Efforts? Think again of what the $750 million can be spent on: Values education Communication skills training

15. The Assumptions Marital problems stem from not caring enough about marriage Marital problems stem from not knowing enough about marriage Low-income populations are especially likely to fall short in these ways

16. Are Family Values Declining? • Thornton & Young-DeMarco, 2001 • Monitoring the Future • General Social Survey • International Social Science Project • Intergenerational Panel Study of Parents and Children • National Survey of Families and Households • “There is very little evidence that the commitment of Americans to children, marriage, and family life has eroded substantially in the past two decades” (p. 1030).

17. Caring Too Much? • Marriage as central to personal fulfillment • Cherlin (2009) • Low-income populations are less tolerant of divorce than higher income populations. • Karney, Garvan, & Thomas (2003) • Single mothers on welfare delaying marriage due to fears of divorce • Edin & Kefalas (2003)

18. The Behavioral Model of Marriage DYADIC PROCESSES (e.g., problem-solving, social support, attributions) MARITAL OUTCOMES (e.g., satisfaction, stability, healthy children)

19. Support for the Behavioral Model? • The way spouses interact does: • Correlate with satisfaction cross-sectionally • Predict satisfaction and divorce longitudinally • John Gottman pioneered this work • The way spouses interpret each other’s behavior does, too • Pretty obvious, right?

20. So: Negative Behaviors Are Bad? • Frequently! • Gottman, et al., 1998 • Lawrence, et al., 2008 • But not always. • Gottman & Krokoff, 1989 • Karney & Bradbury, 1997

21. Surely Forgiving Our Partners is Good? • Frequently! • Karney & Bradbury, 2000 • Paleari, Ragalia, & Fincham, 2005 • But not always. • The Doormat Effect (Luchies et al., 2010)

22. What Has Been Holding Back Progress? • The behavioral model is pretty thin conceptually • “A conceptualization of ‘the husband is unhappy because he doesn’t communicate well’ is about as useful a conceptualization as ‘the patient died because his heart stopped beating.’” • Heyman, 2001

23. Expanding The Behavioral Model CONTEXT Initial Satisfaction Relationship Processes Relationship Outcomes

24. Context Cannot Be Overlooked Strong associations between SES and marital outcomes point this way Stress of all kinds is associated with higher divorce rates Marital satisfaction covaries with fluctuations in acute stress over time (Karney et al., 2005) Spill-over vs. cross-over

25. Two Route Model of Stress Effects Stress Route 1: The Content of the Relationship Relationship Content Relationship Satisfaction

26. 1010 Newlywed Couples; Schramm et al., 2005.

27. Context and stress affects… • What we talk about with our partner • How much we interact with our partner • When we interact with our partner • Where we interact with our partner

28. Does Stress Affect the Experience of Specific Marital Problems? 2t effect size r Wives .60 3.7*** .38 • After periods of relatively high stress, wives perceived more severe problems in the marriage, controlling for changes in their satisfaction.

29. Do Specific Relationship Problems Mediate Stress Effects? • Specific problems mediated the stress spillover effect. .01 (-.42**) Marital Satisfaction Stress -.45*** .60*** Specific Relationship Problems

30. Explaining The Mixed Results on Forgiveness Some problems are just worse than others Forgiveness is a bad idea if it rewards the transgressor Maybe forgiveness only works for mild problems?

31. Forgiveness Interacts with Problem Severity McNulty, J. K., O’Mara, E. M., & Karney B. R. (2008). Benevolent cognitions as a strategy of relationship maintenance: Don’t sweat the small stuff…but it’s not all small stuff. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94, 631-646.

32. Two Route Model of Stress Effects Stress Route 2: The Processing of Relationship Problems Relationship Content Relationship Satisfaction Relationship Processes

33. Does Stress Affect Wives’ Tendency to Forgive? 2t effect size r Wives .32 2.1* .23 • After periods of relatively high stress, wives are more likely to blame their husbands for negative behaviors.

34. Does Wives’ Forgiveness Mediate Stress Effects? • Tendency to forgive partially mediated the stress spillover effect. Stress -.25* (-.42**) Marital Satisfaction .32* -.20*** Maladaptive Attributions

35. Consequences of Stress:Stress Crossover Partner A Partner B

36. Does Partner’s Own Stress Moderate Stress Crossover? Adaptive response Little crossover If Partner B has low stress Partner A negative behavior If Partner B has high stress Maladaptive response High crossover Stress crossover should be greatest when partners have higher levels of their own stress

37. Does Partner’s Own Stress Moderate Stress Crossover? Wives’ Satisfaction

38. So Why Is Relationship Maintenance So Hard? • Is it because people do not know what to do? • Neff & Karney, 2004, 2007, 2009: • The same couples who can be forgiving when stress is low, are less forgiving when stress is high.

39. What Does This Mean for Marital Education? • The effects of skills interventions are likely to fade quickly • They do (Blanchard et al., 2009) • Programs teaching skills might actually backfire • For some couples, they do (Halford, Sanders, and Behrens, 2001) • Marital interaction may not be a skill • Think “capacity”

40. The Stress-Vulnerability-Adaptation (SVA) Model Enduring Vulnerabilities Adaptive Processes Marital Quality Marital Dissolution External Stress

41. So Why Does Marital Education Usually Fail? Because programs to improve communication do not have lasting effects Because communication may only be a symptom of larger problems that marital education programs ignore Because all of this is most true in the low-income populations that have been targeted

42. Problems for all relationships Spending time together (F=2.72, p=.04) Sex (F=1.90, p=.13) Each other’s parents (F=2.56, p=.05) Being a parent/having children (F=.42, p=.74) Communication (F=.97, p=.41) Household chores (F=.89, p=.44) Problems more severe in lower income Money (F=14.83, p<.0001) Drinking/drug use (F=13.64, p<.0001) Being faithful (F=11.97,p<.0001) Friends (F=10.79,p<.0001) The Unique Problems of Low-Income Relationships

43. Summary of Problem Analyses • The problems addressed by relationship skills classes are not more severe in low-income couples. • The problems that are especially severe for low-income couples may be independent of relationship skills and attitudes.

44. New Directions for Supporting Marriage • Marriage-friendly environments: • Health care • Child care • Living wage for working people • Does this work? • Norway (Hardoy & Schone, 2008) • Money as a marital aid