Department of Psychology, University of Denver, Denver, CO 80208-3500, USA.
J Fam Psychol. 2010 Jun;24(3):289-98. doi: 10.1037/a0019481.
Using data from 210 couples who provided data across the first 5 years of marriage, we examined how premarital communication quality was related to divorce and later distress. The results showed that premarital observed negative and positive communication nearly reached significance as predictors of divorce, while self-reported negative communication was significantly associated with divorce. In terms of marital adjustment, we found that both premarital observed and self-reported negative premarital communication (but not observed positive communication) were associated with lower adjustment during the first 5 years of marriage. The most important questions addressed in this study pertain to how positive and negative dimensions of communication change over time and how these changes are related to being distressed or nondistressed after 5 years of marriage. This is the first study, to our knowledge, to examine the changes in communication over time that are so central to theories of the development of marital distress and for research-based interventions. We found that all couples showed decreases in negative communication over time, but the nondistressed group declined significantly more than the distressed group in negative communication, suggesting they are handling negative emotions better. Implications for future research on the development of relationship distress and for enhancing research-based couples' intervention programs are provided.
利用 210 对夫妇在婚姻的前 5 年中提供的数据，我们研究了婚前沟通质量与离婚和后来的痛苦之间的关系。结果表明，婚前观察到的负面和正面沟通几乎可以作为离婚的预测因素，而自我报告的负面沟通与离婚显著相关。就婚姻适应而言，我们发现，婚前观察到的和自我报告的负面婚前沟通（而不是观察到的积极沟通）都与婚姻的前 5 年中较低的适应有关。本研究中最重要的问题涉及沟通的积极和消极维度随时间的变化，以及这些变化如何与 5 年后的痛苦或不痛苦相关。据我们所知，这是第一项研究，旨在检验沟通随时间的变化，这些变化是婚姻困扰发展理论的核心，也是基于研究的干预措施的核心。我们发现，所有夫妇的负面沟通都随时间减少，但在负面沟通方面，不痛苦的夫妇比痛苦的夫妇下降幅度明显更大，这表明他们能更好地处理负面情绪。为未来关于关系困扰发展的研究和增强基于研究的夫妻干预计划提供了启示。
