Stability and change in the first 10 years of marriage: does commitment confer benefits beyond the effects of satisfaction?

Although commitment is theoretically distinct from relationship satisfaction, empirical associations between the concepts are high. After drawing from classic definitions of commitment to distinguish between commitment as the desire for a relationship to persist versus the behavioral inclination to maintain the relationship, we predicted that the former component would function much like satisfaction, whereas the latter component would operate independently of satisfaction to stabilize couple relationships. Using satisfaction and commitment data collected over the first 4 years of marriage (N = 172 couples), we demonstrate that only behavioral inclinations to maintain the marriage are related to observed marital interaction behaviors, to reported steps taken toward dissolution, and to 11-year divorce rates, independent of satisfaction. Consistent with dyadic "weak-link"' conceptions of commitment, likelihood of divorce was found to increase as a function of the lower of the 2 partners' inclination to maintain the relationship. Commitment may stabilize declining intimate partnerships, particularly when it is conceptualized as the inclination to maintain the relationship. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).