We extend prior research on the association between premarital cohabitation and marital outcomes by investigating whether covenant marriage, which entails more stringent requirements for divorce, minimizes the deleterious eVects of cohabitation on subsequent marital quality and stability. Using a unique longitudinal data set of covenant and standard newlywed couples in Louisiana, we Wnd that co...

Ninety men with alcohol problems and their female partners were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 outpatient conjoint treatments: alcohol behavioral couples therapy (ABCT), ABCT with relapse prevention techniques (RP/ABCT), or ABCT with interventions encouraging Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) involvement (AA/ABCT). Couples were followed for 18 months after treatment. Across the 3 treatments, drinkers who ...

Marital quality is a major contributor to happiness and health. Unfortunately, marital quality normatively declines over time. We tested whether a novel 21-min intervention designed to foster the reappraisal of marital conflicts could preserve marital quality in a sample of 120 couples enrolled in an intensive 2-year study. Half of the couples were randomly assigned to receive the reappraisal i...

This study examined the effects of marital status and gender on the subjective quality of life in Korea. Respondents included 483 males (125 single; 358 married) and 472 females (78 single; 394 married). Five separate scales were used to measure the quality of life: a single-item general happiness scale; two measures provided by negative-affect scales; a modified version of the Life-in- G...

Development does not take place in isolation and is often interrelated with close others such as marital partners. To examine interrelations in spousal happiness across midlife and old age, we used 35-year longitudinal data from both members of 178 married couples in the Seattle Longitudinal Study. Latent growth curve models revealed sizeable spousal similarities not only in levels of happiness...

PURPOSE The purposes of this study were to explore the effects of family cohesion and subjective happiness on death anxiety of Korean elders and to identify other factors contributing to death anxiety. METHODS The participants were 280 elders who lived in P metropolitan city. Data were collected between November 5, 2011 and January 12, 2012 using the Short Portable Mental Status Questionnaire...

I examine variation in trajectories of women's marital quality across the life course. The analysis improves upon earlier research in three ways: (1) the analysis uses a sequential cohort design and data from the first 35years of marriage; (2) I analyze rich data from a national sample; (3) I examine multiple dimensions of marital quality. Latent class growth analyses estimated on data from wom...

The General Social Survey panel of 2006-2010 tracked Americans’ reactions to the election of Barack Obama and the Great Recession (officially lasting from December 2007 to March 2009) as well as to events in their personal lives. Americans were less happy in 2010 than in 2006; the percent “very happy” decreased by four percentage points and the percent “not too happy” increased almost as much. ...