The negative impact of marital dissolution on the physical, economic, and social well-being of family members is well-documented, and the negative consequences for children of being raised by spouses who are unable to get along with each other are becoming increasingly apparent. Participation in harmonious and well-functioning family relationships, in contrast, has beneficial effects on family members' quality of life. Despite the significance of healthy family relationships, most research has focused on describing the characteristics and correlates of already troubled marriages. Virtually no research has been conducted on how early experiences in relationships predict whether they will develop into satisfying and stable unions. The primary aim of the proposed study is to examine the processes through which premarital partners become committed and to identify valid and reliable methods for studying the development of commitment.
The specific aims are to determine how people's subjective reasons for becoming committed affect the later satisfactoriness and stability of relationships; to study the extent to which the subjective process by which commitment decisions are made reflects the social, psychological, and moral considerations central to theories of commitment: to examine how well partners test their compatibility as they make decisions about commitment; and to ascertain the utility of retrospective methods for studying the development of commitment. The study also will examine the connections between relationship outcomes and the degree to which partners weigh social psychological causes of commitment and compatibility when making commitment decisions. A 3-phased interview study of 300 heterosexual dating couples will be conducted over a 10-month period. During Phase 1, respondents will reconstruct on a graph how their commitment changed over the course of their relationship up to the time of the interview, will provide explanations of why commitment changed, and will complete questionnaires on commitment and relationship satisfaction. During Phase 2, respondents will participate in eight monthly interviews to get information about how and why commitment changed. In Phase 3, they will once again reconstruct their graphs and provide data on commitment and satisfaction.
