The goals of this project are to identify differences between alcoholic (ALC) and nonalcoholic (NALC) couples in the short- and long-term effects of marital interaction on couple-level functioning, individual drinking behavior, and depressive symptoms. Positive and negative marital behaviors have strong and consistent prospective effects on physical and psychological health, and behavioral observation studies have shown that marital interaction prospectively predicts marital dissolution. Alcoholism, typically viewed as an individual level characteristic, has negative effects on marital interaction. Yet, differences between ALC ? and NALC couples in the prospective effects of marital interaction on subsequent outcomes for the couple and for both partners as individuals have not been examined. This project will conduct (I) Secondary analyses of data from the Michigan Longitudinal Study, a long-term prospective investigation of alcoholic and nonalcoholic families. ALC and NALC couples were videotaped as they engaged in a 10-minute marital problem-solving task. Marital interaction behaviors will be used as predictors of individual- and couple-level outcomes over 3, 6, and 9 years. (II) A pilot study of 50 alcoholic couples that uses behavioral observation, daily diary, and questionnaire methods to explore connections between micro time, daily time, and historical time indicators of marital interaction, drinking behaviors, and moods over intervals as long as 1 year. We apply a recently developed risk-factor model to examine differences between ALC and NALC couples in the form of three specific aims. (1) To test for differences between ALC and NALC couples in the effects of marital interaction on trajectories of drinking behavior and depressive symptoms over 3, 6, and 9 years. (2) To evaluate whether ALC and NALC couples differ in the prospective effects of marital interaction on marital dissolution 3, 6, and 9 years later. (3) To explore the relationship between micro, daily, and historical time indicators of marital interaction in alcoholic couples. This project will provide important information on the specific marital interaction behaviors that are predictive of negative marital- and drinking-related outcomes in ALC and NALC couples, and set the stage for a large-scale study of the utility of micro and daily measures as predictors of short- and long-term drinking and marital outcomes. This project is designed to improve our understanding of several public health problems, including alcoholism, depression, marital violence, and divorce. ? ?
