Marital Interaction: Affective Synchrony of Self-Reported Emotional Components

Abstract

Sixty-four nonclinical married couples engaged in a high-conflict verbal interaction, immediately after which each spouse rated his or her emotions for the interaction using the Profile of Mood States (POMS) schedule. Two other mood ratings were obtained using the POMS, one immediately before the interaction and another earlier in the study sequence. Canonical analysis of the three sets of mood ratings revealed only the interaction recall set of ratings by spouses to be significantly related to each other. Two pairs of canonical composites, R[sub c](l) = .65 and R[sub c](2) = .51 were extracted and were interpreted as self-directed negative affect and other-directed negative affect. Correlations of marital satisfaction with each of the two canonical composites were performed; the first composite showed a significant correlation. These findings were discussed in relation to Gottman and Levenson's (1985) findings of the interrelationships of negative affect between spouses and marital satisfaction.