Toward a contingency approach to marital interaction: An empirical integration of three approaches

Dindia and Fitzpatrick (1985) identified three main approaches to the study of marital communication: the satisfaction approach, the pragmatic approach, and the typological approach. This study reports an empirical integration of the key variables of each approach: Fitzpatrick's couple types, relational control, and marital satisfaction. It is hypothesized that (a) control behaviors and patterns have nonlinear associations with marital satisfaction and (b) different behaviors and patterns are satisfying to different types of couples. Marital couples discussed eight potential problem areas and their coded behaviors were submitted to interaction analysis using Morley's (1984) procedure. The results suggest that: (a) → behaviors had a positive association with marital satisfaction, and ↓↑ and →↓ interacts had significant convex quadratic associations with satisfaction, (b) ↓ control behaviors and ↑↓, ↓→, and ↑→ patterns interacted with couple type in predicting marital satisfaction. These results suggest a contingency model of marital satisfaction.