Uncertainty Management in Sexual Communication: Testing the Moderating Role of Marital Quality, Relational Closeness, and Communal Coping

ABSTRACT

Romantic partners’ communication about sex has been shown to enhance marital satisfaction and well-being, yet is often associated with high levels of uncertainty due to the challenging and potentially face-threatening topics involved in such discussion. While much literature focuses on sexual health information seeking, relational partners’ uncertainty management related to sexual satisfaction has not been examined. This study focused on married couples’ discussion of sexual satisfaction, tested the theory of motivated information management (TMIM; Afifi & Weiner, 2004) within this context, and examined relational moderators that could influence relational partners’ communication about sexual satisfaction. Data from 248 married participants suggested that TMIM effectively predicted five different information management strategies, including direct and indirect information seeking, avoidance, cognitive reappraisal, and disclosure, although the processes through which uncertainty discrepancy influenced information management differed depending on the information management strategy. Furthermore, results indicated relational factors such as marital quality, relational closeness, and communal coping moderated TMIM paths in distinct ways. Theoretical and practical implications for relational partners’ uncertainty management about sexual satisfaction are discussed.

Notes

1. This study is part of a larger data collection effort. All participants responded to items about sexual satisfaction, which are the focus of the present manuscript. Participants were also assigned to one of two other topics (retirement preferences or family health history), although the findings associated with these topics are not reported here.

2. In all figures, the solid line represents 16^th percentile, the dashed line represents 50^th percentile, and the dotted line represents 84^th percentile of the moderator. Percentiles instead of standard deviations were used because scores on the moderators were negatively skewed (i.e., most participants reported high levels of marital quality, relational closeness, and communal coping).