Documenting Mutuality: Testing a Dyadic and Communicative Model of Marital Commitment

Abstract

Seventeen in-depth, semistructured interviews were conducted to discover whether the conceptualizations proposed in our communicative theory of marital commitment (Thompson-Hayes & Webb, 2004) comported with the lived experience of marital dyads. Each spouse validated the conceptualizations of commitment (the extent to which spouses experience mutual desire to remain in their marriage as a function, in part, of their interaction), projected longevity (the extent to which marital partners imagine themselves growing older together), and marital quality (the extent to which marital dyads recognize that their marriage has outstanding valued features evaluated as superior to comparable features in other relationships they have had, could be having, and are likely to have). Strong support was found for the conceptualization of communication maintenance behavior (the extent to which marital dyads successfully employ specific interaction activities to sustain, to repair, and to redefine their relationships).

Acknowledgments

The research here reported was derived from the first author's PhD dissertation directed by the second author.

Notes

The Communication Institute for On-line Scholarship (CIOS) Web site provides access to ComAbstracts, a searchable, on-line data base containing the bibliographic entries (as well as typical abstracts and keywords) for more than 50,000 articles published in 92 scholarly journals and annuals in the communication discipline.

A copy of the interview protocol is available upon request from the first author at [email protected].

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Marceline Thompson-Hayes

Marceline Thompson-Hayes, Arkansas State University.

Lynne M. Webb

Lynne M. Webb, University of Arkansas.