Exploring Links Between Well-Being and Interactional Sense-Making in Married Couples' Jointly Told Stories of Stress

Abstract

Narrative theorizing suggests that narrating stress, difficulty, or trauma can be beneficial for improved mental health, yet extant research tends to consider narrating stress as an individual or psychological construct. However, in close relationships, people often experience shared stressors and jointly tell their shared stories of difficulty to others. Thus, joint storytelling processes likely also relate to individual health. We tested this expectation using a series of actor-partner interdependence models and path analyses in a study that included 68 couples' video-recorded joint storytelling interactions. Findings primarily indicate relationships between husbands', wives', and couples' storytelling behaviors and husbands' mental health. Generally speaking, however, storytelling behaviors did not predict wives' mental health. Interpretations, limitations, and directions for future research are discussed.

This research was supported by a University of Nebraska Layman Award. The authors wish to thank Jackie Allen, Emily Farris, Christine Kroupa, and Paula Petrie-Smith for their assistance in rating the storytelling data. A version of this paper was presented to the Interpersonal Communication Division of the National Communication Association at the November 2008 convention.

Notes

¹Husband involvement, α = .89; wife involvement, α = .80; husband warmth, α = .77; wife warmth, α = .83; husband attentiveness, α = .72; wife attentiveness, α = .74; husband confirmation, α = .67; wife confirmation = .71; couple dynamism, α = .81; couple distribution of turns, α = .81; couple organization, α = .72; couple integration, α = .64.

²Length of marriage was unrelated to any of the independent (ISM) or dependent variables (mental health, perceived stress) in the study. Severity of the stressor was not correlated with any of the dependent variables, however, it was associated with both husband engagement (r = −.35, p < .01, r² = .12) and couple coherence (r = −.30, p < .05, r² = .09). In order to rule out the possibility that severity of the stressor might moderate the relationship between ISM and well-being, a series of linear regression moderation analyses were run in which each ISM behavior and severity of the stressor were entered into the first block and the cross product of the z scores for each independent variable was entered in the second block. Each of the four well-being scores (husbands' and wives' mental health and perceived stress) was entered as the dependent variable, respectively. These analyses produced only one statistically significant moderation involving husband's perspective-taking, severity of the stressor, and husband's mental health. However, using Bonferroni's adjustment to account for Type I error associated with running multiple tests, the moderation was no longer significant. Based on these analyses, severity of the stressor and length of marriage do not seem to explain the proposed relationship between ISM and well-being.