LOVE, LIKING AND INDIVIDUAL MARITAL ADJUSTMENT: A PILOT STUDY OF RELATIONSHIP CHANGES WITHIN ONE YEAR

A process view of marital adjustment is offered. Weaknesses of previous research designs for measuring changes in marital adjustment are discussed. The present study reports on the adjustment to marriage of 34 husbands and 32 wives over the period of one year. The data are analyzed in a 2 (time of measurement) X 4 (age cohort) repeated measures analysis of variance to separate the effects of time, age cohort, and time X age cohort interaction on individual marital adjustment. Control groups were used to assess the effects of repeated testing and of selective dropout. Dyadic cohesion decreased for the husbands while dyadic satisfaction increased. For the wives, there were significant interactions with age cohort with women aged 34-44 decreasing in adjustment, whereas women aged 45-65 tended to increase. Several other possible cohort differences were also noted.