The purpose of this study was to investigate the interaction effects of family-of-origin differentiation, anxiety, and sense of well-being on marital adjustment among married women and men. This study ultimately intended to provide various suggestion...
The purpose of this study was to investigate the interaction effects of family-of-origin differentiation, anxiety, and sense of well-being on marital adjustment among married women and men. This study ultimately intended to provide various suggestions which can be applied for couple program and family counseling. The theoretical model was specified and estimated. Subjects of this study were 244 married men and 324 married women, who had preschooler children and lived in Cheong-ju and Dae-jeon city. The pilot study was used to examine the applicability of survey instrument. Data were analyzed by frequency, percentage, Cronbach's α, t-test, F-test, Tukey post-hoc test, and correlation using SPSS 12.0 program. The test of model was done with analysis of correlational matrix in AMOS 5.0 package using a maximum likelihood estimation.
The results of this study were as follows:
First, there were statistically differences in family of origin differentiation by gender, educational level, age, duration of marriage, religion and a monthly average income.
Second, there were significant differences in anxiety and sense of well-being according to their education level and a monthly average income.
Third, there were statistically differences in marriage adjustment according to gender, family member, match of religion, number of their children, age, period of marriage, and a monthly income.
Fourth, emotional cutoff from mother had a direct effect on male's anxiety whereas differentiation from father and emotional cut-off from mother had on women's anxiety. The sense of well-being for both men and women was predicted by differentiation from father, emotional cut-off from mother, and differentiation from mother.
Fifth, family-of-origin differentiation for both men and women had indirectly influenced on dyadic consensus, dyadic satisfaction, dyadic cohesion and dyadic affection expression mediated by anxiety and sense of well-being. The emotional cut-off from mother for both men and women in the family-of-origin was the strongest factor to influence on anxiety and had more indirect effects on marital adjustment than any other factors of family-of-origin differentiation. On the other hand, the sense of well-bing for both men and women was greatly influenced by the differentiation from father and also had indirect effects on marital adjustment more than any other factors of family-of-origin.
Sixth, anxiety and sense of well-being of males and females had direct effects on marital adjustment such as dyadic consensus, dyadic satisfaction, and dyadic cohesion, and dyadic affection expression. There was not much difference in the effects of anxiety on dyadic satisfaction, cohesion, and affection expression between men and women whereas the effect of women's anxiety on dyadic consensus were higher than men's. There was not much difference in the effects of sense of well-being on marital adjustment between men and women.
Seventh, male's experience of differentiation from father had not direct and indirect effects on marital adjustment through anxiety. For women, differentiation from father indirectly affected on marital adjustment through anxiety and directly influenced on dyadic cohesion and affection expression.
Finally, male's experience of emotional cut-off from mother was not shown direct effect on dyadic affection expression while female's did have direct effect.