This study was designed to analyze effects of marital intimacy on drinking motives of husbands targeting 238 married couples. This study has a difference from existing researches, since it considers that marital relationship has influence on drinking ...
This study was designed to analyze effects of marital intimacy on drinking motives of husbands targeting 238 married couples. This study has a difference from existing researches, since it considers that marital relationship has influence on drinking motives of husbands by examining drinking motives in all of positive and negative aspects to verify effects of marital intimacy on drinking motives of husbands who enjoy drinking more than wives.
Prior to this study, marital intimacy and drinking motive were set as the main variables, and marital intimacy was defined by cognitive, emotional and sexual relations and commitment to each other. In this study, also, marital intimacy scale devised by Lee, Kyung-hee(1998) was used to measure marital intimacy, and measuring scale of drinking motives consisting of 16 questions developed by Shin, Hang-woo(1998) was used to measure husbands' drinking motives, based on drinking motive scale devised by Cox Kilnger(1998) and four-type drinking motive scales such as enhancing, coping, agreement and social motives devised by Cooper(1994). Survey and analysis results of this study are as follows;
Firstly, marital intimacy was normal and drinking motives scored low, on the whole. Of subordinate areas of marital intimacy, cognitive area was found to be satisfactory generally and there were significant differences in all the subordinate areas between men and women. That is, husbands had higher scores in cognitive area and sexual area, but wives had higher scores in emotional area. Among subordinate areas of drinking motives of married couples, social motives scored the highest and there were significant differences in three motives, excluding social motives. That is, husbands had higher scores in enhancing motives, whereas wives had higher scores in coping motives and agreement motives.
Secondly, when analyzing differences in drinking motives of husbands according to general characteristics of husbands and wives, there were meaningful differences in enhancing and agreement motives of husbands according to their educational background. Especially, while husbands who graduated from graduate schools, had higher scores in enhancing motives, husbands who graduated from high schools and community colleges, had higher scores in agreement motives. There were significant differences depending on an income level as well. That is, group with lower income level showed higher social and enhancing motives, but group with higher income level showed higher agreement and coping motives. There were meaningful differences in drinking motives of husbands according to their children. Husbands who have children, had higher social and enhancing motives, whereas husbands who don't have children, had higher agreement and coping motives. It was found that drinking frequency of husbands had significant influence on their drinking motives. That is, husbands showed higher agreement and coping motives, as their drinking frequency was higher, but on the contrary, they showed higher social and enhancing motives, as drinking frequency was lower. In relation to husbands' alcohol consumption and alcohol types, group with high alcohol consumption, scored higher in all of motives. Also, Soju was mainly used as an alcohol for improving agreement and coping motives, but except for Soju, every alcohol type including beer was used for improving social and enhancing motives. Lastly, in relation to drinker types accompanied by husbands, husbands accompanied by spouses had higher social and enhancing motives, but the rest of them who were not accompanied by spouses, had higher agrement and coping motives.
Thirdly, it was shown that husbands' affinity is associated with their drinking motives, when analyzing the relation between marital intimacy and husbands' drinking motives. Especially, husbands' affinity had a positive relation with their social and enhancing motives, but had a negative relation with agreement and coping motives.
Fourthly regression analysis was conducted to examine effects of marital intimacy types on husbands' drinking motives. As a result, in emotional area, husbands' affinity was found to have positive influence on their social and enhancing motives, but it had negative influence on their agreement and coping motives.
In conclusion, it was identified that emotional intimacy of married couples has considerable effect on drinking motives of husbands, and husbands' emotional affinity has positive effect on social and enhancing motives, but has negative effect on and agrement and coping motives.
These results imply that drinking motives of husbands can be affected, when there is no emotional or expressional transmission between husbands and wives.