Marriage as environment: Toward a model of processes of adaptation in marriag

A major limitation on previous marital adjustment research has been its focus on studying adjustment as an end that couples achieve to a varying degree. Few studies actually examine the processes through which couples achieve adjustment. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to conceptualize and study marital adjustment as a process. To achieve this goal, two person-environment psychology perspectives, "person-environment congruence" and "human-environment optimization", were introduced and integrated so as to model marital adjustment as a process. Two models of marital adjustment process were generated. Optimization reflects a mutual influence process between the two marital partners. Adaptation occurs when a one-way pattern of influence takes place in the process of adjustment. This was followed by an empirical study testing four theoretically based propositions.;The data were collected as part of a longitudinal study on marriage. One hundred and nine couples filled out a personality inventory (the Cattell 16PF), provided information about the affective quality of marital interaction, and completed scales indicating the degree to which they desired change in their partners' behavior. Data were collected during face-to-face and telephone interviews that took place about three months after couples were wed and at successive yearly intervals over the next two years.;Although husbands and wives were found to be more similar in personality characteristics than randomly paired couples, similarity of personality did not lead to similarity in leisure preference, amount of leisure together, or socioemotional behavior. Nor was similarity in personality found to be related to husbands' and wives' desire for change, actual behavioral change in socioemotional expression or marital satisfaction. Husbands and wives seem to engage in less maintenance and experience more conflict when they desire change from one another. Wives more than husbands, desired changes in their spouses' behavior. However, wives were no more likely than their husbands to change their own socioemotional behavior to accommodate their spouses.;The model of adjustment between the marital partners supported by this study suggests that there is a mutual influence pattern for the couples' affectional behavior during the first year of their marriage. That is, when husbands and wives engaged in maintenance behavior, such as talking to their spouse about what they want, or discussing problems with their spouses, they were able to affect their spouses' subsequent affectional behavior. However, the husbands and wives in our sample did not seem to use effective strategies, such as those included in the category of maintenance behavior (e.g., discussing, reasoning), when they want change from their spouses. The findings of the present study support an adjustment process that is first characterized by optimization and followed by adaptation between the spouses.