Psychological Well-being and Job Stress Predict Marital Support Interactions: A Naturalistic Observational Study of Dual-earner Couples in Their Homes

Video recordings of couples in their everyday lives at home were used to study how supportive interactions relate to psychological well-being and experiences of job stress. Thirty dual-earner, middle-class, heterosexual couples with school-age children were videotaped in their homes over 4 days and completed self-report measures of depressive symptoms, trait neuroticism, and job stress. After isolating the specific instances of marital support in the video recordings, the support role assumed by each partner (recipient vs. provider) and the method of support initiation (solicitations vs. offers) in each interaction were coded. Actor-partner interdependence models (APIMs), which accounted for interdependence within couples, tested linkages between husbands' and wives' scores on the psychological well-being and job stress variables, and husbands' and wives' supportive behavior. Analyses suggested sex differences in the way that psychological well-being and job stress influence support transactions. Wives' depressive symptoms predicted more support received from husbands, due both to more support solicitations by wives as well as more support offers by husbands. However, for husbands, it was neuroticism that predicted support receipt-both more solicitations (by husbands) and more offers (by wives). In addition, men married to women under greater job stress appeared to increase their unprompted offers of support to their wives, whereas wives did not appear to be similarly responsive to husbands' job stress. This study provides unique insights into couple support processes as they spontaneously unfold in everyday settings, and highlights the utility of naturalistic observation for better understanding social behavior in close relationships.