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Biomedical subjects

T L Huston

Publications and source records attributed to T L Huston.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

Socioemotional behavior and satisfaction in marital relationships: a longitudinal study.

The interplay between 3 types of socioemotional behavior (affection, sexual interest, and negativity) and marital satisfaction was studied using data from newly married couples followed over 2 years. Affection and negativity (but not sexual interest) were consistently associated cross-sectionally with marital satisfaction. Longitudinal analyses revealed a gender-differentiated pattern suggesting a more complex relationship between satisfaction and marital behavior than previously shown. Negativity, regardless of whether it was expressed by the husband or the wife, was associated with declines in wives' (but not husbands') satisfaction. Wives of husbands who were relatively negative early in marriage became more negative themselves. Wives who were relatively less satisfied early in marriage (but not husbands) were married to spouses who became more negative with time.

Adult

Sex typing and division of labor as determinants of marital change across the transition to parenthood.

This investigation examines the proposition that wives who describe their personality in ways that deviate from sex stereotypes will become less positive and more negative about their marriage from before to after they become mothers, particularly when the transition to parenthood is accompanied by an increase in the traditionalism of marital roles. Sixty-one couples were studied longitudinally from the last trimester of pregnancy through the third postpartum month. The wives completed the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (Spence & Helmreich, 1978), which measures the extent to which they ascribe personality attributes stereotyped as "masculine" (i.e., instrumental, agentic) and "feminine" (expressive, affectional) to themselves, and several questionnaires assessing the marital relationship at both times of measurement. Results revealed that the more division of labor changed toward traditionalism, the greater the decline in wives' evaluations of the positive aspects of marriage and that changes in wives' evaluations of both positive and negative aspects of marriage can be significantly predicted by the interaction of the wives' expressivity and changes toward increased traditionalism in division of labor. Additional analyses showed that wives who do not ascribe female sex-typed attributes to themselves (relative to those who see themselves in sex-stereotyped ways) are more apt to evaluate their marriage less favorably from before to after parenthood when roles shift toward greater traditionalism.

Adaptation, Psychological

Emergencies: what are they and do they influence bystanders to intervene?

Social psychological research on helping has, in part, been concerned with the intervention of bystanders into emergencies. Pertinent empirical literature does not seem to be available on what factors bystanders use to define an emergency nor the effect of such a decision on the rate of helping. A series of four studies was conducted to answer these questions. We found that (a) Emergencies are a subclass of problem situation that usually result from accidents; (b) there is a high degree of agreement concerning what problem situations are definitely an emergency; (c) emergency situations are differentiated from other problem situations by threat of harm or actual harm worsening with time, unavailability of an easy solution to the problem, and necessity of obtaining outside help to solve the problem; (d) disagreement on whether a problem situation is an emergency or not results from differing perceptions of the degree to which threat of harm or actual harm worsens with time; (e) bystanders are more likely to help in emergency than in nonemergency problem situations. The results were interpreted as indicating that the need of the victim is a salient feature used by bystanders in determining whether or not to help.

Attitude