Depressive Symptoms, External Stress, and Marital Adjustment: The Buffering Effect of Partner's Responsive Behavior.

ABSTRACT: Guided by theory emphasizing that partner responsiveness underlies well-functioning romantic relationships, we examined whether partners' responsive behavior buffered the degree to which a personal vulnerability (depressive symptoms) and external stress predicted declines in relationship adjustment. Using an existing dataset, we tested whether individuals' depressive symptoms and stress interacted with observer-coded partner responsive behavior during marital conflict discussions to predict change in marital adjustment at the next time point (N = 195 couples Time 1 to Time 2, 158 couples Time 2 to Time 3). Individuals experiencing greater (a) depressive symptoms or (b) stress showed sharper declines in marital adjustment. However, as predicted, the negative effects of both depressive sympt

SUBMITTER: Pietromonaco PR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8849563 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature