Nevertheless, the accelerated longitudinal design employed in the current research has several notable limitations. As can be seen in Table 1, Cohort 1 participants were similar to Cohort 2 participants on several demographic characteristics. Over the past 50 years, a number of researchers have proposed that marital satisfaction peaks around the time of the wedding and tends to decline from that point on (e.g., Burgess & Wallin, 1953; Vailliant & Vailliant, 1993). Experimental studies support this notion and have indicated that adults characterized as securely attached respond with reduced distress to various laboratory-induced stressful situations such as imagining separation from close others (Mikulincer, Florian, Birnbaum, & Malishkevich, 2002), and field studies have indicated that attachment security is associated with better coping with real life distress, such as having a child with a chronic illness (Berant, Mikulincer, & Florian, 2001). According to their analysis, couples who had more sex tended to be more satisfied with the sex a half-year later. In the initial introduction and throughout both sessions, we assured confidentiality to all participants. false Which is true regarding parent-adolescent relationships? Stability and change in adult attachment styles: Associations with personal vulnerabilities, life events, and global construals of self and others. Attachment theory and close relationships. Bowlby conceptualized attachment theory (1973) as a psycho-evolutionary system that guides social behavior from the cradle to the grave (Bowlby 1979, p. 129) and functions to maintain an optimal level of proximity to a significant other. Twenty-three (24%) of the couples had gaps in their data. Stevenson-Hinde J, Curley JP, Chicot R, Jhannsson C. Anxiety within families: Consistency and change across time. In addition, we examined how husbands and wives marital satisfaction and attachment security relates to the risk of marital dissolution. Our research had three specific goals. Changes in marriage associated with the transition to parenthood: Individual differences as a function of sex-role attitudes and changes in the division of household labor. Flag this Question Question 4 1 pts Juanita wants her date, a man she finds very sexually attractive, to perceive her as very sexually attractive. This pattern has clear implications for marital satisfaction, with both parties developing dissatisfaction. Moreover, many of these studies examined primarily college student samples (see Bartholomew, 1994 and Noller & Feeney, 1994 for a full critique). Thus, thorough measures of marital satisfaction assess qualities that contribute negatively, as well as uniquely positively, to the marriage. N = 177. both members of the couple typically adhere even more strongly to gender roles.