Temporal Ordering of Supportive Dyadic Coping, Commitment, and Willingness to Sacrifice

• Published date: 01 April 2016
• Author: Matthew D. Johnson,Rebecca M. Horne
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12187
• Date: 01 April 2016

M D. J  R M. H University of Alberta

Temporal Ordering of Supportive Dyadic Coping,

Commitment, and Willingness to Sacrice

Drawing from interdependence theory and focal

participants (anchors) and their intimate part-

ners who remained coupled at Waves 1, 3,

and 5 of the German Family Panel (pairfam;

N=1,543), the authors examined the temporal

ordering between anchor and partner support-

ive dyadic coping with anchor commitment and

willingness to sacrice for an intimate part-

ner.Autoregressive cross-lagged modeling anal-

yses revealedthat anchor and partner supportive

dyadic coping predicted higher levels of commit-

ment and willingness to sacrice, and willing-

ness to sacrice predicted less supportive dyadic

coping only for anchors. There were no longi-

tudinal associations between commitment and

willingness to sacrice, and gender did not mod-

erate associations among the variables.

Dyadic coping, or the ways in which a couple

deals with the stress each partner experiences

(Bodenmann, 2005), has demonstrated robust

associations with the quality of intimate rela-

tionships (e.g., Bodenmann, Pihet, & Kayser,

2006), even when examined in concert with

individual coping efforts (Papp & Witt, 2010).

Indeed, dyadic coping predicted relation-

ship satisfaction for male partners a decade

later (Rufeux, Nussbeck, & Bodenmann,

2014), and Couples Coping Enhancement

Department of Human Ecology, 302 Human Ecology Build-

ing, University of Alberta, Edmonton AB T6G 2 N1, Canada

(matt.johnson@ualberta.ca).

Key Words: close relationships, developmental methodolo-

gies, interdependence theory,longitudinal, marital relation-

ships.

Training (CCET; Bodenmann & Shantinath,

2004), an intervention program that targets

dyadic coping, produced increases in rela-

tionship quality that were maintained 1 year

later (Bodenmann, Charvoz, Cina, & Widmer,

2001). The way in which intimate partners

respond to each other’s stress clearly has impli-

cations for the happiness and stability of their

union (Bodenmann & Cina, 2005), but little is

known about how dyadic coping relates to other

salient relationship processes, such as commit-

ment and the willingness to make sacrices for

a partner.

In the present study we focused on under-

standing the temporal ordering between support-

ive dyadic coping (encompassing the positive

instrumental and emotional behaviors enacted to

assist a partner experiencing stress and opera-

tionalized through self- and partner reports from

each member of the couple; Bodenmann, 2005),

commitment (the intention to maintain a part-

nership into the future; Stanley & Markman,

1992), and the willingness to sacrice one’s own

desires for the benet of one’s partner. Con-

cepts rooted in interdependence theory (Kelley

& Thibaut, 1978; Thibaut & Kelley, 1959) and

data collected from focal participants (referred

to as anchors) and their intimate partners who

maintained their relationship across Waves 1, 3,

and 5 of the German Panel Analysis of Intimate

Relationships and Family Dynamics (pairfam)

study were used to investigate this topic.

B

In this study we drew on interdependence theory

to conceptualize how supportive dyadic coping,

314 Family Relations 65 (April 2016): 314–326

DOI:10.1111/fare.12187