夫妻溝通、衝突因應與婚姻滿意度—對偶資料分析

Abstract

摘 要

本研究旨在探討對偶夫妻之溝通、衝突因應與婚姻滿意度三者之間的關係，透過對偶分析來瞭解背景變項、分享表達溝通與忍讓退縮衝突因應對各婚姻滿意度面向的影響。本研究使用Prepare/Enrich Taiwan之「婚前／婚後成長課程」資料庫，抽取其中247對夫妻作為研究樣本，分別以描述性統計、皮爾森積差相關與多元迴歸分析等方法進行次級資料分析。主要的研究結果如下： 一、 本研究探討夫妻溝通中的「分享表達」行為與衝突因應中的「忍讓退縮」行為，整體來看，夫妻「分享表達」的情況良好，而夫妻使用「忍讓退縮」來面對婚姻衝突的情形偏高。 二、 教育程度、婚齡、子女數與配偶溝通能有效預測夫妻溝通：教育程度越高與子女數越多的丈夫、結婚越久的妻子、以及配偶越會分享表達的夫妻，其「分享表達」越好。性別與教育程度能有效預測衝突因應：男性與教育程度越低的妻子較會採取「忍讓退縮」的衝突因應行為。 三、 本研究的多面向婚姻滿意度包括個性問題、財務管理、關係信任、性愛關係、子女教養、親友關係、協調平等與宗教信仰等八個面向。平均而言，夫妻在「宗教信仰」與「協調平等」兩個面向上的滿意度較高，而在「子女教養」與「個性問題」的滿意度較低。 四、 性別、教育程度、就業情形、婚齡、子女數、夫妻溝通與衝突因應能有效預測婚姻滿意度，但各面向婚姻滿意度的預測因素不盡相同。男性在「個性問題」、「關係信任」與「子女教養」的滿意度高於女性。教育程度越高的妻子，對「財務管理」與「關係信任」的滿意度越高，並且其丈夫的「財務管理」與「親友關係」滿意度也越高。妻子就業，其丈夫對「個性問題」的滿意度較高，丈夫就業，其妻子對「關係信任」滿意度較低，而擁有越多子女的丈夫，對「關係信任」的滿意度也較低。此外，結婚越久的夫妻，在「個性問題」、「財務管理」、「子女教養」與「親友關係」四個面向上的滿意度都相對較高。 五、 夫妻分享表達對各面向婚姻滿意度而言，都是最具預測力的影響因素。越會使用忍讓退縮衝突因應行為的丈夫對「個性問題」感到越不滿意，其妻子在「性愛關係」和「親友關係」的滿意度也會降低，但越會忍讓退縮的夫妻在「子女教養」與「協調平等」上的滿意度則會越高，簡言之，忍讓退縮對夫妻之婚姻滿意度兼具正向及負向影響。 六、 丈夫與妻子確實有不同的婚姻滿意感受，尤其是在「關係信任」與「子女教養」這兩個婚姻滿意度面向上的夫妻對偶差異較大。 七、 婚齡、夫妻溝通對偶差異與衝突因應對偶差異能有效預測夫妻婚姻滿意度的對偶差異程度。相對於結婚16年以上的夫妻，結婚5年以下的夫妻在「親友關係」上的婚姻滿意度較不一致，而結婚6-10年的夫妻在「子女教養」、「親友關係」與「協調平等」上的婚姻滿意度較不一致。夫妻分享表達的情形越不相同時，彼此對「親友關係」與「協調平等」的滿意情形也越不一致。夫妻使用忍讓退縮因應方式的情形越不一致時，雙方在「親友關係」滿意度的對偶差異就越大。 最後，依據研究結果提出具體建議，以供婚姻教育方案與未來研究設計之參考。

Abstract

This study aimed to explore the relationships among couple’s communication, conflict coping and marital satisfaction, and this study used dyadic analysis to understand how expressive communication and withdrawing behavior of conflict coping affect different dimensions of marital satisfaction with various demographic characteristics. The subjects of this study consisted of 247 married couples selected from ENRICH data pool of “PREPARE/ ENRICH Taiwan” and the statistical procedures implored for secondary analysis include descriptive statistics, Pearson product- moment correlation and regression, etc. The major results can be drawn as follow: 1. This study focused on the expressive behavior of couple’ communication and the withdrawing behavior of conflict coping. The status quo of couples’ expressive communication was well and their withdrawing behavior was above average. 2. Education, length of marriage, numbers of children and spouse’ communication were significant predictors of couple’s expressive communication. Husbands with higher education and more children and wives with a longer length of marriage exhibited more expressive communication. Couple’ expressive communication was also affected by their spouses’ expressive communication. Gender and education were significant predictors of withdrawing behavior. Men reported more withdrawing behaviors than that of women and wives with lower education tended to have more withdrawing behavior in conflict situation. 3. The multiple-dimensional marital satisfactions included personality, financial management, trust, sexual relationship, parenting, family and friends, coordination, and religion. In average, the highest dimensions of couple’s marital satisfactions were “religion” and “coordination,” and the lowest dimensions were “parenting” and “personality.” 4. Gender, education, employment, length of marriage, numbers of children, expressive communication and withdrawing behavior were significant predictors of marital satisfactions, but the predictors of different dimensions of marital satisfaction were not completely the same. Men were more satisfied with their marriage than women in “personality,” “trust” and “parenting.” The higher the education level of the wives, the more satisfied they were with “financial management” and “trust.” And the higher the education level of the wives, the husbands were found to report higher satisfaction in “financial management” and “family and friend.” Husbands, whose wives were employed, were more satisfied with “personality,” and wives, whose husbands were employed, tended to have lower “trust” satisfaction. Husbands with more children also have a lower satisfaction in “trust.” Additionally, couples with longer lengths of marriage were more satisfied with “personality,” “financial management,” “parenting” and “family and friends.” 5. Couple’s expressive communication was the most predictive factor to all dimensions of marital satisfaction. Withdrawing behavior was found as not only a negative predictor, but also a positive predictor in some of the dimensions of marital satisfaction. The more withdrawing behavior the husbands had, the lower marital satisfactions on their “personality” and their wives’ “sexual relationship” and “family and friends” were. However, the more withdrawing behavior exhibited by the couple, the higher their marital satisfactions of “parenting” and “coordination.” 6. The husband and the wife had significant different evaluations about their marriage, especially in “trust” and “parenting” marital satisfaction. 7. Length of marriage, dyadic difference of expressive communication and dyadic difference of withdrawing behavior were significant predictors of dyadic difference of marital satisfaction. Compared to the ones who had been married over 16 years, the couples who had been married under 5 years had more dyadic differences of marital satisfaction in “family and friends,” and the couples who had been married for 6-10 years had more dyadic differences of marital satisfaction in “parenting,” “family and friends” and “coordination.” The more diverge the couple’s expressive communication was, the more dyadic differences of marital satisfaction in “family and friends” and “coordination” they had. The more diverge the couple’s withdrawing behavior was, the more dyadic differences of marital satisfaction in “family and friends” they had. Based upon the results, concrete suggestions are made for marital education program and further studies.