Social Interdependence, Psychological Adjustment, and Marital Satisfaction in Second Marriages

Attitudes toward cooperative, competitive, and individualistic situations were correlated with measures of psychological health, orientation toward negative life stress, and marital satisfaction among 44 American stepcouples. Cooperativeness was unrelated to measures of wives' psychological pathology and orientation toward negative life stress but was positively related to wives' and husbands' marital satisfaction and husbands' overall psychological adjustment and positive orientation toward life events. Competitiveness was significantly related to wives' and husbands' psychological pathology and marital dissatisfaction, and was unrelated to orientation toward negative life stress. Individualistic attitudes were significantly related to wives' and husbands' psychological pathology and maladjustment, orientation toward negative life stress, and marital dissatisfaction. The results were stronger for the wives than for the husbands.