ࡗ Research on the Nature and Determinants of Marital Satisfaction: A Decade in ReviewScientific study of marital satisfaction attracted widespread attention in the 1990s from scholars representing diverse orientations and goals. This article highlights key conceptual and empirical advances that have emerged in the past decade, with particular emphasis on (a) interpersonal processes that operate within marriage, including cognition, affect, physiology, behavioral patterning, social support, and violence; (b) the milieus within which marriages operate, including microcontexts (e.g., the presence of children, life stressors and transitions) and macrocontexts (e.g., economic factors, perceived mate availability); and (c) the conceptualization and measurement of marital satisfaction, including 2-dimensional, trajectory-based, and social-cognitive approaches. Notwithstanding the continued need for theoretical progress in understanding the nature and determinants of marital satisfaction, we conclude by calling for more large-scale longitudinal research that links marital processes with sociocultural contexts, for more disconfirmatory than confirmatory research, and for research that directly guides preventive, clinical, and policy-level interventions.

Great Britain, ^University of Georgia, and ^University of Illinois \bstract-/I sample of ISO recently married couples provided data egarding marital satisfaction and depressive symptoms Approximateh 18 months later, 116 of these couples provided complet formation on marital satisfaction and depression once again The data ere examined using three sets of causal models, which yielded con-'.rging results For men, causal paths emerged from depression to antal satisfaction, whereas for women causal paths were from satfaction to depression The results are discussed m relation to the marital discord model of depressionAlthough the association between mantal distress and depressive symptomatology has long mtngued mantal researchers, several issues concerning this association remain unresolved Perhaps one of the most important is whether the relation is causal and the direction of possible causal effects A second issue is the extent to which gender influences the association between mantal discord and depression, an important consideration m view of widely documented gender differences in depression (eg Nolen-Hoeksema, 1987) Finally, vanation in the discord-depression association across data collection strategies and data analytic techniques makes it important to select populations that are relatively homogeneous and to use statistical procedures most sensitive to the ldenufication of causal effects (Kamey & Bradbury, 1995, Monroe & Depue, 1991 The present study therefore examines the relation between mantal discord and depressive symptoms in recently wed spouses at two points in time separated by an 18-month

Much evidence suggests that marital discord is related to depressive symptoms in married couples. In the present research, potential sex-related differences in the prospective effect of marital discord on depression were explored. Further, extending previous work, cross-spouse effects (i.e., the associations between one spouse's marital discord and his or her partner's later levels of depressive symptoms) were examined. Spouses from randomly sampled married couples (N = 166) with adolescent children provided reports of their marital quality and depressive symptoms at baseline and one year later. Structural equation modeling analyses were conducted. Results revealed that Time 1 marital quality was associated with Time 2 depressive symptoms, the magnitude of this effect was similar for both husbands and wives, and spouses' own marital quality at Time 1 predicted their partners' Time 2 depressive symptoms net of other predictors in the model. Implications for practice, policy, and future research are discussed. KEY WORDS: depression • longitudinal study • marriage Journal of Social and Personal Relationships

The investigation of marital conflict has reached a crossroads. Over 25 years of research on marital conflict behavior yields a relatively clear picture of its topography, but its relevance for changing the marital relationship remains controversial. We can continue to amass observations in a relatively atheoretical manner and hope that patterns capable of guiding clinical activity will emerge, or we can begin creating a unified theoretical framework to indicate new directions for clinical activity and empirical investigation. Before exploring the latter option, this chapter reviews briefly the impact of marital conflict on mental, physical, and family health and what is known about the nature of conflict in marriage. After highlighting some recent theoretically grounded advances, we illustrate how conceptualizing marital conflict behavior as goal directed provides an integrative theoretical framework for treatment, prevention, and marital conflict research.

Smoking is associated with a wide variety of adverse health outcomes including cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes, depression and heart disease. Unfortunately, the molecular mechanisms through which these effects are conveyed are not clearly understood. To examine the potential role of epigenetic factors in these processes, we examined the relationship of smoking to genome wide methylation and gene expression using biomaterial from two independent samples, lymphoblast DNA and RNA (n=119) and lung alveolar macrophage DNA (n=19). We found that in both samples current smoking status was associated with significant changes in DNA methylation, in particular at the aryl hydrocarbon receptor repressor (AHRR), a known tumor suppressor. Both baseline DNA methylation and smoker associated DNA methylation signatures at AHRR were highly correlated (r=0.94 and 0.45, respectively). DNA methylation at the most differentially methylated AHRR CpG residue in both samples, cg0557592, was significantly associated with AHRR gene expression. Pathway analysis of lymphoblast data (genes with most significant methylation changes) demonstrated enrichment in protein kinase C pathways and in TGF beta signaling pathways. For alveolar macrophages, pathway analysis demonstrated alterations in inflammation-related processes. We conclude that smoking is associated with functionally significant genome wide changes in DNA methylation in both lymphoblasts and pulmonary macrophages and that further integrated investigations of these epigenetic effects of smoking on carcinogenesis and other related co-morbidities are indicated.