Financial strain, dyadic coping, relationship satisfaction, and psychological distress: A dyadic mediation study in Greek couples

Abstract

Financial strain typically has a severe impact on a couple's functioning and the well-being of its members. In this study, we examined the indirect relation of financial strain to partners' relationship satisfaction and psychological distress, using dyadic coping as a mediator, in a sample of Greek couples. One hundred and eighteen couples participated in a cross-sectional study. Perceived material loss in the past and perceived threat of loss in the future were used as financial strain indices. The actor-partner interdependence mediation model was employed to test for the mediation hypotheses. According to the results, the complete mediation (i.e., only indirect) effects models showed an unsatisfactory fit to the data and were rejected. The partial mediation actor-partner interdependence mediation model revealed several statistically significant direct and indirect (actor and partner) effects of the financial strain indices. The results provide more support to the hypothesized mediated impact of financial strain on partners' relationship satisfaction than on psychological distress. The findings underline the importance of dyadic coping for couple's adaptation to financial strain. They also point to the need to examine responses to stress at a dyadic level.

Association of Stressful Life Events with Psychological Problems: A Large-Scale Community-Based Study Using Grouped Outcomes Latent Factor Regression with Latent Predictors

“…Studies have been approached the relationship between stressful life events and psychological problems in two ways. One group of studies examined the relationship between a single type of stressful life events (e.g., financial problems, social relations, and family conflicts) and a number of psychological problems or symptoms [ 19 , 20 , 26 – 28 ]. The second group of studies has relied on composite measures of stressful life events, because a number of these events overlap with each other or can conceptually be combined together [ 29 – 33 ].…”

Economic strain and support in couple: The mediating role of positive emotions

“…In a Romanian National Survey (Barometrul de Opinie Publica, 2007), both men and women reported economic strain as being the most important variable in generating family conflicts and the financial situation was found to be one of the main explanatory variables of marital satisfaction. Moreover, Karademas and Roussi (2016) found that DC mediated the association between economic strain and marital satisfaction in a sample of…”

“…Economic strain, in particular, has been found to decrease people's ability to provide social and emotional support to their partners (e.g., providing help, expressing care, giving encouragement, showing affection, and positive dyadic coping [DC]) and to increase undermining behaviours (e.g., criticizing, insulting, and negative DC; Karademas & Roussi, 2016;Simons, Lorenz, Wu, & Conger, 1993;Vinokur, Price, & Caplan, 1996). A daily diary study indicated that individuals experiencing negative daily financial events reported more negative interpersonal events on the same day (with family members and with a romantic partner; Sturgeon, Zautra, & Okun, 2014).…”

“…On the basis of the aforementioned negative associations of economic strain with positive emotions (Gallo et al, 2005;Jeon & Neppl, 2016) and positive coping behaviours in couple (Clavél et al, 2017;Karademas & Roussi, 2016), we first hypothesized that economic strain at the dyadic level will be negatively related to male and female positive emotions (joy, contentment, and pride; H1a) and to male and female SDC behaviours (H1b). Further, according to the broadenand-build theory of positive emotions (Fredrickson, 2001) and given prior empirical research regarding the interpersonal benefits of positive emotions (Fredrickson et al, 2008;Gable et al, 2006), we predicted that positive emotions experienced by each partner (joy, contentment, and pride) would be positively associated with own and partner SDC (H2).…”

“…In a Romanian National Survey (Barometrul de Opinie Publica, ), both men and women reported economic strain as being the most important variable in generating family conflicts and the financial situation was found to be one of the main explanatory variables of marital satisfaction. Moreover, Karademas and Roussi () found that DC mediated the association between economic strain and marital satisfaction in a sample of Greek couples. Consistent with these findings, the present study sought to further examine if economic strain could influence positive behaviours in couples, comprising partners' willingness to provide support to each other during times of stress (SDC).…”