Women today may combine the roles of wife, parent, paid worker, and caregiver to an elderly relative. These women may be experiencing role strain and it is not known what factors might contribute to this strain. This study examines the relationships among multiple role assumption, role satisfaction, and caregiver's health with multiple role…

The marital relationship is a basic context of retirement, where spouses' separate perceptions of retirement, and of each other's views, are an essential part of the retirement experience. To explore this issue, 297 married men who had been retired for 6 years or less, all participants in the Veterans Administration Normative Aging Study, reported…

Although marriage enrichment programs have been shown to be effective for many couples, a multidimensional approach to assessment is needed in investigating these groups. The components of information and social support in successful marriage enrichment programs were compared in a completely crossed 2 x 2 factorial design with repeated measures.…

Marital satisfaction across the life cycle differs for men and women. To investigate family life satisfaction across positional roles, developmental categories, and socioeconomic status (SES), 100 husbands and wives (families) were administered the Heimler Schedule of Social Functioning (SOSF), which relates social function and stressors (work,…

Previous studies of the relationship between employee participation in decision making and job satisfaction have conceptualized degree of participation as the number of decisions one influences (scope). To explore another dimension of participation--degree of influence--a model was used which emphasizes the balance between how much influence…

Participation in organizational decisions is thought to have a number of positive effects on performance and worker attitudes, but it is not clear which elements of participation are responsible for these positive effects. The effects of two elements of participation, upward information input by the worker and the provision of downward knowledge…

Twelve community residents (10 women, 2 men; average age = 67) registered for a continuing education class in "creative living for elders." In 10 weekly, 2-hour sessions, a clinical psychologist and two artists led the group in exercise, muscle relaxation, regulated breathing, guided imagery, affirmations, and sensory awareness integrated with art…

Chronic pain is a syndrome which forces many changes upon the patient and upon the family system. To examine the relationship between patients' and their spouses' psychosocial functioning, questionnaire data were collected from 28 male and 18 female patients referred for evaluation to an outpatient pain management program. The Minnesota…

Job dissatisfaction may manifest itself in frustration for the teacher and defense mechanisms for the employer. Previous research suggests that unfulfilled needs, goals, and value expectations, as well as the lack of achievement of outcomes, account for job dissatisfaction. Other variables include demography, disillusionment with life, lack of…

Despite the rapidly rising divorce rate and the importance of the divorce settlement agreement for the spouses' financial and emotional well-being, factors influencing the effectiveness of divorce negotiations have received very little attention. To assess the major determinants of successful divorce negotiations between divorcing spouses and…

Cognitive factors have been shown to play an important role in marital distress. To examine the importance of the self-other distinction for understanding the impact of attributions on marital satisfaction, two studies were conducted. In the first study, causal attributions for naturally occurring behavior by the self and spouse were investigated…

Psychological burnout has a detrimental impact on workers in the human service field, and variables contributing to the burnout process need to be explored. In order to examine the relationships between burnout and four commitment dimensions (commitment to a theory, to agency philosophy, to a particular job, and to client service), 47…

Recent research on women's lives has emphasized the complex interactions between situational constraints in the family and the workplace. To examine the relationship of situational variables and personality characteristics to career-related self-efficacy expectations and life satisfaction in women, 94 college women completed a questionnaire…

The literature on self-predictions and self-efficacy suggests that, with age, accuracy is stressed at the expense of speed in performing a psychomotor task. To investigate the relationship between self-rated performance, actual performance, and task preferences as a function of age, 175 females, ranging in age from 17 to 72 years, were placed into…

Alcohol abuse results in a variety of problems including employment difficulties and family problems. This study integrates a family systems model of alcoholism with a family crisis model for recovery to study spouses of alcoholics and their perceptions of family stress, coping styles, and quality of marriage. Participants (N=60) were husbands or…