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Links of Spiritual Intimacy with Observed Emotional Intimacy and Perceived Marital Quality Among Couples During Their First Pregnancy

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Links of Spiritual Intimacy with Observed Emotional Intimacy and Perceived Marital Quality Among Couples During Their First Pregnancy LINKS OF SPIRITUAL INTIMACY WITH OBSERVED EMOTIONAL INTIMACY AND PERCEIVED MARITAL QUALITY AMONG COUPLES DURING THEIR FIRST PREGNANCY Emily A. Padgett A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS December 2010 Committee: Annette Mahoney, Advisor Kenneth Pargament Alfred DeMaris ii ABSTRACT Annette Mahoney, Advisor This study explores the role that spiritual intimacy plays in marital relationships of couples who are expecting their first child. Spiritual intimacy is defined as spouses disclosing their beliefs and feelings regarding spirituality to each other and providing empathetic support about such disclosures. One hundred seventy eight married couples reported on spiritual intimacy and four areas of marital quality (i.e., use of collaboration to discuss conflict, general marital satisfaction, marital love, and spiritual satisfaction with the marriage). Each couple was also video-recorded having a ten minute conversation about their vulnerabilities related to becoming a parent to obtain a direct assessment of the degree of emotional intimacy and warmth shared by the couple. Specifically, the observed interactions were coded for each partner’s use of positive self disclosure, and positive support given to partner. In addition, couples were coded on the degree of general negativity and general affection and warmth the spouses exhibited toward each other. Wife and husband self-reports of spiritual intimacy correlated with observations of greater positive support, warmth/affection and less negativity during emotionally intimate interactions, and with both spouses’ self-reports of marital love and spiritual satisfaction, and wives’ marital satisfaction. Spiritual intimacy also predicted unique variance for these variables after controlling for demographic variables and general religiousness. Although couple collaboration accounted for the variance of spiritual intimacy in regards to self-reported marital satisfaction, it did not explain variance in self-reports of marital love and satisfaction with the spiritual state of the relationship. iii To Matthew: my husband, my best friend, and brother in Christ. I am blessed to be your wife and am eager to see what God has in store for our life together. I love you. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost, I express my gratitude to my advisor Dr. Annette Mahoney for not only mentoring me through this project, but also for teaching me wonderful clinical skills and continuing to remind me of my talents and passions. I also want to thank my other committee members, Dr. Kenneth Pargament and Dr. Alfred DeMaris, for their feedback and their helpful insights regarding this project. I am appreciative of the families who participated in the New Arrivals: Passage to Parenthood Study (NAPPS) for opening their homes and their lives to us during a very special and intimate time for their families. I am also thankful for all the graduate and undergraduate students who were involved in data collection and data entry, with a specific thank you to graduate students Jeremy Cummings, Michelle LeRoy, and Steve Lucero who coded the marital interactions used in this Master’s thesis. Last but not least, I am grateful for all the support, love, and encouragement given to me by my family, friends, church family, and husband during this process. I cannot imagine my life without the blessings of such wonderful people. First and foremost, I am grateful to God and Jesus Christ for the life and faith I have been given, and for being my guiding lights throughout all times of my journey here on earth v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................. 1 LITERATURE REVIEW ...................................................................................................... 5 Global Religiousness and Marital Functioning.......................................................... 5 Marital satisfaction......................................................................................... 5 Marital communication and conflict .............................................................. 6 Emotional Intimacy in Marriage ................................................................................ 9 Conceptualizations of emotional intimacy..................................................... 9 Research on marital interactions on emotional intimacy ............................... 13 Relational Spirituality and Spiritual Intimacy in Marriage ....................................... 19 Conceptual framework of relational spirituality ............................................ 19 Spiritual intimacy as a form of relational spirituality .................................... 23 Research related to spiritual intimacy ............................................................ 24 Possible Links between Spiritual and Emotional Intimacy ....................................... 27 Religion, Spirituality, and Emotional Intimacy as Relevant Factors during Pregnancy……. .......................................................................................................... 29 Religion and spirituality during pregnancy.................................................... 29 Emotional intimacy during pregnancy ........................................................... 32 The interplay of emotional and spiritual intimacy during pregnancy ............ 35 Marital Satisfaction, Love, and Spiritual Satisfaction as Other Indicators of Marital Quality…………. ...................................................................................................... 36 Background information on measures of marital quality .............................. 36 vi Marital quality during transition to parenthood ............................................. 38 Spiritual satisfaction....................................................................................... 39 Possible links between spiritual intimacy and marital quality ....................... 40 Collaboration as a possible influential variable on marital quality ................ 41 The Present Study ...................................................................................................... 42 First goal and related hypotheses ................................................................... 42 Second goal and related hypotheses .............................................................. 43 Ways this present study addresses limitations and adds to the literature ...... 44 METHOD…...................... .................................................................................................... 46 Participants….. ........................................................................................................... 46 Procedure…... ............................................................................................................ 46 Instrumentation: Participant Information and Control Variables .............................. 47 Demographics ................................................................................................ 47 Global religiousness ....................................................................................... 48 Couple collaboration ...................................................................................... 49 Instrumentation: Predictor Variable ........................................................................... 49 Spiritual intimacy ........................................................................................... 49 Instrumentation: Criterion Variables ......................................................................... 50 Setting up observational interactions ............................................................. 50 Coding emotional intimacy in observational interactions ............................. 50 Marital satisfaction......................................................................................... 52 Marital love .................................................................................................... 53 Spiritual satisfaction....................................................................................... 54 vii RESULTS…................... ....................................................................................................... 55 Preliminary and Descriptive Correlational Statistics ................................................. 55 Inferential Statistics ................................................................................................... 57 Findings regarding the first goal of the study ................................................ 57 Findings regarding the second goal of the study ........................................... 60 Post hoc analyses ........................................................................................... 63 DISCUSSION ….................................................................................................................... 64 Overview of Key Findings Linking Spiritual Intimacy to Marital Quality ............... 60 Discussion of Null Findings....................................................................................... 70 Implications, Limitations, and Future Research ........................................................ 71 CONCLUSION….............. .................................................................................................... 76 REFERENCES……………
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