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oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/19383 2023-07-10 col_2142_5131 col_2142_11614 com_2142_5130 com_2142_11613 com_2142_8903

Fincham, Frank D. Horneffer, Karen Jean 2011-05-07T12:05:53Z 2011-05-07T12:05:53Z 10000-01-01 1996 Recent social and political trends have resulted in cultural ambiguity regarding marital roles, specifically pertaining to how labor should be divided with regard to household chores and child rearing. The importance of cognitive processes regarding labor division has been suggested by several lines of research, although few efforts have been made to integrate this work with the broader literatures on marital cognition and social comparison theory. The current project bridges these areas of study by considering the relationships among cognitions regarding the division of labor in actual, typical, and ideal marriages. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected from eighty-three dual-earner couples in order to pursue four goals: (1) compare perceptions of egalitarianism in actual, typical, and ideal marriages; (2) test proposed relationships among cognitive contents and marital satisfaction; (3) understand cognitive comparison processes; and (4) examine narrative descriptions of ideal and actual marriages. Findings from the study indicate that ideal marriages were perceived as most egalitarian, and spouses tended to view their actual marriages as being similar to the ideal and better than the typical marriage. As hypothesized, more favorable social comparisons were associated with higher levels of marital satisfaction, and cognitions regarding the typical and ideal marriage played distinct roles relative to social comparison processes. The results of the study highlight the importance of specifying a referent when considering marital cognitions, as well as recognizing gender differences in the salience of different cognitive contents. Two cognitive phenomena are theorized to result from current ambiguity regarding division of labor arrangements: a rejection of external marital ideals in favor of relying on one's own experience, and the utilization of downward social comparisons to the typical marriage. The implications of these findings with regard to marital satisfaction and socio-political change are discussed. Made available in DSpace on 2011-05-07T12:05:53Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license.txt: 4922 bytes, checksum: 910b249b4beec47e7ab768910c8f966f (MD5) 9702538.pdf: 5665642 bytes, checksum: 7a4a1ba0ba16ac2710d470d53c4d0ab8 (MD5) Previous issue date: 1996 Item marked as restricted to the 'UIUC Users [automated]' Group (id=2) by Howard Ding (hding2@illinois.edu) on 2011-05-07T14:36:35Z Item is restricted indefinitely. Restriction data tranferred 2014-07-01T11:14:48-05:00 Original Data Group with Access UIUC Users [automated] Release Date: none Reason: ETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permission ETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permission U of I Only 9780591087048 AAI9702538 (UMI)AAI9702538 http://hdl.handle.net/2142/19383 eng Copyright 1996 Horneffer, Karen Jean Psychology, Behavioral Psychology, Social Women's Studies Sociology, Individual and Family Studies Standards, assumptions, and perceptions regarding division of labor: Implications for marital satisfaction and socio-political change text Psychology Psychology University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Dissertation Ph.D.