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Diener, Edward F. Scott, Christy K. 2011-05-07T13:50:47Z 2011-05-07T13:50:47Z 10000-01-01 1992 In an attempt to disentangle the causal relationship between marital status and psychological well-being, two general hypotheses were tested. The first hypothesis follows from a model of well-being in which changes in major life events are presumed to cause changes in well-being. Accordingly, transitions into marriage and remarriage will produce increases in well-being, whereas divorce will produce decreases in well-being. The second hypothesis, one known as the selection theory, was also tested. According to the selection theory, marital status is a consequence of selectivity, in that preexisting variables such as well-being predispose people to certain marital statuses. Accordingly, people who report high levels of well-being will be more likely to marry and stay married than people who report low levels of well-being. Understanding the relationship between marital status and well-being involves more than the issue of causality; it is equally important to identify variables that mediate such a relationship. Therefore, variables including gender, personality, and the presence of a companion were considered. Data from a national probability sample were used in the present study to observe the interplay among the aforementioned variables over a 10 year period. It is clear from this study that transitions into marriage, including both first marriages and remarriages, fail to produce long-term increases in well-being. Moreover, divorce did not decrease well-being. In contrast, preexisting variables including well-being, extraversion, and Type A predisposed people to certain marital statuses. Individuals who reported higher levels of well-being were more likely to marry and stay married than individuals who reported low levels of well-being. Extraverts were more likely to to marry than introverts, and individuals who reported high levels of Type A were more likely to divorce. Based on this pattern of results, it is an error to automatically assume that differences in the levels of well-being reported by individuals in different marital status groups are causally attributable to marital status. Personality drives our selection of events and may ultimately impact our experience of these events. Made available in DSpace on 2011-05-07T13:50:47Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license.txt: 4922 bytes, checksum: 910b249b4beec47e7ab768910c8f966f (MD5) 9236589.pdf: 2687536 bytes, checksum: efa2d888fc192ab5a08d2dcde0f62ae5 (MD5) Previous issue date: 1992 Item marked as restricted to the 'UIUC Users [automated]' Group (id=2) by Howard Ding (hding2@illinois.edu) on 2011-05-07T14:59:51Z Item is restricted indefinitely. Restriction data tranferred 2014-07-01T11:28:16-05:00 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 AAI9236589 (UMI)AAI9236589 http://hdl.handle.net/2142/22766 eng Copyright 1992 Scott, Christy K. Psychology, Clinical Psychology, Personality Marital status and well-being text Psychology Psychology University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Dissertation Ph.D.