Attitudes Toward Divorce, Commitment, and Divorce Proneness in First Marriages and Remarriages

A random multistate sample of married individuals (N = 1,931) was used to explore whether more positive attitudes toward divorce and weaker commitment to marriage may contribute to the greater instability of remarriages than first marriages. Remarried adults, whether or not they brought children fro...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of marriage and family 2013-04, Vol.75 (2), p.276-287
Main Authors: Whitton, Sarah W., Stanley, Scott M., Markman, Howard J., Johnson, Christine A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adults
Attitudes
Brief Reports
Child psychology
Children
Children & youth
Conflict
Divorce
Divorce rates
Divorced status
Family Violence
Happiness
marital commitment
Marital conflict
Marital Instability
Marital Satisfaction
Marital stability
Marital status
Marriage
Marriage Counseling
Modeling
Parents
Positive Attitudes
Psychological Distress
relationship commitment
Remarriage
Sexuality. Marriage. Family relations
Sociology
Sociology of the family. Age groups
Spouses
Unions
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Summary:A random multistate sample of married individuals (N = 1,931) was used to explore whether more positive attitudes toward divorce and weaker commitment to marriage may contribute to the greater instability of remarriages than first marriages. Remarried adults, whether or not they brought children from a previous union into the remarriage, reported marital quality (happiness and conflict) equal to those in first marriages. They also reported more positive attitudes toward divorce, which were associated with higher divorce proneness (i.e., thinking about and taking actions toward divorce). Marriage type interacted with marital quality to predict divorce proneness, such that the association between low marital quality and divorce proneness was stronger for remarried individuals than for those in first marriages. This suggests that remarried adults may be more likely than adults in first marriages to take steps towards divorce when experiencing marital distress, possibly reflecting a weaker commitment to marriage.
ISSN:0022-2445
1741-3737
DOI:10.1111/jomf.12008