Psych 473/573
         Introductory Lecture Notes

    Definition of marriage -relationship characterized by…

• Patterned
• Intersubjective
• Affective, behavioral, and cognitive
• Transactions [that are]
• Ritualized by custom, requiring that partners
• Believe that they have chosen to remain together.

• People tend to use trait names
• Relationships involve patterns of interaction
• Trait words do not capture this; need a language of interactions
• Major constructs - satisfaction and adjustment…but
• Subjectivity of marriage vs. objective measures of distress
• Is there a DSM of "marital psychopathology"?
• What would it include? How to establish criteria?

• Major task of marital research (i.e., understanding which variables account for satisfaction variance)
• Finding the correlates of satisfaction
• Concepts X levels

                  Person
                  Social roles (scripts)
                  Systems or organizational level

          4. Note that the type of construct differs with the level

IV. The story of iron filings

      Let a scatter of iron filings represent individual scores on some measure
           (e.g., marital satisfaction,  MS);

      If we use magnets of different strengths we will see that the iron filings cluster
          more or less around the magnetic bar when it is thrust into the filings; each time

      The magnets represent variables (predictors), i.e., some predictors work well
           (= correlate highly with MS) whereas others do not (e.g., nose length and MS not related)

    Our task is to find the variables that account for MS  (=explain the variations in MS scores)

         Where we look for these variables is what makes psychology different from other fields.

Notes on  Constructs and iron filings (see K&B Article #2)
I.Constructs are abstractions:
      1. They point to interesting "things"
      2. Require some form of support
      3. How do we know (=what is the evidence for) constructs?
      4. Theories differ in terms of the constructs they employ

II.  Variables are indices of constructs

      1. Equation:  Satisfaction = a + b + c+ ……..
      2. Variables (a, b, c…) as predictors
      3. How well does a variable "explain" variability of a construct
      4. Effect Size:
          The more a variable explains (i.e., accounts for) variability the better;
          Cyanide is effective…but some snake poisons are 4 times better (more
          effective in explaining who will die from them!)

III. Causality

       1. A causes B    A --> B
       2. But maybe it goes   A --> [C] --> B
           "C"  is a mediating variable; the effect of A on B depends upon the level of C;
            as we have more or less "C" we will observe changes in B for the same amount of A.
       3. Pathways are used to describe directions among variables; either direct, or indirect
       4. The K&B model describes pathways of variables based on the literature relating
           to marital quality and marital stability: The model asks -- What variables, in what
          combinations, allow us to predict to MQ or MS? If you ask your grandmother she will
         say eating broccoli is good for marriage. If you ask a 90 old man he will say smoking
         cigars will lead to a good marriage. Can you do better than that in your choice of variables?