PREINTERACTION EXPECTATIONS, MARITAL SATISFACTION, AND ACCESSIBILITY - A NEW LOOK AT SENTIMENT OVERRIDE

This study investigated spouse expectations immediately prior to a mar ital interaction and also examined whether the accessibility of evalua tive judgments about the partner and the marriage advances understandi ng of marital satisfaction and its correlates. Ninety-two couples part icipated in the study. As hypothesized, marital satisfaction correlate d with preinteraction expectations of partner behavior and with curren t affect, and expected partner behavior mediated the relation between satisfaction and affect. Response latency to make evaluative judgments of the partner and the marriage moderated the relation between satisf action and expected partner behavior for husbands. The findings are in tegrated with basic research on attitudes, and their clinical implicat ions are outlined.