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Scholarly Works (3 results)

  • Thesis
  • Peer Reviewed
UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations (2024)

Feeling connected to others, particularly our intimate partners, is closely tied to physical and mental health. Despite network theories predicting that intimate relationships influence our other social connections, and theories of intimate relationships predicting that connections to others should influence intimate partnerships, these two are rarely studied together. This dissertation demonstrates that these elements should be studied as interconnected entities influencing each other. Drawing on a variety of theoretical viewpoints and methodologies, this work consists of four interconnected chapters aimed at enhancing our understanding of how the social context impacts intimate bonds. The first chapter uses the new Social Ties and Intimate Relationships (STAIR) framework to review and synthesize research on the influence of networks on couple dynamics. I use this framework to organize a literature review of 140 peer-reviewed papers, highlighting methodological strengths and weaknesses, summarizing what scholars know about the influence of social networks on intimate relationships and vice versa, and suggesting future research directions. The second chapter addresses the impact of COVID-19 on social networks by documenting significant declines in both face-to-face and virtual interactions among a sample of mostly non-White couples living with lower incomes from before the pandemic through its first 18 months. The findings indicate that while affluent couples maintained more network relationships, especially virtually, the pandemic reduced social connections for most people even after the introduction of vaccines and the easing of distancing mandates. The third chapter addresses the finding that, although income is a known predictor of divorce, its correlation with marital satisfaction is weak. This study shows that the capacity to meet financial obligations is a more substantial predictor of marital satisfaction. Additionally, I find that the influence of financial status on satisfaction depends on how couples’ social connections are doing financially as well as how couples’ own income has changed over time. The final chapter examines whether moving homes affects couples' relationships. The analyses of this multi-study project based on interviews with nearly 700 couples during the early years of marriage suggest that moving is a normative transition that most couples navigate successfully without long-term damage to marital satisfaction.

    Cover page: Marriages in Their Socioecological Contexts: The Effects of Social Networks and Neighborhoods on Marital Outcomes
    • Article
    • Peer Reviewed
    UCLA Previously Published Works (2023)
    Marriage sanctifies the relationship between two spouses, but what happens to their relationships with family, friends, and others who comprise their social networks? Scholarly accounts disagree about whether couples networks strengthen, weaken, or remain stable in the years after marriage. To reconcile competing perspectives, marriage licenses from lower income communities were used to recruit 462 spouses (231 couples) in their first marriages. Each spouse independently provided data on 24 network members with whom they interact regularly (over 11,000 network members). These data were used to calculate 14 dimensions of each spouses social network, and networks were assessed in this way three times over the first 18 months of marriage. Over time, spouses networks grew to include more of each others family members, more married and financially secure individuals and more members with whom they reported good relationships. For husbands, proportions of their own friends and their wives friends declined. Proportions of own family and members providing support did not change. With rare exceptions, these changes were not moderated by premarital parenthood, cohabitation, or relationship duration. Thus, regardless of a couples premarital history, getting married itself appears to be associated with specific changes in spouses social networks. Yet whether those changes broaden or narrow their networks depends on where in the network one looks. Illuminating how relationships between spouses are shaped by relationships outside the marriage therefore requires multifaceted assessments that are capable of distinguishing among discrete elements of couples social networks. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).
      Cover page: Stability and change in newlyweds social networks over the first years of marriage.
      • Article
      • Peer Reviewed
      UCLA Previously Published Works (2022)
      Partners in intimate relationships, because they have each other to rely on, have generally been considered safe from the negative consequences of social isolation. Here, we question this assumption, suggesting instead that social isolation may pose a threat to couples by depriving them of the tangible and emotional support that couples are likely to need, especially when confronted by stress. After briefly reviewing theoretical frameworks relevant to this idea, this article summarizes existing research documenting (1) associations between network ties and relationship outcomes, (2) mediators of these associations, for example, support and approval, and (3) moderators of these associations, for example, relationship qualities and cultural differences. We conclude by describing a research agenda to address methodological limitations in existing research and the policy implications of this line of work.
        Cover page: The disconnected couple: intimate relationships in the context of social isolation
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