Marital Representations on Relationship Quality in Pregnant Unmarried Cohabiters

Abstract

In this study, I evaluate the influence of marital representations' on relationship quality. The sample I use here is drawn from the co=unity, in which participants were pregnant, unmarried, and living together (N=IOI). Marital representations include both what cohabitors remember about their parents' romantic relationship (content), as well as how these cohabitors make sense of these memories (insight). For marital representations, I used effects coding to form distinct groups: cohabitors with positive memories about their parents' marriage with lower insight into their own and their parents' relationship (positive unaware); cohabitors withnega1ive memories about their parents' marriage with lower insight (negative unaware); and cohabitors with negative memories about their parents' marriage with higher insight (negative aware). [The base group here was cohabitors with positive memories about their parents' marriage with higher insight (positive aware)]. I used proc mixed in SAS to perform my analyses. As expected, I found that cohabitors with negative memories with low levels of insight reported the lowest relationship quality. Unexpectedly, cohabitors with positive memories with lower levels of insight reported high relationship quality. Finally, and also unexpectedly, cohabitors with negative memories with higher levels of insight had no significant associations with relationship quality. In sum, the information from this study can be influential for pregnant unmarried cohabitors as they expand their family.