A replicative study of the measurement of marital strain utilizing the rank-ordering technique

Abstract

Investigation of the effects of inconsistencies in role performances and role expectations between spouses constituted the research problem. The major purpose of the study was to replicate a previous research effort in that area. Nathan Hurvitz's, The Measurement of Marital Strain (1960), was the study selected.

The problem was approached by using "marital strain" as a sensitizing concept, and through the technique of allowing spouses to rank-order roles comprising role-sets of both their own and that of their spouse. Thus, the basic instrument of the study was the Marital Roles Inventory which listed roles in each spouse's role-set in random order, and which yielded two sets of findings: By the "Index of Strain" the difference was measured between the performances and expectations of spouses; by the "Index of Deviation," the difference was measured between the rank-order assigned to roles by a given subject and the total sample's modal rank-ordering of the same set of roles.

Fifteen associations of variables were used to test the hypotheses; fourteen of these yielded findings similar to those of the Hurvitz study (Fisher's z transformation test on the correlations obtained in both studies was used). Major conclusions of the study were: a) Lack of strain in the performance of the husbands' roles is associated with both the husbands' and wives' marital satisfaction, b) there is a direct relationship between husbands' and wives' Indexes of Strain, and c) absence of strain for wives appears to be associated with a rank-order of role performances which is like that of other wives.