Relationships between Marital Satisfaction and Privacy Preferences

Abstract

The Spanier Dyadic Adjustment Scale and a shortened version of Marshall’s Privacy Preferences Scale were administered to 114 married couples living in the city of Sydney, Australia. Marital satisfaction (male, female and couple satisfaction) was regressed upon individual and couple difference scores in four areas of privacy preferences (solitude, reserve, not neighboring and intimacy). The results indicated that male satisfaction was associated with spouses’ low preference for Reserve and couple differences in respect to Solitude and Reserve. Female satisfaction was negatively associated with couple differences in Not Neighboring. Couple satisfaction was positively associated with wives’ low preference for Reserve and couple differences in preferences for Solitude.