The Prediction of Adjustment in Marriage

Abstract

THE PROBLEM. We do not feel it necessary to justify an effort J to increase skill in guessing right about the future. Particularly is this true of fields of experience wherein correct guesses are relevant to immediate acts of personal adjustment. Hence without apology we submit a brief outline of an exploratory effort at predicting adjustment in marriage. Briefly stated, the problem in this study was to discover what prediction as to adjustments in marriage could be made from a knowledge of certain items in the background of prospective husbands and wives. The background items selected were those which would not require the subtle powers of the psychologist or psychiatrist to detect, but were chosen purposely on the basis of the ease with which the information could be elicited from persons willing to co-operate in the study. Such a choice of items should in no sense be taken to imply that we discount the importance of more elusive psychological and physiological factors in marital adjustment. Indeed, in the work of collecting schedule data we accumulated information on personality factors in marital adjustment that appeared more basic than any of the items on our schedules. We wish to reiterate, however, that we were after background material which would be easily obtainable and which could be used for predicting the probabilities of successful adjustment in marriage. A precise description of the relationships obtaining between