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Marital Satisfaction
Definition
Marital satisfaction is a mental state that reflects the perceived benefits and costs of marriage to a particular person. The more costs a marriage partner inflicts on a person, the less satisfied one generally is with the marriage and with the marriage partner. Similarly, the greater the perceived benefits are, the more satisfied one is with the marriage and with the marriage partner.
Components and Mechanisms
Cognition
In perceiving whether a spouse's behavior is costly or beneficial, cognitions, or thoughts about the behavior, are important. If one's spouse performs a negative (costly) behavior, this may be attributed either to characteristics of the spouse (for example, he or she is lazy), or instead to circumstances surrounding the spouse's behavior (for example, it was an especially taxing day at work, ...
- Action Control
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- Interdependence Theory
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- Nonverbal Cues and Communication
- Ostracism
- Pornography
- Propinquity
- Rejection
- Romantic Love
- Romantic Secrecy
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- Self-Evaluation Maintenance
- Self-Expansion Theory
- Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
- Sex Drive
- Sexual Desire
- Sexual Economics Theory
- Similarity-Attraction Effect
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- Prisoner's Dilemma
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- Recency Effect
- Representativeness Heuristic
- Risk Taking
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- Sequential Choice
- Simulation Heuristic
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- Spreading of Alternatives
- Sunk Cost
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- Autobiographical Narratives
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- Apparent Mental Causation
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- Basking in Reflected Glory (BIRGing)
- Brainwashing
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- Collective Self
- Contingencies of Self-Worth
- Deindividuation
- Downward Social Comparison
- Ego Shock
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- Facial-Feedback Hypothesis
- Identity Crisis
- Illusion of Control
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- Impression Management
- Independent Self-Construals
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- Introspection
- Looking-Glass Self
- Mental Control
- Mere Ownership Effect
- Misattribution of Arousal
- Moral Development
- Mortality Salience
- Name Letter Effect
- Objectification Theory
- Optimal Distinctiveness Theory
- Overjustification Effect
- Personal Space
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- Positive Illusions
- Procrastination
- Projection
- Psychological Entitlement
- Reactance
- Regulatory Focus Theory
- Roles and Role Theory
- Schemas
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- Self-Affirmation Theory
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- Self-Awareness
- Self-Categorization Theory
- Self-Complexity
- Self-Concept
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- Self-Control Measures
- Self-Deception
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- Self-Determination Theory
- Self-Disclosure
- Self-Discrepancy Theory
- Self-Efficacy
- Self-Enhancement
- Self-Esteem
- Self-Esteem Stability
- Self-Evaluation Maintenance
- Self-Expansion Theory
- Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
- Self-Handicapping
- Self-Monitoring
- Self-Perception Theory
- Self-Presentation
- Self-Promotion
- Self-Reference Effect
- Self-Regulation
- Self-Reports
- Self-Serving Bias
- Self-Stereotyping
- Self-Verification Theory
- Social Comparison
- Social Identity Theory
- Spotlight Effect
- Stigma
- Symbolic Self-Completion
- Terror Management Theory
- Threatened Egotism Theory of Aggression
- Uniqueness
- Value Priorities
- Zeal
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- Accessibility
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- Action Identification Theory
- Actor–Observer Asymmetries
- Adaptive Unconscious
- Alcohol Myopia Effect
- Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic
- Assimilation Processes
- Associative Networks
- Attention
- Attribution Theory
- Attributional Ambiguity
- Attributions
- Automatic Processes
- Availability Heuristic
- Bad Is Stronger Than Good
- Barnum Effect
- Base Rate Fallacy
- Basking in Reflected Glory (BIRGing)
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- Confirmation Bias
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- Hot Hand Effect
- Illusory Correlation
- Implicit Personality Theory
- Inference
- Integrative Complexity
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- Lay Epistemics
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- Mimicry
- Mind-Wandering
- Misattribution of Arousal
- Moral Emotions
- Moral Reasoning
- Motivated Cognition
- Motivated Reasoning
- MUM Effect
- Nonconscious Processes
- Norms, Prescriptive and Descriptive
- Omission Neglect
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- Personality Judgments, Accuracy of
- Person-Positivity Heuristic
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- Primacy Effect, Attribution
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- Priming
- Projection
- Prototypes
- Recency Effect
- Responsibility Attribution
- Risk Appraisal
- Salience
- Satisficing
- Schemas
- Scripts
- Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
- Self-Reference Effect
- Self-Serving Bias
- Self-Verification Theory
- Shifting Standards
- Similarity-Attraction Effect
- Social Categorization
- Social Cognition
- Social Cognitive Neuroscience
- Social Comparison
- Social Impact Theory
- Social Projection
- Spontaneous Trait Inferences
- Spreading of Alternatives
- Subliminal Perception
- Subtyping
- Symbolic Interactionism
- Theory of Mind
- Thin Slices of Behavior
- Three-Dimensional Model of Attribution
- Transactive Memory
- Value Pluralism Model
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