Term of Award

Spring 2020

Degree Name

Master of Science in Experimental Psychology (M.S.)

Document Type and Release Option

Thesis (open access)

Copyright Statement / License for Reuse

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Department

Department of Psychology

Committee Chair

Janice Steirn

Committee Member 1

Jessica Brooks

Committee Member 2

Dorthie Cross

Abstract

The goal of this research study is to assist in filling the gap in research on military spouses, beyond deployment and employment issues. Marital satisfaction is a known factor in service member retention and job performance, however very little research on what aspects may be related to military spouse marital satisfaction has been conducted. Military communities have been shown to be an important source of social support for military spouses, however few studies have considered spouses’ involvement in their larger communities. This study’s hypothesis states that a relationship between military spouses’ marital satisfaction and their community engagement off-base exists. The participants were 93 female Army spouses, mostly stationed at either Ft. Stewart or Ft. Benning, GA. These spouses responded to a survey which included measures on marital satisfaction, social support, stress, personality, in-group identity, demographics, and community engagement. The main form of analysis was a two-tailed Pearson’s correlation. Analysis did not find a significant relationship between the spouses’ marital satisfaction and their community engagement off-base. However, social support, stress, and the personality factors of extraversion and openness to experience were both significantly related to martial satisfaction. Community engagement was significantly related to base location, living location, and the number of times the spouses’ moved due to military orders. Limitations to this study included issues with the measures, survey demand characteristics, and the necessity of some researcher coding. Even so, both the nonsignificant and significant results can be used to broaden researchers’ understanding of military spouses and their needs.

OCLC Number

1157347523

Research Data and Supplementary Material

No

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