The Dynamic Goal Theory of Marital Satisfaction

Tianyuan Li and Helene H. FungThe Chinese University of Hong Kong

Marital satisfaction is gaining increasing concern in modern society. The current review proposes thedynamic goal theory of marital satisfaction to integrate previous findings about marital satisfaction froma life span developmental perspective. The theory argues that people have multiple goals to achieve intheir marriage. These marital goals can be classified into three categories: personal growth goals,companionship goals, and instrumental goals. The priority of the three types of marital goals is underdynamic changes across adulthood. Generally speaking, young couples emphasize the personal growthgoals, middle-aged couples prioritize the instrumental goals, and old couples focus on the companionshipgoals. Whether the prioritized marital goals are achieved in marriage determines marital satisfaction.Other factors influencing marital satisfaction can be linked with marital goals in two ways. Some factors,such as life transitions and cultural values, can affect the priority of different marital goals; while otherfactors, such as communication pattern, problem solving, and attribution, can facilitate the achievementof the prioritized marital goals.

Keywords: marital goal, marital satisfaction, life span development

Nowadays, most people no longer consider marriage to be amust-fulfilled obligation. Instead, marriage becomes more volun-tary in nature and symbolizes the couple’s love and desire to betogether. In such a context, marital satisfaction becomes a keyfactor that strongly influences both quality and stability of mar-riages (Sternberg & Hojjat, 1997). Meanwhile, the process ofmarriage maintenance accompanies the process of each partner’spersonal growth. It is important to investigate the mechanismsunderlying marital satisfaction from a life span development per-spective. In the current review, we propose the dynamic goaltheory of marital satisfaction, which integrates the literature ofchanging goals across adulthood and that of marital satisfaction. Inthe following review, the definition of marital satisfaction is firstclarified. Then, the main points of the dynamic goal theory ofmarital satisfaction and how the theory is linked with previousempirical findings are introduced.

Definition of Marital Satisfaction

In the early years, many indices were used to evaluate mar-riages, such as marital success, marital stability, marital happiness,marital adjustment, marital quality, and marital satisfaction. Theseindices represented different but overlapping concepts, resulting inmuch confusion in relevant research (Bradbury, 1995; Fincham &Bradbury, 1987). In the dynamic goal theory of marital satisfac-tion, we define marital satisfaction as “people’s global subjectiveevaluation about the quality of their marriage”. Two aspects of thisdefinition need to be further clarified:

First, the current theory focuses on marital quality but notmarital stability. Low marital quality was once believed to be themost important reason for divorce. Similarly, endurable marriageswere assumed to have high marital quality (for a review, see Hicks& Platt, 1970). However, such beliefs were challenged when manystable but unsatisfactory marriages were found (e.g., Bauserman &Arias, 1992; Rhatigan, Moore, & Stuart, 2005; Rhatigan & Axsom,2006). In fact, marital quality is just one of the factors that affectmarital stability (Adams & Jones, 1999). In the investment model,Rusbult, Martz, and Agnew (1998) suggested that satisfaction,quality of alternatives, and investment size all contributed tocommitment level to the current relationship, which was the mostimportant determinant of marital stability (Le & Agnew, 2003).Stanley and Markman (1992) also distinguished between dedica-tion commitment and constraint commitment. The dedication com-mitment, which was about the personal willingness to maintain theongoing relationship, correlated highly with marital satisfaction.However, the constraint commitment, which was about the exter-nal forces to keep or dissolve a relationship, did not stronglycorrelate with marital satisfaction. In addition, Johnson, Caughlin,and Huston (1999) introduced moral commitment, which wasabout people’s moral beliefs about marriage and divorce. Thecurrent theory aims to discuss the mechanism of marital quality inongoing marriages across adulthood, but not marital stability orcommitment to the relationship. However, it is important to notethat it is the existence of the choice to divorce that makes couplesvalue marital satisfaction and always evaluate whether they aresatisfied in the marriage. If divorce were never an option, peoplewould care more about how to make the marriage work but notwhether they were satisfied with the marriage.

Second, the current review focuses on people’s global evalua-tion about marital quality instead of specific evaluations aboutparticular domains in marriage. People’s global feeling about themarriage determines the emotional “climate” of the relationshipand influences their ratings about the specific aspects of marriage(Hawkins, Carrere, & Gottman, 2002). This phenomenon is re-

This article was published Online First August 1, 2011.Tianyuan Li and Helene H. Fung, Department of Psychology, Chinese

University of Hong Kong, China.Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Tianyuan

Li, Department of Psychology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong,Room 323, Sino Building, Chung Chi College, Shatin, New Territories,Hong Kong. E-mail: tyli@psy.cuhk.edu.hk or tianyuanl@gmail.com

Review of General Psychology © 2011 American Psychological Association2011, Vol. 15, No. 3, 246–254 1089-2680/11/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0024694

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ferred as sentiment override (Weiss, 1980). Such global feeling isessential for successful functioning of marriage and couples’ sub-jective well-being. Thus, the global evaluation of marital quality iswidely accepted and recommended as the indicator of maritalquality in the research field (e.g., Bradbury, Fincham, & Beach,2000). Moreover, the term “marital satisfaction” is preferred to“marital quality” because it highlights the subjective nature of theconstruct. Although some previous instruments measure maritalquality as a multidimensional construct (e.g., Snyder, 1979;Spanier, 1976), they are criticized for including some determinantsof marital quality as components of marital quality, such as agree-ments/conflicts and communication (e.g., Bradbury, 1995; Fin-cham & Bradbury, 1987; Glenn, 1990; Huston & Robins, 1982). Incontrast, global measures of marital quality, such as the QualityMarriage Index (Norton, 1983) and the Kansas Marital SatisfactionScale (Schumm et al., 1986), have become more and more popular.Therefore, we focus on the global evaluation of marital quality,referred to as “marital satisfaction”, in the current review.

Introduction to the Dynamic Goal Theory ofMarital Satisfaction

Marital goal—the goals people want to attain in their mar-riage—is one of the core elements in the dynamic goal theory ofmarital satisfaction. The theory argues that whether marital goals,especially the prioritized ones, are achieved in the marriage is themost essential determinant of marital satisfaction. To be morespecific, the four key elements of the dynamic goal theory ofmarital satisfaction are listed here. First, people have multiplegoals that they want to achieve in their marriage. Second, thepriority of different marital goals changes dynamically acrossadulthood. Third, whether the prioritized marital goals in a certaindevelopmental stage are met in the marriage determines maritalsatisfaction. Fourth, other factors can also affect marital satisfac-tion by either changing the priority of different marital goals or byfacilitating the achievement of the prioritized marital goals. In thefollowing sections, we elaborate on each of these elements.

Marital Goals

This section first introduces the importance of goals in affectingbehaviors and well-being. Then, the classification of human goalsis reviewed, among which goals regarding social relationships areidentified as a major category. Lastly, the classification of maritalgoals is elucidated.

Importance of Goals

In a review about goal constructs in psychology, Austin andVancouver (1996) define goals “as internal representations ofdesired states, where states are broadly construed as outcomes,events, or processes” (p. 338). The content of goals is extremelydiverse, which can vary from a good quiz score to a peacefulworld. Most researchers agree that a hierarchy of goals can beestablished to organize various kinds of goals. High-order goalsare abstract, broad, and long-term, such as to strive for self-actualization (Maslow, 1943), or to approach one’s ideal self(Markus & Wurf, 1987). In contrast, lower-order goals are specific

and short-term, such as to master a second language or to get agood job. A higher-order goal can be specified into several lowerorder goals, and a single behavior can activate goals of differentorders simultaneously (Austin & Vancouver, 1996).

Once certain goals have been activated, various cognitive re-sources are directed to the motivated events. Attention and infor-mation processing can be biased to the intended target; perception,memory, and task performance can be enhanced when dealing withthe motivated events (Ford, 1987). For example, the research ofregulatory focus suggests that when the approach motivation isactivated, people have a stronger strive for success and are en-couraged more by positive models; whereas when the avoidancemotivation is activated, people try harder to prevent losses and arethreatened more by the negative models (Elliot, 2006; Higgins,1997; Shah, Higgins, & Friedman, 1998). The importance of goalsis further highlighted by self-determination theory’s suggestionthat intrinsic motivation has a greater effect in regulating behaviorsthan does external motivation (Deci & Ryan, 2000, 2002). Forexample, Grant (2008) reported that only intrinsic prosocial mo-tivation contributed to firefighters’ persistence and fundraisingcallers’ performance and productivity.

Moreover, when goals are not reached, psychological well-being can be hampered. In particular, Higgins (1987) suggestedthat when people’s ideal-self goals were not satisfied, they woulddevelop dejection-related negative emotions, such as disappoint-ment and frustration; whereas when people’s ought-self goals werenot satisfied, they would feel agitation-related negative emotions,such as guilty and fear. Similarly, Cheng (2004) studied goaldiscrepancies—to what extent people thought that their life goalswere not achieved—in three domains of life. He found that goaldiscrepancies explained age differences in life satisfaction, posi-tive affects, and negative affects. To conclude, activated goals candirect and regulate behaviors, and whether the activated goals areachieved can have a strong influence on well-being.

Classification of Human Goals

In order to obtain a clearer and more comprehensive view ofhuman goals, researchers have tried to classify the content ofhuman goals. For example, Austin and Vancouver (1996) di-vided human goals into two large categories, within-persongoals and person-environment goals. On the one hand, thewithin-person goals are directed toward internal feelings, whichare further sorted into three subcategories. The first subcategoryis affective goals, which are the goals to achieve or maintain acertain affective or physical state (e.g., excited, peaceful, orhealthy). The second subcategory is cognitive goals, which arethe goals aiming for desired cognitive process (e.g., explorationor creativity). The last subcategory is subjective organizationgoals, which are the goals to achieve self-integration and con-sistency. On the other hand, the person-environment goals areabout the interaction between oneself and other people or theenvironment, which also include three subcategories. The firstsubcategory is self-assertive social relationship goals. Thesegoals are about what people would like to fulfill for themselvesin social relationships, such as sense of control or individuality.In contrast, the second subcategory is integrative social rela-tionship goals. They are the goals people want to achieveinterpersonally within social relationships, such as sense of

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belongingness, commitment, and equity. The final subcategoryis task goals, which are the goals that people need to accomplishin order to finish different tasks, such as mastering new skills,gaining material property, and managing time and other re-sources.

Other than the above taxonomy, Nuttin and Lens (1985) clas-sified human goals in a different way in their manual of motiva-tional content analysis. Eight main categories of human goals,namely self, self-realization, realization, contact, exploration, tran-scendental, possessions, and leisure, were proposed. They alsofound that contact goals—goals regarding social relationships—constituted 39.5%, 39.7%, 31.9%, and 33.5% of the total reportedgoals in four independent studies with different samples and dif-ferent goal reporting methods. This finding suggests that goalsregarding interpersonal relationships constitute an essential part ofthe human goal system. Nuttin and Lens (1985) further distin-guished the goals regarding social interactions (i.e., contact goals)into three categories. The first contact goal category includes goalstoward others. To achieve these goals, people need to conductsome actions themselves. For example, the goals can be to main-tain intimate contact with others, to help others, or to cooperatewith others to obtain certain rewards. The second category is goalsfrom other. These goals are about the expected support fromothers, such as positive evaluation, affection, and instrumentalsupport. The last category of contact goals is goals for others,which are the goals that people set for the sake of others. Forinstance, a mother can wish her son to study in a prestigiousuniversity. This goal is not directly related to the mother herself.

In addition, Lang (2004) specifically summarized human goalsregarding social relationships based on a review of previous the-ories. He concluded that there were two general classes of socialgoals, the belonging goals and the social agency goals. The formercategory was about the emotional benefits people obtained fromsocial relationships, including sense of intimacy, security, andbelongingness; whereas the latter category was about the instru-mental benefits from social relationships, such as receiving supportor advice when in trouble.

To conclude, goals regarding social relationships compose alarge portion of human goals. As marital relationship is one of themost important and endurable social relationships, people shouldhave various goals which they want to achieve in their marriage. Inthe next section, we attempt to classify these marital goals.

Classification of Marital Goals

Based on the literature on human goals reviewed above, wepropose that marital goals can be classified into three categories:companionship goals, personal growth goals, and instrumentalgoals.

Companionship goals are about people’s needs for belonging-ness and relatedness in the marriage. Self-determination theorysuggests that the need for relatedness is one of the three basicpsychological needs of human being (Deci & Ryan, 2000, 2002).Similarly, the integrative social relationship goals (Austin & Van-couver, 1996) and the belonging goals (Lang, 2004) both refer topeople’s need to be related to others and are both regarded asimportant social relationship goals. Specifically in the maritalcontext, intimacy and commitment are two of the three compo-

nents of love in the triangular theory of love (Sternberg, 1986),which are both closely related to the companionship goals.

Personal growth goals are about people’s desire to improve oractualize oneself in the marriage. Social relationships are valuableresources for achieving personal goals. Fitzsimons and Shah(2008) found that activating a target goal enhanced the accessibil-ity and evaluation of social partners who could help with the targetgoal. Participants also reported higher closeness with social part-ners who were functional for their ongoing personal goals (Fitz-simons & Fishbach, 2010). Austin and Vancouver (1996) andLang (2004) both suggest that such self-serving goals constitute asignificant part of social relationship goals. Specifically in themarital context, expansion of the self—the process of acquiringnew identity, experience, knowledge, and social networks—hasbeen identified as an essential element for initiating and maintain-ing marriage (Aron & Aron, 1986; Aron & Aron, 1996; Aron,Norman, Aron, & Lewandowski, 2002). Moreover, a good mar-riage facilitates people’s striving for personal goals. The spousecan help the individual to achieve his or her ideal self throughaffirmation of that ideal self, which is termed the “Michelangelophenomenon” (Drigotas, Rusbult, Wieselquist, & Whitton, 1999;Rusbult, Finkel, & Kumashiro, 2009). Such phenomenon is par-ticularly evident when the two partners’ ideal selves are similar toeach other (Rusbult, Kumashiro, Kubacka, & Finkel, 2009). Inaddition, it is found that many people have positive illusions abouttheir spouse (Miller, Niehuis, & Huston, 2006; Murray, Holmes, &Griffin, 1996a). Interestingly, such positive illusions can be real-ized by the spouse longitudinally (Murray, Holmes, & Griffin,1996b). To conclude, the personal growth goals make up animportant part of marital goals. Marriage is not only about thecouple and the relationship, but also is there to provide a support-ive environment for personal growth.

Instrumental goals are about the practical nature of marriage.Spouses need to share household labor and responsibilities witheach other, such as housework, managing family finance, andraising children. On the one hand, instrumental support from thespouse contributes to marital quality (Cutrona, 1996; Mickelson,Claffey, & Williams, 2006). On the other hand, unfair division ofhousehold labor is a major source of marital conflict, especially inmodern dual-earner families (Frisco & Williams, 2003; Lavee &Katz, 2002; Wilkie, Ferree, & Ratcliff, 1998). Thus, meetinginstrumental goals is also a necessary part of a successful marriage.

To conclude, companionship goals, personal growth goals, andinstrumental goals are the three components of marital goals.Although they are all important, the priority of the three types ofmarital goals changes across adulthood.

Changing Priority of Marital Goals Across Adulthood

In this section, we first introduce the literature on the changingpriority of human goals across the life span. Then, the changingpriority of different marital goals across adulthood is discussed.

In Heckhausen and Schulz’s (1995) life span theory of control,they distinguished between primary control and secondary control.Primary control aims at changing the external world to fit oneself,whereas secondary control is about changing oneself to adjust tothe external world. The goals about primary control diminish inlater adulthood because of increased physical constraints. How-ever, the goals about secondary control increase in older age so

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that the total sense of control does not drop in later adulthood. Inother words, in early adulthood, people strive to change the outsideworld; whereas in older adulthood, people aim more to regulatetheir internal feelings. Similarly, Brandtstadter and colleaguessuggest that while young adults focus more on assimilative goals,which is to change the reality to fit one’s own goals, older adultsfocus more on accommodative goals, which is to adapt one’s ownexpectations according to the reality (Brandtstadter & Renner,1992; Brandtstadter & Rothermund, 2002). The socioemotionalselectivity theory (Carstensen, 2006; Carstensen, Isaacowitz, &Charles, 1999) also argues that when people perceive the future asopen-ended (usually when they are young), they emphasize moreon knowledge-related goals, which is to acquire knowledge andresource from social relationships. Such goals can prepare peoplefor the coming future. In contrast, when people perceive the futureas limited (usually when they are old), their priority shifts toemotional meaningful goals, which is to seek positive emotionsfrom social relationships. Such goals can help people to deriveemotion meaning from life and to maintain a positive mood at thepresent.

Other work has been done on older people’s increased selectiv-ity of personal goals. According to the selective optimization withcompensation (SOC) theory (Baltes, 1997), there are gains andlosses in each developmental stage. The gain versus loss balancebecomes negative in later adulthood as a result of decreasedbiological plasticity. Thus, older adults pay more effort in regu-lating the losses in life, in order to maintain optimal functioning.One typical strategy is to select the most important goals forthemselves (i.e., selection) and to optimize their achievement ofthese selected goals (i.e., optimization) with compromises in otheraspects of life (i.e., compensation). In addition, following theself-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000, 2002), Sheldon andcolleagues (2004) suggested that pursuing self-concordant goals,which were driven by one’s own interests and values, were ben-eficial to well-being. There is evidence showing that as peoplegrow older, they have more self-concordant goals (Sheldon, 2009;Sheldon & Kasser, 2001).

To summarize, in later adulthood, people shift their focus fromthe external world to their internal feelings. Rather than trying tomodify the external environment, they are more likely to set goalsaccording to their own interests and pay more effort in regulatingtheir internal feelings (Gross et al., 1997). Regarding social rela-tionship goals in particular, Lang (2004) proposed the goal-resource-congruence model, which argued that people would in-crease their seeking for belonging goals and decrease their seekingfor social agency goals in later adulthood. The reason is thatdevelopmental resources become more limited in older age withrestrained future time perspective. Faced with various irreversiblelosses in older adulthood, people are highly motivated to seekcomfort and company from social relationships.

Similarly, we propose that marital goals, as a special type ofsocial relationship goals, are also susceptible to developmentalchanges. To begin with, the priority of personal growth goals ishigh in young adulthood and gradually declines as people growolder. As mentioned before, personal growth goals are about theimprovement and expansion of oneself with the spouse’s help. Theaccomplishment of these goals can help people become morecompetent for challenges in the future. Consistent with the socio-emotional selectivity theory (Carstensen et al., 1999; Carstensen,

2006), these marital goals should be especially emphasized byyoung adults, who have a long future waiting for them. As peoplegrow older and future time becomes more limited, the importanceof personal growth goals goes down. In fact, prior studies on theimportance of self-expansion in marriage or the Michelangelophenomenon were conducted with young couples (Drigotas et al.,1999; Fraley & Aron, 2004; Rusbult, Kumashiro et al., 2009). Wehypothesize that such effects would decrease when future studiesinclude older couples.

On the contrary, the priority of companionship goals is low inearly adulthood and steadily increases as people get older. Thisargument is consistent with prior theories and empirical findingsthat people increasingly focus on secondary control (Schulz &Heckhausen, 1996) and emotional meaningful goals (Carstensen,2006) as they grow older. Similarly, Lang (2004) suggests that theimportance of belonging goals gradually increases across adult-hood. It is also reported that older adults especially value their timewith close partners because of their limited future time perspective(Fredrickson & Carstensen, 1990; Fung, Carstensen, & Lutz,1999). Thus, we hypothesize that the need to be bonded with thespouse is particularly salient in older adulthood, but less so in theyounger age.

Lastly, we hypothesize that the priority of instrumental goals isthe highest during middle adulthood and is relatively lower in bothearly and late adulthood. Middle-aged couples are faced withheavy responsibilities from family and/or work, including raisingchildren, taking care of older parents and/or fulfilling job require-ments. The various tasks compete for their limited physical andmental resources, resulting in lowered life satisfaction (Allen,Herst, Bruck, & Sutton, 2000; Kossek & Ozeki, 1998). Thus, theneed for spouse’s help with instrumental tasks should be thehighest during middle adulthood, whereas such need is compara-tively lower in early and late adulthood.

The above dynamic changes of the priorities of the three kindsof marital goals across adulthood are summarized in Figure 1. Thefigure shows that personal growth goals are predominantly impor-tant during early adulthood, whereas companionship goals are themost salient in later adulthood. In middle adulthood, althoughinstrumental goals have the highest priority, the other two types ofgoals are also activated to some extent.

Figure 1. Changing priority of the three types of marital goals acrossadulthood.

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Dynamic Marital Goals and Marital Satisfaction

The next question is how the dynamic marital goals are relatedto marital satisfaction. The short answer is that marital satisfactionis determined by whether the marital goals, especially the priori-tized ones during a certain developmental stage, are satisfied in themarriage.

Previous studies have found that whether marital expectations orneeds are met influences marital satisfaction (e.g., Campbell,Simpson, Kashy, & Fletcher, 2001; Dainton, 2000; Fletcher, Simp-son, & Thomas, 2000; Kelley & Burgoon, 1991; Michalos, 1986).For example, Kelley and Burgoon (1991) reported that whether thespouse’s behaviors met with one’s marital expectations was astronger predictor of marital satisfaction than the agreement be-tween spouses. Moreover, different relationship expectations werefound to affect relationship quality with varying strength. Camp-bell and colleagues (2001) investigated the interplay between (a)the discrepancy between ideals for the romantic partner and theperception of the actual partner, (b) the flexibility of such ideals,and (c) relationship satisfaction. They found that whether thepartner could fulfill the ideal expectations was more influential torelationship satisfaction for the ideals that were inflexible. Simi-larly, we suggest that each type of marital goals does not influencemarital satisfaction with the same magnitude. It is the prioritizedmarital goals during a certain period that has the greatest impact onmarital satisfaction.

Previous studies have also identified that explicit and implicitgoals have different effects on well-being (e.g., Brunstein, Schul-theiss, & Grassmann, 1998). Implicit goals or motives are rootedin human nature, thus pursuing these goals can directly lead togratification (Brunstein et al., 1998). However, explicit goals arenot always consistent with implicit goals. In fact, striving for theexplicit goals that are incongruent with the implicit goals canimpair subjective well-being (Baumann, Kaschel, & Kuhl, 2005;Hofer, Chasiotis, & Campos, 2006; Langens, 2007). We suggestthat the three types of marital goals and their changing priorityacross adulthood are rooted in human nature. Human being isevolved to enjoy the novel experience and strong emotions broughtby the romantic partner during early adulthood, to focus on raisinga family together with the spouse during middle adulthood, and toenjoy each other’s company during late adulthood. No matterwhether people are aware of the prioritized marital goals, pursuingand achieving these goals would be the major source of maritalsatisfaction. In addition, as the changing priority of such maritalgoals is closely associated with developmental stages, the keyfactor here is age, not the duration of marriage. For instance,couples that get married in their late adulthood might emphasizecompanionship goals right from the beginning of their marriages.

Another noteworthy point is that the achievement of maritalgoals is a two-way process. For example, when personal growthgoals are prioritized, what matters to marital satisfaction is notonly whether people’s own personal growth goals can be fulfilledin the marriage, but also whether they have the ability to help theirspouse to fulfill his or her personal growth goals. This is consistentwith Nuttin and Lens’ (1985) idea that people have both goals fromothers and goals toward others. Moreover, Mills and Clark (1994)suggest that people’s primary concern in marriage, a typical com-munal relationship, is to meet each other’s needs. Thus, whenpeople sense that a certain goal is desirable, they may not only seek

the goal for themselves but also provide opportunities for thespouse to fulfill that goal. Whether they can succeed in helping thespouse to fulfill that goal also influences their marital satisfaction.This argument is consistent with empirical evidence suggestingthat providing support to others is as important as, if not moreimportant than, receiving support from others for maintainingsubjective well-being (Brown, Nesse, Vinokur, & Smith, 2003; DeJong Gierveld & Dykstra, 2008; Thomas, 2010).

Lastly, previous studies have examined the change of maritalsatisfaction longitudinally. Many studies found that marital satis-faction is high at the beginning of the marriage, starts to drop afterthe honeymoon, and drops intensively after the birth of first child(e.g., Belsky & Rovine, 1990; Johnson & Bradbury, 1999; Kurdek,1999, 2005). Some studies also found that marital satisfactionrebounded in later adulthood (e.g., Gorchoff, John, & Helson,2008; Henry, Berg, Smith, & Florsheim, 2007; Levenson,Carstensen, & Gottman, 1994; Smith et al., 2009). The currenttheory provides a possible explanation for such life span variationof marital satisfaction. According to the changing priority ofdifferent marital goals across adulthood (see Figure 1), the threetypes of marital goals are all activated to some extent duringmiddle adulthood. Middle-aged couples need to fulfill all types ofmarital goals to obtain marital satisfaction, whereas young andolder couples only need to meet one type of marital goals that ispredominant. Moreover, the most prioritized instrumental goals formiddle-aged couples are comparatively more difficult to achievethan the other two types of marital goals. Personal growth goalsand companionship goals are relatively subjective and easier toachieve by secondary control strategies, such as selective attention,reappraisal, and downward comparison (Heckhausen & Schulz,1995; Schulz & Heckhausen, 1996). On the contrary, instrumentalgoals have relatively more objective standards and it is hard toreappraise the situation if such needs are not satisfied. For exam-ple, if a couple disagree about whether they should have children,they cannot resolve this problem only with positive reappraisal. Ina word, multiple marital goals may cause middle adulthood to bethe most demanding period for married couples. This may be onereason why middle-aged couples report a relatively lower level ofmarital satisfaction compared to younger and older couples.

Marital Goals and Other Influencing Factors ofMarital Satisfaction

Although marital goals are critical in determining marital satis-faction, they are not independent from other influencing factors ofmarital satisfaction. In previous studies, many factors have beenreported to influence marital satisfaction (for a review, see Brad-bury et al., 2000), including intrapersonal factors (e.g., personal-ity), interpersonal factors (e.g., communication between the cou-ple, attribution of the other’s behavior, and personality similaritiesbetween the couple), microenvironmental factors (e.g., parents’marital satisfaction, presence of the children, and social network ofthe couple), and macroenvironmental factors (e.g., economic cli-mate of the neighborhood and government policies). Karney andBradbury (1995) also proposed the vulnerability-stress-adaptationmodel of marriage to integrate these different factors. The modelargues that the couple’s enduring vulnerability, the stressful eventsin environment, and the adaptive processes to environmentalchanges interact with one another and jointly influence marital

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quality and stability. The final part of the dynamic goal theory ofmarital satisfaction is about the relationship between marital goalsand other influencing factors of marital satisfaction. We suggestthat these influencing factors can be divided into two categoriesaccording to how they are related to marital goals.

First, in addition to age, there are other factors that can alter thepriority of different marital goals. At the micro level, for example,how the birth of children may impact marital satisfaction has beenstudied for a long time (Bradbury et al., 2000; Glenn, 1990). Thegeneral consensus is that the presence of children reduces maritalsatisfaction (Belsky & Rovine, 1990) but enhances marital stability(Waite & Lillard, 1991). The birth of children adds a dramaticamount of instrumental work to the couple (i.e., taking care of thebaby) and draws much of the their attention. Thus, the priority ofinstrumental goals might increase after the birth of children. Sim-ilarly, other stressors or transitions in life can also shift the priorityof marital goals. After the transition to retirement, for instance,people may suddenly have more time with the spouse and arefaced with less instrumental demand (Brubaker, 1990). This maylower the priority of instrumental goals and enhance the priority ofcompanionship goals. Moreover, financial pressure can cause in-strumental goals to be more highly prioritized, as basic needsbecome more salient in such situations (Conger et al., 1990;Cutrona et al., 2003; Vinokur, Price, & Caplan, 1996).

At the macro level, the priority of marital goals is also influ-enced by historical and cultural factors. Beliefs about marriagevary across cultures and historical periods. The idea that marriagesshould be based on romantic love did not prevail until the 20thcentury (Shumway, 2003; Sternberg & Hojjat, 1997). Before that,marriage was mostly believed to be an institution where a man anda woman cooperated to raise a new family, and the ultimate goalwas to make the family thrive. It was less about the emotionalattachment between the couple, and more about the alliance of thecouple’s original families. Hence, the priority of instrumentalgoals should be higher in older times than in modern societies.Moreover, there are cultural differences in beliefs about marriageeven during the same historical period. For example, arrangedmarriages are still prevalent in some cultures nowadays (Simon &Altstein, 2003; Stockard, 2002). People get married not because ofromantic attraction but because of mutual agreement betweensenior relatives (usually parents) of the couple. Such an arrange-ment is usually based on objective standards, such as social statusand wealth. Thus, for marriages in these cultures, instrumentalgoals are again more prioritized. To conclude, the final priority ofdifferent marital goals is the result of the integrative impacts ofboth micro and macro factors and is always under dynamicchanges.

Then, once the priority of marital goals is set, other factors maybe adjusted to match with the prioritized marital goals, and tofacilitate the achievement of these goals. In the following part, weelaborate on three of these factors. To begin with, couples’ com-munication pattern is susceptible to the influence of prioritizedmarital goals. For example, Carstensen, Gottman, and Levenson(1995) asked couples to discuss a long-term disagreement in theirmarriage. Older couples displayed more affection than did middle-aged couples, whereas middle-aged couples showed more interest,humor, disgust, and belligerence during the discussion. Based onthe same sample, Levenson and colleagues (1994) further foundthat older couples were less physiologically aroused during the

conflict resolution process than did middle-aged couples. Oldercouples also reported less potential conflicts and more sources ofpleasure in their marriage, compared with middle-aged couples(Levenson, Carstensen, & Gottman, 1993). Taking marital goalsinto consideration, the reason why older couples are more affec-tionate with their spouses and are less physiologically arousedduring communication about marital disagreement may be thatthey prioritize companionship goals. According to the theory,older couples may be more likely to cherish the affection with theirspouse and to be warm and nice to each other. Supporting theabove argument, older adults used pronouns referring to the couple(i.e., we-ness) more often than did middle aged couples whilediscussing marital problems. The use of we-ness pronouns wasalso related to lower physiological arousal and more positive affect(Seider, Hirschberger, Nelson, & Levenson, 2009). In contrast,with their prioritized instrumental goals, middle-aged couples maybe more practical and focus more on how to settle the disagree-ments. Thus, middle-aged couples were found to display moreinterest and negative affect during the marital problem discussion,so that they could be more focused on the disagreement and findways to solve the problem (Carstensen et al., 1995). Moreover,probably because the prioritized instrumental goals urged them tosolve the problems, middle-aged couples were more physiologi-cally involved in the disagreement discussion (Levenson et al.,1994).

Similarly, prioritized marital goals can influence problem solv-ing strategies in marriage. In one study (Blanchard-Fields, Stein,& Watson, 2004), participants were asked to generate some familyproblems with either high or low emotional salience. Then theywere asked how they dealt with those problems. The result wasthat older adults used more passive emotion regulation strategieswhereas middle-aged adults used more proactive emotion regula-tion strategies to solve family problems with high emotion sa-lience. Such age differences in problem solving can also poten-tially be explained by age differences in marital goals. As olderadults’ primary marital goals are companionship goals, they maynot want to initiate conflicts with their spouse. Thus they may usepassive emotion regulation strategies to avoid the negative emo-tions without changing the spouse’s attitude or behavior. However,for middle-aged adults with prioritized instrumental goals, theymay focus more on the practical aspects of social relationships andare more motivated to change the spouse to fit their own needs.This may be why they prefer the proactive emotion regulationstrategies.

Lastly, people’s attribution about marital events can be used tofacilitate the achievement of prioritized marital goals. For exam-ple, Karney and Bradbury (2000) investigated the growth curve ofattribution in newlywed couples longitudinally for about fouryears. Their results demonstrated that negative attributions tendedto increase during the first four years of marriage. These negativeattributions may occur as a result of the correspondence bias(Gilbert & Malone, 1995). People tend to attribute others’ negativebehaviors to dispositional and generalized reasons even when thesituational reasons are quite salient; however, such a bias does notexist when people make attributions about themselves. For youngcouples, their focus on personal growth goals may lead them toinclude the spouse in their own self construal as a way of self-expansion (Aron et al., 2002; Aron & Aron, 1996). Thus, they maybe less susceptible to the correspondence bias (because the spouse

251DYNAMIC MARITAL GOALS

is now part of themselves) and make fewer negative attributionsabout their spouse’s behaviors. However, as time passes by, thecouples may shift their focus gradually to instrumental goals. Thespouse’s practical use may become more salient. Thus people maytreat their spouse more like an “outsider” and be more susceptibleto the correspondence bias, leading to more negative attributions ofthe spouse’s behaviors.

To summarize, marital goals interact with many other factors toaffect marital satisfaction. By introducing the marital goal conceptinto the marital satisfaction research, the dynamic goal theory ofmarital satisfaction provides a new way to integrate various influ-encing factors of marital satisfaction.

Conclusion

The dynamic goal theory of marital satisfaction suggests thatthere are three types of marital goals: personal growth goals,instrumental goals, and companionship goals. The relative impor-tance of different marital goals is under dynamic changes acrossadulthood. In general, young couples emphasize personal growthgoals, middle-aged couples prioritize instrumental goals, and oldcouples focus on companionship goals. The relative importance ofmarital goals is also under the impact of other factors, such as lifetransitions and cultural values. Prioritized marital goals can furtheraffect marital interaction patterns to facilitate the achievement ofmarital satisfaction. As far as we know, the current theory is thefirst one to integrate the life span developmental view into themarital satisfaction research. It provides a parsimonious way tointegrate previous research about marital satisfaction from thedevelopmental perspective, and contributes to both the literatureon marriage and that on life span development. Various influenc-ing factors of marital satisfaction are now organized around thecentral concept of marital goal. The general life span developmen-tal theories are applied to the specific context of marriage. More-over, the classification of marital goals, the changing priority ofmarital goals across adulthood, and the relationship between mar-ital goals and other influencing factors of marital satisfactionprovide promising directions for empirical investigations in thefuture.

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Received February 7, 2011Revision received June 13, 2011

Accepted June 14, 2011 �

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