Parenting styles, marital satisfaction and dyadic adjustment: an exploratory study

Abstract

This research intended to investigate possible relations among the perceived parental styles, marital satisfaction and dyadic adjustment. Altogether, 157 participants answered the following instruments: Marital Satisfaction Scale, Parenting styles Scale and the Dyadic Adjustment Sscale. The participants were couples who declared themselves married (legally or not). The main data regarding the parents’ demanding and responsiveness and the parental styles reveal that the participants who perceived their parents as demanding (r=0,20, p0,05) and responsiveness (r=0,19, p0,05) the most were the more cohesive couples and, the participants who perceived their parents (father and mother combined) with a more uninvolved style exhibited a low rate of marital satisfaction and the ones who perceived their parents as authoritative exhibited a high rate of marital satisfaction (c2=27, 947 gl=6, p0,01). The more dyadically adjusted couples (c2=54,752, gl=2, p0,01) were also the ones who exhibited a high rate of marital satisfaction. It was possible to conclude with such data the possible influence of the marital style perceived by the participants in the couple’s relationship, in the marital satisfaction and in the dyadic adjustment, as well as the clear correlations between aspects of the adjustment and the couple’s satisfaction, that is, the more adjusted the partners, the more satisfied. However, the data raise multiple questions to be answered indicating the relevance of the studies on the topic.

Keywords

• estilos parentais
• satisfação conjugal
• ajustamento diádico