Correlates of expressed and felt emotion during marital conflict: Satisfaction, personality, process, and outcome

Relationships among marital satisfaction, personality, felt and expressed affects, and conflict resolution during conflict discussions of married couples were assessed. Specific affects were measured using a behavioral coding system (SPAFF) and a self-report measure (POMS). Correlations between behaviorally coded and self-reported affects varied across specific emotions. Generally, self-reported affects correlated more highly than expressed affects with conflict resolution, marital satisfaction, and neuroticism. Neuroticism correlated with wivesʹ felt and expressed affects and with husbandsʹ felt, but not expressed, negative affects. Extraversion correlated with husbandsʹ and wivesʹ expressed anger and with husbandsʹ self-reported anger. Felt and expressed negative affect correlated negatively with degree of reported conflict resolution.