Implicit Theories of Marital Relationships: A Grounded Theory of Socialization Influences

A qualitative study was conducted in an Eastern European university, involving 16 participants from functional and dysfunctional families who participated in semistructured interviews about the development of their implicit theories of a happy marital relationship. The students shared their ideas of a happy marriage, their parents’ marriage, including the level of happiness, conflict and other issues, what they thought were major influences on the formation of their ideas of marriage including exploration of the role of fiction media. The following major socialization influences emerged as themes: parental relationship, individual parental characteristics, observation of other relationships, gender role ideology, education, media, and experiences of own relationships.