Received: from piglet.cc.utexas.edu (piglet.cc.utexas.edu [128.83.42.61]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.6/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with ESMTP id RAA11088 for ; Thu, 20 Mar 1997 17:02:30 -0700 (MST) Received: from localhost (mcree@localhost) by piglet.cc.utexas.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/piglet.mc-1.4) with SMTP id SAA03406 for ; Thu, 20 Mar 1997 18:02:29 -0600 (CST) Date: Thu, 20 Mar 1997 18:02:27 -0600 (CST) From: nick mcree X-Sender: mcree@piglet.cc.utexas.edu Reply-To: nick mcree To: Sociology Graduate Students -- International Subject: Re: Help on Social Change In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I agree with the post that advised caution with operationalization of "marital tension." Michael Lucas suggests that you try "Marital Satisfaction," and this is a plausible idea. I should note, however, that there is a general consensus about the fact that marital satisfaction is not the same as "marital happiness." What exactly are you interested to know? (For example, a person could be satisfied with [the status of] being married, but register varying levels of happiness about their marriage.) See the work of Norval Glenn on this point. He has used the GSS very effectively to make this point, and you might wish to model your own work to incorporate the better parts of his. Good luck. nick -------------------------------- Nick McRee Department of Sociology 336 Burdine Hall The University of Texas--Austin Austin, Texas 78712-1088 Phone: (512) 471-1122 Fax: (512) 471-1748