Locus of Control and Marital Satisfaction

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Abstract
This study replicates, to some extent, the only two previous studies that had examined the relationship of locus of control and marital satisfaction (Mlott and Lira, 1977, and Doherty, 1980), whose findings indicated that when the wife was more externally oriented and the husband more internal there were high levels of marital dissatisfaction. Both studies had focused on young, recently married couples. The present study focused on older couples, 83 from rural and 98 from urban communities in southeastern Kansas, who had remained in marriages longer. Findings indicated that locus of control was indeed associated with marital satisfaction—the greater the internal locus of control for the wife, the higher the marital satisfaction—and that such an association is not an artifact of social desirability.