Newlyweds Tell their Stories: A Narrative Method for Assessing Marital Experiences

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Abstract
This article describes three coding systems used to analyze systematically joint narratives told by 344 black and white newlywed couples about the `story of their relationship', as part of a program of study of the early years of marriage. The first coding system of these accounts captures the affects mentioned in the stories; the second assesses husband-wife interactions in telling the stories; and the third identifies styles and themes characterizing both the overall story and specific substories within the narratives. A summary of results based on these coding schemes is outlined. Several narrative measures were found to be related to marital quality over time. A number of these measures help clarify ways in which black couples (n = 176) in comparison to white couples (n = 167) are alike and ways in which they are different. We discuss the role of these coding schemes for capturing `meaning-making' in story construction. In addition, we illustrate the possibility for analyzing changes in narrative memory and its connection to affective development in people.