Marital disclosure and marital satisfaction: Direct‐effect versus interaction‐effect models

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Abstract
This investigation assessed two competing hypotheses regarding the relationship between self‐disclosure in marriage and the marital satisfaction of husbands and wives: an interaction‐effect hypothesis, which suggests the relationship between self‐disclosure and marital satisfaction for either spouse is contingent on the level of self‐disclosure of the other, and a direct‐effect hypothesis, which suggests that the marital satisfaction of each spouse varies directly as a function of the level of self‐disclosure of both self and other in marriage. The simpler, lower‐order, direct‐effect hypothesis is concluded to account adequately for the data.