A Life Perspective Comparison of Married and Divorced Persons

Abstract

Altman and Taylor's (1973) theory of social penetration predicts that attitudes will be related to marital dissolution. Opinions from the National Opinion Research Center's 1976 General Social Survey were factor-analyzed and four attitude factors were identified: life satisfaction, trust, optimism, and political conservatism. These attitudes significantly differentiated remarried, married, divorced and never-married groups, after statistically controlling for background variables that previous research has identified as being related to marital status. Divorced people were less satisfied with life, more liberal, and less optimistic than were those who were never divorced. Background factors that were related to divorce included parental divorce, size of current and childhood hometown, current and childhood family income and church attendance.