Behavioral components of marital satisfaction: an individualized assessment approach.

This study examined the extent to which spousal behaviors, obtained through a daily checklist of marital activities individualized along an importance dimension, related to global and daily marital satisfaction. Eighty-two marital couples completed daily checklists of spousal behaviors for 7 days using either an individualized or a standardized assessment method. The results demonstrated that the individualized measures of daily behavioral events were significantly related to global and daily measures of marital satisfaction and discriminated distressed from nondistressed spouses. Although the individualized method did not correlate with marital satisfaction to a significantly greater degree than the standardized method, the individualized assessment approach provides a valid, viable, and cost-effective alternative for assessing daily spousal events that relate to marital satisfaction.