The Effect of Olson's Marriage Enrichment Program on the Responsibility and Empathy of Marriage Volunteers

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 PhD Student in General Psychology, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan Branch (Khorasgan), Isfahan, Iran.

2 Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan Branch (Khorasgan), Isfahan, Iran (Corresponding Author).

3 Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan Branch (Khorasgan), Isfahan, Iran.

Abstract

Introduction: Encouraging people to get married and maintaining a family system is one of the priorities of any society. according to this the present study was conducted with the purpose of Olson's marriage enrichment program on the responsibility and empathy of the marriage volunteers.
Materials and methods: It was a quasi-experimental study with pretest, posttest and control group design. The statistical population included all marriage volunteers who attended consultation and psychological service centers for pre-marriage consultation in the city of Isfahan in the third quarter of 2019. 30 couples were selected through multi-stage clustered random sampling method and they were randomly accommodated into experimental and control groups (each group of 15 couples). The experimental group received seven sessions of Olson's marriage enrichment program during two months. The applied questionnaires included California personality questionnaire (1987) and empathy questionnaire (Jolif and Farington, 2006). The data from the study were analyzed through ANCOVA method via SPSS23 software.
Results: The results showed that Olson's marriage enrichment program is effective on the responsibility and empathy in marriage volunteers (p<0.0001) in a way that it succeeded in responsibility and empathy in marriage volunteers.
Conclusion: Therefore, Olson's marriage enrichment program can be employed as an efficient method to improve responsibility and empathy in marriage volunteers through applying concepts such as Active expression and listening skills, conflict resolution training, problem solving training and improving sexuality.

Keywords

References

  1. Boromand, R., Sadeghifard, M., Samavi, S.A. (2013). The Effectiveness of Group Counseling based on the Choice Theory on Reducing Marital Conflicts. American Journal of Life Science Researches, 1(1), 11-19.
  2. Carr, D., Freedman, V. A., Cornman, J. C. & Schwarz, N. (2014). Happy Marriage, Happy Life? Marital Quality and Subjective Well-Being in Later Life. Journal of Marriage Family, 76(5), 930-948.
  3. Carre, A., Stefaniak, N., Besche-Richard, C., Ambrosio, F. & Bensalah, L. (2013). The Basic Empathy Scale in adults (BES-A): Factor structure of a revised form. Psychology Assessment, 25, 679-691.
  4. Chrysikou, E.G., Thompson, W.J. (2015). Assessing cognitive and affective empathy through the interpersonal reactivity index: An argument against a two-factor model. Psychology Assessment, 10, 1-9.

5.       Cribbet, M.R., Smith, T.W., Uchino, B.N., Baucom, B.R.W., Nealey-Moore, J.B. (2020). Autonomic influences on heart rate during marital conflict: Associations with high frequency heart rate variability and cardiac pre-ejection period. Biological Psychology, 151, 107-112.

  1. Davis, C.A. (2015). An evaluation of the impact of a couple's enrichment program on relationship satisfaction, communication, conflict resolution, and forgiveness [dissertation]. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Lincoln, Nebraska.
  2. Earp, B.D., Sandberg, A., Savulescu, J. (2012). Natural Selection, Childrearing, and the Ethics of Marriage (and Divorce): Building a Case for the Neuro-enhancement of Human Relationships. Philos Technology, 25(4), 561-587.
  3. Gaur, P., Bhardwaj, A.B. (2015). Relationship between Empathy, Forgiveness and Marital Adjustment in Couples. The International Journal of Indian Psychology, 8, 145-151.
  4. Jolliffe, D., Farrington, D.P. (2006). Development and validation of the Basic Empathy Scale. Journal of Adolescence, 29, 589–611.

10.    Leong, L., Cano, A. (2013). Empathic behaviors promote emotion regulation and pain tolerance in couples. The Journal of Pain, 14(4), 96-100.

11.    Makhanova, A., McNulty, J.K., Eckel, L.A., Nikonova, J., Maner, J.K.(2018). Sex differences in testosterone reactivity during marital conflict. Hormones and Behavior, 105, 22-27.

  1. Olson, D. H., Olson, B. A. (2014). Prepare/ Enrich Program: Version 2000, In R. Berger & M. T. Hannah (Eds.), Preventive Approaches in Couples Therapy, (pp. 196-230), Philadelphia: Brunner/Mazel.
  2. Olson, D.H. (1999). Circumflex model of Marital & Family Systems. Journal of Family Therapy, 22(2), 144-167.
  3. Olson, D.H. (2011). Face IV and the Circomplex model: Validation study. Journal of marital and family therapy, 37 (1), 64-80.
  4. Olson, D.H. (2011). Marriage and families: Intimacy, diversity, and strengths (11th Ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

 

  1. Petrucci, C., Cerra, C.L., Aloisio, F., Montanari, P., Lancia, L.(2016). Empathy in health professional students: A comparative cross-sectional study. Nurse Education Today, 41, 1-5.
  2. Sauerheber, J.D., Ponton, R. (2017). Building the Marital Muscle Groups: A Theory-Based Marriage Enrichment Approach Program in a Clinical Practice Setting. The Family Journal: Counseling and Therapy for Couples and Families, 26(1):1-11.
  3. Seaman, C., Bent, R. and Unis, A. (2016). Family entrepreneurship culture, entrepreneurial intent, futures and foresight in Scottish Pakistani communities. Journal of Futures; 75(13): 83-91.
  4. Tsai, J.W. (2016). Family Matters. Journal Published by the American Medical Association; 170(7): 601-6410.

20.    Wang, M., Wang, J., Deng, X., Chen , W. (2019). Why are empathic children more liked by peers? The mediating roles of prosocial and aggressive behaviors. Personality and Individual Differences, 144, 19-23.

  1. Wubbolding, R.E., Robey, P., & Brickell, J. (2014). A partial and tentative look at the future of choice theory, reality therapy and lead management. International journal of choice theory and reality therapy, 19(2): 25-34.

22.    Zhang, H., Spinrad, T.L., Eisenberg, N., Luo, Y., Wang, Z. (2017). Young adults' internet addiction: Prediction by the interaction of parental marital conflict and respiratory sinus arrhythmia. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 120, 148-156.

medical journal of mashhad university of medical sciences
Volume 63, Issue 5
January and February 2021
Pages 2658-2668

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics