“We as a nation need to be reeducated about the necessary and sufficient conditions for making human beings human. We need to be reeducated not as parents—but as workers, neighbors, and friends; and as members of the organizations, committees, boards—and, especially, the informal networks that control our social institutions and thereby determine the conditions of life for our families and their children.”
—URIE BRONFENBRENNER (1977)
To understand how intimate relationships work, the theories we have discussed so far focus mainly on the partners and their development (e.g., evolutionary psychology and attachment theory) and how they interact and behave together within their relationship (e.g., social exchange theory and social learning theory). What about the environment where the relationship takes place? Can a relationship be affected by anything outside of the relationship itself? You might not think so, from the preceding discussions. Only social exchange theory, by accounting for alternatives to a relationship, explicitly acknowledges a world outside the couple. Even this theory, however, treats alternatives mainly as barriers to, or inducements for, breaking up; social exchange theory still considers relationship quality to be a function of each partner’s own perceptions, experiences, and values. All these theories seem to assume that knowing everything about two people and the way they treat each other is enough to make sense of their relationship.
Social ecological models of intimate relationships reject this assumption. Social ecology refers to a range of approaches emphasizing the interplay between people and their environments. Arising from sociology and anthropology rather than psychology, this perspective recognizes that every intimate relationship develops within a specific context, or ecological niche. The nature of this context affects more than just whether relationships persist or dissolve. A social ecological model explains how the stresses, supports, and constraints in the environment of a couple may affect the way partners think, feel, and act in their relationship.
This idea has clear precedents in ecology, ethology, and anthropology. Just as our understanding of a tree depends on whether it grows in the desert or the rain forest, our understanding of an intimate relationship depends on what we know about its circumstances. Some couples have plenty of free time and disposable income to spend together; others must endure long-distance separations or confront serious health or financial problems. No matter how securely attached two people are, and no matter how effective their communication skills, social ecological models point out that some relationships may be easier than others strictly because of the different environments in which they develop.
More information
A diagram of a couple in the context of social ecology represented by a set of concentric circles. Couple is in the center surrounded by Microsystem, Mesosystem, and Macrosystem. Microsystem includes living conditions, family, and friends. Mesosystem includes culture, religion, and neighborhood. Macrosystem includes nationality, history, and global conditions.
FIGURE 2.12The couple in context. This social ecological model identifies the many levels that define the environment of a relationship. (Source: Adapted from Bronfenbrenner, 1979.)
At the simplest level, the environment of the relationship consists of everything that does not reside within and between the partners themselves. American psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner proposed a detailed model of social ecology, describing how multiple levels of context affect individuals and couples simultaneously (Bronfenbrenner, 1977, 1979, 1986). As shown in Figure 2.12, the most immediate environmental level is the microsystem, which contains the couple’s family and friends. When Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet were forced to face the disapproval of their families, for example, they were being affected by the microsystem. The next level is the broader social context, the mesosystem, which includes the neighborhood, social system, and culture in which the relationship takes place. The differences between intimate relationships in a small Colombian village and those in midtown Manhattan show the mesosystem at work. Most removed from the couple’s direct experience, but still influential according to Bronfenbrenner, is the macrosystem: the national and historical forces affecting the relationship. The differences between relationships in today’s world of smartphones and instant text messaging and those in earlier times highlight the influences at this level.
Although Bronfenbrenner emphasized social factors, ecological models also consider how physical features of the environment—weather, population density, the homes in which couples live, and so on—play a role in intimate relationships as well. A study from Sweden, for example, linked survey data on the relationship histories of 3,851 cohabiting couples with real estate data from the 21 counties where those couples lived (Lauster, 2008). You might not think your relationship is affected by the housing market, but these results showed a strong connection between the status of cohabiting couples and changes in Sweden’s housing costs over 20 years. As prices fell and housing became more affordable, the relationships of these couples were less likely to end and more likely to progress toward marriage.
After identifying the important environmental influences on a couple, social ecological models explore how these forces interact to affect relationships. Under what conditions do relationships thrive? How are relationships changed by stressful events? In exploring these questions, social ecological models emphasize the associations between the ongoing development of couples’ relationships and the physical and social features of the environments they inhabit.
Fundamental Assumptions
More information
A diagram outlines Hill’s A B C X model. A circle labeled with the letter A and the word Stressor has two bidirectional arrows leading to two more circles to the right. The top circle is labeled with the letter B and the word resources and the circle underneath is labeled with the letter C and text that reads: Interpretation of A. These two circles are connected by a bidirectional arrow pointing up and down. From this bidirectional arrow, a perpendicular arrow points to the right to a triangle labeled with the letter X and the word crisis.
FIGURE 2.13Hill’s ABC-X model: the effect of outside challenges on a relationship. The original ABC-X model suggests that when confronted by a stressor (A), a family’s resources (B) and interpretation of the event (C) predict the nature of the crisis (X), and whether the event will break the family up or bring it closer together. (Source: Adapted from McCubbin & Patterson, 1983.)
One of the earliest social ecological models of intimate relationships was developed by sociologist Reuben Hill, who was an army psychologist during World War II. Through his work with military families, he became interested in understanding why the challenges of war brought some families closer together even as they tore many families apart. To investigate this question, he developed the ABC-X model, which has served as the foundation of most social ecological models that followed (Hill, 1949). The ABC-X model, also known as crisis theory, is named for the four letters corresponding to the four elements Hill considered crucial to understanding the effects of external challenges on relationships (Figure 2.13). The A represents a stressor, defined as any event requiring some sort of behavioral response, such as having a baby, losing or changing jobs, or contracting a disease.
The B represents resources, defined as all the assets a couple may use in coping with a stressor. Some resources are material, like money; others are social, like having a supportive family, a close circle of friends, or a strong connection to a religious group. An important premise of the model is the idea that a family’s level of resources (B) changes how they experience a particular stressor (A). For wealthier couples (with plenty of material resources), stressors like fixing the car, replacing a broken appliance, or maintaining a home may not be serious concerns. For poorer couples (with fewer material resources), each of these things can be a major obstacle that affects other areas of their lives (Karney, Story, & Bradbury, 2005). Similarly, the birth of a new baby has a different impact on couples with plenty of social resources, like a close and available network of friends and family to call on for childcare, as compared to those with fewer social resources who lack ready access to family and friends (Don & Mickelson, 2014). Couples who have these connections may turn to them for help if they need it; couples who are isolated may have fewer options when their own resources fail them.
The C in Hill’s model represents the couple’s interpretation of the event—that is, whether the couple perceives the stressor as a challenge to be overcome or a catastrophe to be endured. Hill (1949) observed that families who viewed their stress as manageable seemed to adapt more effectively; they summoned their resources and pulled together. In contrast, families who viewed the same stressors as tragedies or punishments did not cope as well; sometimes they failed to take advantage of the resources available to them.
Together, the nature of the stressor (A), the couple’s level of resources (B), and their interpretation of the event (C) lead to X—the crisis, or the couple’s experience of and response to the stressful event. If the stress is severe, the level of resources is low, and the interpretation is negative, Hill predicted that couples will find it hard to adapt effectively, and the experience of the stressor would lead to weaker relationships. However, even if the stressor is severe, adequate resources and a positive interpretation can allow effective adaptation that “preserves family unity and enhances the family system and member growth and development” (McCubbin & Patterson, 1982, p. 45). In other words, a couple’s external stresses may lead to relationship problems, but if resolved effectively, those stresses can also bring couples closer together.
The ABC-X model proved influential, but it had some critics. For example, Hamilton McCubbin and Joan Patterson (1982) noted that Hill’s original model was pretty static: Every element addresses the state of the relationship at a single moment—the moment a stressful event occurs. But responses change over time as the situation unfolds, with implications for how couples and families will react to future difficulties. McCubbin and Patterson proposed a revision, calling it the double ABC-X model. This version suggested that each element of Hill’s model has an initial meaning as well as one that emerges gradually. For example, having a bad case of flu can lead to related stressful events: missing a job interview, getting behind at work, or spreading the illness to loved ones. This stress pile-up is like the domino effect, and it can be as stressful as, or even more stressful than, the original event itself (McCubbin & Patterson, 1982).
In addition to the couple’s initial level of resources, the double ABC-X model accounts for resources the couple can access in response to an event. When one partner is diagnosed with a chronic disease, for example, the couple may not know how to adjust to the effects of the illness on their lives. Eventually, however, they can get educated about the disease, join a support group, or connect with family and friends. In this way, they are developing resources and coping skills that were not in place initially (Low, Stanton, Thompson, Kwan, & Ganz, 2006). And although the original model emphasized interpretations of the initial event, the double ABC-X model suggests that couples’ interpretations of their ongoing coping efforts will also affect the relationship. Given the same stressful event, a wife who believes her husband is trying his best to support her is likely to adapt more effectively than a wife who believes her husband is unwilling or unable to help (Dooley, Sweeny, Howell, & Reynolds, 2018). Finally, the double ABC-X model considers not only the initial responses to a particular crisis but also the ongoing process of adaptation within the couple. This process can range from coping that brings partners closer to coping that drives them apart.
How Social Ecological Models Guide Research
The ideal way to study how couples respond to challenges in their environment would be to compare relationships before and after some significant external event or change. In practice, however, this is hard to do. It would be unethical for researchers to create real stress in couples’ lives and impossible to create real changes in their circumstances. Instead, researchers informed by social ecological models have found more creative ways of revealing the effects of environments on relationship processes.
One route is to follow couples over long periods of time and observe when important stressors or changes occur. For instance, some researchers draw from lifespan studies, which assess individuals repeatedly over the course of 50 years or more. Sociologist Glen Elder and his colleagues used lifespan data to examine the effects of World War II on marriages and families (e.g., Pavalko & Elder, 1990). Because they had information about their sample before the war began and after the war ended, they could examine the war’s effects on whether marriages ended in divorce. Interestingly, they found that marriages begun during the war were no more likely to end in divorce than marriages begun after the war. However, among the couples who married before the war, marriages in which the husband served in the military were much more likely to end in divorce than those in which the husband did not serve. Later research by sociologists Cynthia Gimbel and Alan Booth (1994) revealed that—as social ecological models predict—the experience of military combat can intensify any vulnerabilities and personality problems existing before military service. Other consequences of military service, such as disabilities and post-traumatic stress disorder, can make life difficult for couples even after the military service ends (Zamir, Gewirtz, Cheng, Zhang, & Lavee, 2020). In this way, lifespan research supports the idea that relationships that might otherwise endure can suffer greatly when the couples experience challenging times.
Problems with the lifespan approach include its expense and duration, especially if only a few couples experience some of the most interesting and important stressors. For a researcher interested in how couples react when one partner suffers a heart attack, for example, it is not cost-effective to begin with a sample of healthy couples and then wait for some of the partners to go into cardiac arrest. Instead, researchers with a specific stressor in mind can find couples who have experienced the event and then examine how different coping responses lead to various adjustments in the relationship. Most research on the effects of the transition to parenthood takes this approach, beginning with couples who are pregnant for the first time and examining the factors accounting for those who cope most effectively after their baby is born (e.g., Belsky & Pensky, 1988; Cox, Paley, Burchinal, & Payne, 1999). In general, most couples who are pregnant for the first time are able to maintain their feelings about their relationship even after their baby is born, but some couples experience a sharp decline in relationship satisfaction once the reality of childcare proves more challenging than expected (Leonhardt et al., 2022).
Another method is to identify couples who tend to have varying degrees of stress day to day, and then compare their relationships on different days. For example, to observe the effects of daily stress on the nightly interactions of married couples, psychologist Rena Repetti (1989) studied air traffic controllers and their wives for three consecutive days. On days when traffic was especially high, husbands tended to withdraw and wives were more supportive, and this pattern reflected happier marriages overall. Studies like these focus less on the effects of stress itself than on how different ways of coping with stress affect the course of an intimate relationship.
Social ecological models highlight not only stressful events, but also the broader effects of the various social and physical environments in which relationships unfold. To evaluate these effects, researchers typically compare intimate relationships across different environments. For example, data on the annual gross domestic product, unemployment rates, and divorce rates from 33 countries between 1995 and 2016 reveal that, when economic growth slows and unemployment rates rise, divorce rates generally rise too (Alola, Arikewuyo, Akadiri, & Alola, 2020), highlighting the importance of financial security for explaining differences in divorce rates across countries. Other researchers have shown that rates of divorce are higher in disadvantaged neighborhoods than more affluent ones (e.g., South, 2001), and higher among men with multiple sclerosis than among matched controls who do not have the disease (Landfeldt et al., 2018).
All of these studies examine naturally occurring variations in couples’ challenges and circumstances, so none of them directly proves that different environments cause intimate relationships to be more or less successful (i.e., this sort of research is generally not experimental). Still, the consistent finding that couples living in more demanding or challenging environments experience worse relationships than do those living in more supportive environments has been taken as strong support for the social ecological perspective.
Evaluating Social Ecological Models
In thinking about intimate relationships, it’s easy to forget about how big a role the environment plays. Couples themselves are often far more vivid and easier to observe, which may explain the general tendency to believe that the course of a relationship depends mostly on who the partners are and how they treat each other. The great strength of social ecological models is that they encourage us to resist this tendency. Focusing on how environments influence couples broadens the scope of research on intimate relationships.
Social ecological models address questions about intimacy that other theories overlook. For example, each theory discussed so far helps identify which initially happy couples are at risk of having serious problems. But exactly when will those problems arise? Some couples, despite numerous factors that make them susceptible to problems, seem to be happy for many years before their relationships turn sour. Other couples may find their satisfaction declining even without obvious sources of risk. Still others go through bad times but then improve. Social ecological models help explain these patterns by proposing that relationship satisfaction usually decreases when the environmental demands exceed a couple’s ability to cope effectively, but it may bounce back when the stressful period passes. Until forced to confront a challenging situation, vulnerable couples may remain relatively happy. But if their circumstances change and they suddenly have to face a challenge, that’s when the fault lines in the relationship might begin to show. Similarly, some stressors (e.g., the death of a child, a debilitating accident) may be so great that the relationship suffers, even for otherwise healthy couples. And some unhappy couples may even become happier over time if their lives improve substantially (e.g., getting a better job, moving into a bigger house, making new friends).
The limitations of social ecological models stem from a failure to specify how some of the links between relationships and outside influences affect personal dynamics within the relationship. An explicit goal of recent research has been to fill this theoretical gap. For example, research that expands on Hill’s early work examines the effects of economic hardship on African American families, showing how financial stress and racial discrimination outside the family increase the likelihood of negative interactions in the home (e.g., Conger & Conger, 2008; Lavner, Barton, Bryant, & Beach, 2018). Similarly, although most social ecological models acknowledge that environments, resources, and coping behaviors all change over time (as in the double ABC-X model), they have been slow to explain exactly how these factors change and why some couples develop skills to meet their challenges while others do not. In general, most thinking informed by social ecological models has focused on identifying environmental forces affecting relationships, rather than on explaining how those forces interact or how they change.
MAIN POINTS
Social ecological models emphasize that the environment surrounding a couple can support or damage their relationship.
The ABC-X model draws links between stressors (A), or events requiring behavioral change; the resources a couple can use in responding to the stressor (B); the couple’s interpretation of the event (C); and their successful or unsuccessful adaptation to the crisis (X).
The double ABC-X model acknowledges that each element in the original model changes over time.
Most social ecological models share a focus on stressors, resources, interpretation, and responding; the same event may have different implications for different relationships, depending on the level of available resources and the couple’s coping ability.
The limits of these models lie in their failures to specify how resources and coping styles may change over time, and to explain why some couples develop skills to meet their challenges when others do not.
A theory of intimate relationships that describes how stresses, supports, and constraints in the environment may affect the way partners think, feel, and act in a relationship.
A level in Bronfenbrenner’s social ecological model of development consisting of the immediate environment that directly affects individuals and couples, including their living situation, stressful life events, and the presence or absence of other people. See also macrosystem, mesosystem.
A level in Bronfenbrenner’s social ecological model of development, consisting of the broader social context, including the neighborhoods, social networks, and institutions in which relationships take place. See also macrosystem, microsystem.
The broadest level in Bronfenbrenner’s social ecological model of development, consisting of sources of influence that are far removed from the individual’s or couple’s direct experience but are still influential, such as national, historical, and cultural contexts. See also mesosystem, microsystem.
An early social ecological model of intimate relationships that explains how external stressors (A), a family’s resources (B), and their interpretation of a stressful event (C) combine to affect the outcome of a crisis (X). Also called crisis theory. See also double ABC-X model.
An asset; a source of practical, social, or emotional support outside a couple that contributes to their ability to interact effectively or adapt to stresses and circumstances. See also ABC-X model.
The way a couple or a family defines a stressful experience, as a challenge to be overcome or a catastrophe to be endured; represented by C in the ABC-X model.
A revision of the ABC-X model that recognizes how each element in the original model may change over time as a couple responds to a stressful event. See also ABC-X model.
The accumulating consequences of a stressful event that can themselves be as stressful as or even more stressful than the original event. See also double ABC-X model.
Social Ecological Models
“We as a nation need to be reeducated about the necessary and sufficient conditions for making human beings human. We need to be reeducated not as parents—but as workers, neighbors, and friends; and as members of the organizations, committees, boards—and, especially, the informal networks that control our social institutions and thereby determine the conditions of life for our families and their children.”
—URIE BRONFENBRENNER (1977)
To understand how intimate relationships work, the theories we have discussed so far focus mainly on the partners and their development (e.g., evolutionary psychology and attachment theory) and how they interact and behave together within their relationship (e.g., social exchange theory and social learning theory). What about the environment where the relationship takes place? Can a relationship be affected by anything outside of the relationship itself? You might not think so, from the preceding discussions. Only social exchange theory, by accounting for alternatives to a relationship, explicitly acknowledges a world outside the couple. Even this theory, however, treats alternatives mainly as barriers to, or inducements for, breaking up; social exchange theory still considers relationship quality to be a function of each partner’s own perceptions, experiences, and values. All these theories seem to assume that knowing everything about two people and the way they treat each other is enough to make sense of their relationship.
Social ecological models of intimate relationships reject this assumption. Social ecology refers to a range of approaches emphasizing the interplay between people and their environments. Arising from sociology and anthropology rather than psychology, this perspective recognizes that every intimate relationship develops within a specific context, or ecological niche. The nature of this context affects more than just whether relationships persist or dissolve. A social ecological model explains how the stresses, supports, and constraints in the environment of a couple may affect the way partners think, feel, and act in their relationship.
This idea has clear precedents in ecology, ethology, and anthropology. Just as our understanding of a tree depends on whether it grows in the desert or the rain forest, our understanding of an intimate relationship depends on what we know about its circumstances. Some couples have plenty of free time and disposable income to spend together; others must endure long-distance separations or confront serious health or financial problems. No matter how securely attached two people are, and no matter how effective their communication skills, social ecological models point out that some relationships may be easier than others strictly because of the different environments in which they develop.
More information
A diagram of a couple in the context of social ecology represented by a set of concentric circles. Couple is in the center surrounded by Microsystem, Mesosystem, and Macrosystem. Microsystem includes living conditions, family, and friends. Mesosystem includes culture, religion, and neighborhood. Macrosystem includes nationality, history, and global conditions.
FIGURE 2.12 The couple in context. This social ecological model identifies the many levels that define the environment of a relationship. (Source: Adapted from Bronfenbrenner, 1979.)
At the simplest level, the environment of the relationship consists of everything that does not reside within and between the partners themselves. American psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner proposed a detailed model of social ecology, describing how multiple levels of context affect individuals and couples simultaneously (Bronfenbrenner, 1977, 1979, 1986). As shown in Figure 2.12, the most immediate environmental level is the microsystem, which contains the couple’s family and friends. When Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet were forced to face the disapproval of their families, for example, they were being affected by the microsystem. The next level is the broader social context, the mesosystem, which includes the neighborhood, social system, and culture in which the relationship takes place. The differences between intimate relationships in a small Colombian village and those in midtown Manhattan show the mesosystem at work. Most removed from the couple’s direct experience, but still influential according to Bronfenbrenner, is the macrosystem: the national and historical forces affecting the relationship. The differences between relationships in today’s world of smartphones and instant text messaging and those in earlier times highlight the influences at this level.
Although Bronfenbrenner emphasized social factors, ecological models also consider how physical features of the environment—weather, population density, the homes in which couples live, and so on—play a role in intimate relationships as well. A study from Sweden, for example, linked survey data on the relationship histories of 3,851 cohabiting couples with real estate data from the 21 counties where those couples lived (Lauster, 2008). You might not think your relationship is affected by the housing market, but these results showed a strong connection between the status of cohabiting couples and changes in Sweden’s housing costs over 20 years. As prices fell and housing became more affordable, the relationships of these couples were less likely to end and more likely to progress toward marriage.
After identifying the important environmental influences on a couple, social ecological models explore how these forces interact to affect relationships. Under what conditions do relationships thrive? How are relationships changed by stressful events? In exploring these questions, social ecological models emphasize the associations between the ongoing development of couples’ relationships and the physical and social features of the environments they inhabit.
Fundamental Assumptions
More information
A diagram outlines Hill’s A B C X model. A circle labeled with the letter A and the word Stressor has two bidirectional arrows leading to two more circles to the right. The top circle is labeled with the letter B and the word resources and the circle underneath is labeled with the letter C and text that reads: Interpretation of A. These two circles are connected by a bidirectional arrow pointing up and down. From this bidirectional arrow, a perpendicular arrow points to the right to a triangle labeled with the letter X and the word crisis.
FIGURE 2.13 Hill’s ABC-X model: the effect of outside challenges on a relationship. The original ABC-X model suggests that when confronted by a stressor (A), a family’s resources (B) and interpretation of the event (C) predict the nature of the crisis (X), and whether the event will break the family up or bring it closer together. (Source: Adapted from McCubbin & Patterson, 1983.)
One of the earliest social ecological models of intimate relationships was developed by sociologist Reuben Hill, who was an army psychologist during World War II. Through his work with military families, he became interested in understanding why the challenges of war brought some families closer together even as they tore many families apart. To investigate this question, he developed the ABC-X model, which has served as the foundation of most social ecological models that followed (Hill, 1949). The ABC-X model, also known as crisis theory, is named for the four letters corresponding to the four elements Hill considered crucial to understanding the effects of external challenges on relationships (Figure 2.13). The A represents a stressor, defined as any event requiring some sort of behavioral response, such as having a baby, losing or changing jobs, or contracting a disease.
The B represents resources, defined as all the assets a couple may use in coping with a stressor. Some resources are material, like money; others are social, like having a supportive family, a close circle of friends, or a strong connection to a religious group. An important premise of the model is the idea that a family’s level of resources (B) changes how they experience a particular stressor (A). For wealthier couples (with plenty of material resources), stressors like fixing the car, replacing a broken appliance, or maintaining a home may not be serious concerns. For poorer couples (with fewer material resources), each of these things can be a major obstacle that affects other areas of their lives (Karney, Story, & Bradbury, 2005). Similarly, the birth of a new baby has a different impact on couples with plenty of social resources, like a close and available network of friends and family to call on for childcare, as compared to those with fewer social resources who lack ready access to family and friends (Don & Mickelson, 2014). Couples who have these connections may turn to them for help if they need it; couples who are isolated may have fewer options when their own resources fail them.
The C in Hill’s model represents the couple’s interpretation of the event—that is, whether the couple perceives the stressor as a challenge to be overcome or a catastrophe to be endured. Hill (1949) observed that families who viewed their stress as manageable seemed to adapt more effectively; they summoned their resources and pulled together. In contrast, families who viewed the same stressors as tragedies or punishments did not cope as well; sometimes they failed to take advantage of the resources available to them.
Together, the nature of the stressor (A), the couple’s level of resources (B), and their interpretation of the event (C) lead to X—the crisis, or the couple’s experience of and response to the stressful event. If the stress is severe, the level of resources is low, and the interpretation is negative, Hill predicted that couples will find it hard to adapt effectively, and the experience of the stressor would lead to weaker relationships. However, even if the stressor is severe, adequate resources and a positive interpretation can allow effective adaptation that “preserves family unity and enhances the family system and member growth and development” (McCubbin & Patterson, 1982, p. 45). In other words, a couple’s external stresses may lead to relationship problems, but if resolved effectively, those stresses can also bring couples closer together.
The ABC-X model proved influential, but it had some critics. For example, Hamilton McCubbin and Joan Patterson (1982) noted that Hill’s original model was pretty static: Every element addresses the state of the relationship at a single moment—the moment a stressful event occurs. But responses change over time as the situation unfolds, with implications for how couples and families will react to future difficulties. McCubbin and Patterson proposed a revision, calling it the double ABC-X model. This version suggested that each element of Hill’s model has an initial meaning as well as one that emerges gradually. For example, having a bad case of flu can lead to related stressful events: missing a job interview, getting behind at work, or spreading the illness to loved ones. This stress pile-up is like the domino effect, and it can be as stressful as, or even more stressful than, the original event itself (McCubbin & Patterson, 1982).
In addition to the couple’s initial level of resources, the double ABC-X model accounts for resources the couple can access in response to an event. When one partner is diagnosed with a chronic disease, for example, the couple may not know how to adjust to the effects of the illness on their lives. Eventually, however, they can get educated about the disease, join a support group, or connect with family and friends. In this way, they are developing resources and coping skills that were not in place initially (Low, Stanton, Thompson, Kwan, & Ganz, 2006). And although the original model emphasized interpretations of the initial event, the double ABC-X model suggests that couples’ interpretations of their ongoing coping efforts will also affect the relationship. Given the same stressful event, a wife who believes her husband is trying his best to support her is likely to adapt more effectively than a wife who believes her husband is unwilling or unable to help (Dooley, Sweeny, Howell, & Reynolds, 2018). Finally, the double ABC-X model considers not only the initial responses to a particular crisis but also the ongoing process of adaptation within the couple. This process can range from coping that brings partners closer to coping that drives them apart.
How Social Ecological Models Guide Research
The ideal way to study how couples respond to challenges in their environment would be to compare relationships before and after some significant external event or change. In practice, however, this is hard to do. It would be unethical for researchers to create real stress in couples’ lives and impossible to create real changes in their circumstances. Instead, researchers informed by social ecological models have found more creative ways of revealing the effects of environments on relationship processes.
One route is to follow couples over long periods of time and observe when important stressors or changes occur. For instance, some researchers draw from lifespan studies, which assess individuals repeatedly over the course of 50 years or more. Sociologist Glen Elder and his colleagues used lifespan data to examine the effects of World War II on marriages and families (e.g., Pavalko & Elder, 1990). Because they had information about their sample before the war began and after the war ended, they could examine the war’s effects on whether marriages ended in divorce. Interestingly, they found that marriages begun during the war were no more likely to end in divorce than marriages begun after the war. However, among the couples who married before the war, marriages in which the husband served in the military were much more likely to end in divorce than those in which the husband did not serve. Later research by sociologists Cynthia Gimbel and Alan Booth (1994) revealed that—as social ecological models predict—the experience of military combat can intensify any vulnerabilities and personality problems existing before military service. Other consequences of military service, such as disabilities and post-traumatic stress disorder, can make life difficult for couples even after the military service ends (Zamir, Gewirtz, Cheng, Zhang, & Lavee, 2020). In this way, lifespan research supports the idea that relationships that might otherwise endure can suffer greatly when the couples experience challenging times.
Problems with the lifespan approach include its expense and duration, especially if only a few couples experience some of the most interesting and important stressors. For a researcher interested in how couples react when one partner suffers a heart attack, for example, it is not cost-effective to begin with a sample of healthy couples and then wait for some of the partners to go into cardiac arrest. Instead, researchers with a specific stressor in mind can find couples who have experienced the event and then examine how different coping responses lead to various adjustments in the relationship. Most research on the effects of the transition to parenthood takes this approach, beginning with couples who are pregnant for the first time and examining the factors accounting for those who cope most effectively after their baby is born (e.g., Belsky & Pensky, 1988; Cox, Paley, Burchinal, & Payne, 1999). In general, most couples who are pregnant for the first time are able to maintain their feelings about their relationship even after their baby is born, but some couples experience a sharp decline in relationship satisfaction once the reality of childcare proves more challenging than expected (Leonhardt et al., 2022).
Another method is to identify couples who tend to have varying degrees of stress day to day, and then compare their relationships on different days. For example, to observe the effects of daily stress on the nightly interactions of married couples, psychologist Rena Repetti (1989) studied air traffic controllers and their wives for three consecutive days. On days when traffic was especially high, husbands tended to withdraw and wives were more supportive, and this pattern reflected happier marriages overall. Studies like these focus less on the effects of stress itself than on how different ways of coping with stress affect the course of an intimate relationship.
Social ecological models highlight not only stressful events, but also the broader effects of the various social and physical environments in which relationships unfold. To evaluate these effects, researchers typically compare intimate relationships across different environments. For example, data on the annual gross domestic product, unemployment rates, and divorce rates from 33 countries between 1995 and 2016 reveal that, when economic growth slows and unemployment rates rise, divorce rates generally rise too (Alola, Arikewuyo, Akadiri, & Alola, 2020), highlighting the importance of financial security for explaining differences in divorce rates across countries. Other researchers have shown that rates of divorce are higher in disadvantaged neighborhoods than more affluent ones (e.g., South, 2001), and higher among men with multiple sclerosis than among matched controls who do not have the disease (Landfeldt et al., 2018).
All of these studies examine naturally occurring variations in couples’ challenges and circumstances, so none of them directly proves that different environments cause intimate relationships to be more or less successful (i.e., this sort of research is generally not experimental). Still, the consistent finding that couples living in more demanding or challenging environments experience worse relationships than do those living in more supportive environments has been taken as strong support for the social ecological perspective.
Evaluating Social Ecological Models
In thinking about intimate relationships, it’s easy to forget about how big a role the environment plays. Couples themselves are often far more vivid and easier to observe, which may explain the general tendency to believe that the course of a relationship depends mostly on who the partners are and how they treat each other. The great strength of social ecological models is that they encourage us to resist this tendency. Focusing on how environments influence couples broadens the scope of research on intimate relationships.
Social ecological models address questions about intimacy that other theories overlook. For example, each theory discussed so far helps identify which initially happy couples are at risk of having serious problems. But exactly when will those problems arise? Some couples, despite numerous factors that make them susceptible to problems, seem to be happy for many years before their relationships turn sour. Other couples may find their satisfaction declining even without obvious sources of risk. Still others go through bad times but then improve. Social ecological models help explain these patterns by proposing that relationship satisfaction usually decreases when the environmental demands exceed a couple’s ability to cope effectively, but it may bounce back when the stressful period passes. Until forced to confront a challenging situation, vulnerable couples may remain relatively happy. But if their circumstances change and they suddenly have to face a challenge, that’s when the fault lines in the relationship might begin to show. Similarly, some stressors (e.g., the death of a child, a debilitating accident) may be so great that the relationship suffers, even for otherwise healthy couples. And some unhappy couples may even become happier over time if their lives improve substantially (e.g., getting a better job, moving into a bigger house, making new friends).
The limitations of social ecological models stem from a failure to specify how some of the links between relationships and outside influences affect personal dynamics within the relationship. An explicit goal of recent research has been to fill this theoretical gap. For example, research that expands on Hill’s early work examines the effects of economic hardship on African American families, showing how financial stress and racial discrimination outside the family increase the likelihood of negative interactions in the home (e.g., Conger & Conger, 2008; Lavner, Barton, Bryant, & Beach, 2018). Similarly, although most social ecological models acknowledge that environments, resources, and coping behaviors all change over time (as in the double ABC-X model), they have been slow to explain exactly how these factors change and why some couples develop skills to meet their challenges while others do not. In general, most thinking informed by social ecological models has focused on identifying environmental forces affecting relationships, rather than on explaining how those forces interact or how they change.
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