In March 2020, the World Health Organization declared the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus “pandemic.” To reduce the risk of contamination, many countries have ordered a lockdown characterized by social distancing and restrictive isolation measures. While the lockdown has proven to be quite effective in terms of physical health, little is known about its impact on couple satisfaction in a dyadic perspective. The current research was a 4-waves longitudinal study with the objective to examine the trajectory of couple satisfaction during (...) the lockdown with a dyadic perspective, including the presence of children at home, the number of hours spent together, and the duration of the relationship as time-invariant predictors and the partner’s couple satisfaction trajectory as a time-varying covariate. Results showed positive intraindividual changes in couple satisfaction during the lockdown, especially an increase in partners’ effectiveness for resolving couple conflicts and a decrease in partners’ aggressiveness. Partners had also perceived the influence of the lockdown as more and more positive over time on couple and family functioning. Finally, the couple satisfaction of both partners changed in tandem during the lockdown: The perception of the couple relationship seems to similarly evolve between partners. (shrink)

The situation caused by the 2019 coronavirus disease has been representing a great source of concern and a challenge to the psychological well-being of many individuals around the world. For couples in particular, this extraordinary rise in concern, combined with the stress posed by the virus containment measures, such as prolonged cohabitation and lack of support networks, may have increased the likelihood of couple problems. At the same time, however, COVID-19 concerns may have been a stimulus to activate couples’ stress (...) management processes. A couple’s resource, which may have an important role in dealing with COVID-19 concerns and stress, is dyadic coping, i.e., the process through which partners face stress together. Drawing on a sample of 1,823 Italian individuals involved in a couple relationship, the current study tested a serial mediation model in which concerns about COVID-19 predicted psychological well-being, through both explicit stress communication and perceived partner dyadic coping responses. In addition, the study explored whether this dyadic coping process functioned the same way in satisfied and dissatisfied couples. Results showed that concerns about the situation related to COVID-19 significantly threatened individuals’ psychological well-being. However, these concerns positively predicted explicit stress communication, which in turn positively predicted perceived partner’s dyadic coping responses, which finally positively predicted psychological well-being. In addition, in the group of dissatisfied individuals, the association between explicit stress communication and perceived partners’ dyadic coping responses was not significant. The present study adds to the research on couples’ coping by testing for the first time the whole theoretical model of dyadic coping and does so during a global emergency situation. The study also suggests key components of preventive interventions for individuals in couples. (shrink)