Disclosing Marital Problems

For an elaboration of the conceptual scheme and its bearing on family interaction, see Mayer John E. , “People's Imagery of Other Families,” Family Process, Vol. VIII, March 1967, pp. 27–36.

Mayer John E. , The Disclosure of Marital Problems: An Exploratory Study of Lower and Middle Class Wives, Community Service Society, New York, 1966; John E. Mayer, Other People's Marital Problems: The “Knowledgeability” of Lower and Middle Class Wives, Community Service Society, New York, 1966.

For evidence indicating that social factors such as these do affect disclosure, see Jourard Sidney , The Transparent Self, Van Nostrand, Princeton, New Jersey, 1964.

See, for example, Blood Robert O. , and Wolfe Donald M. , Husbands and Wives, Free Press, New York, 1960, pp. 253–55; Norman M. Bradburn and David Caplovitz, Reports on Happiness, Aldine Publishing Co., Chicago, 1965, pp. 39, 40; Gerald Gurin, Joseph Veroff, and Sheila Feld, Americans View Their Mental Health, Basic Books, New York, 1960, p. 105.

Gurin , Veroff , and Feld , op. cit., p. xxiii.

Rainwater Lee , Coleman Richard P. , and Handel Gerald , Workingman's Wife, Oceana, New York, 1959, p. 73.

A number of other investigators have suggested that lower-class persons tend to have a unicausal, unidimensional view of social reality. See, for example, Schatzman Leonard , and Strauss Anselm , “Social Class and Modes of Communication,” American Journal of Sociology, Vol. LX, January 1955, pp. 329–38.

Gurin , Veroff , and Feld , op. cit., p. 116.

Gans Herbert J. , The Urban Villagers, Free Press, New York, 1962, p. 51.

Komarovsky Mirra , Blue-Collar Marriage, Random House, New York, 1962, pp. 23, 24.

Waller Willard , The Old Love and the New, Horace Liveright, New York, 1930, p. 107; Dorothy Fahs Beck, “Marital Conflict: Its Course and Treatment as Seen by Caseworkers,” Social Casework, Vol. XLVII, April 1966, p. 214.

Schofield William , Psychotherapy: The Purchase of Friendship, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1964, p. 162.

Gurin , Veroff , and Feld , op. cit., pp. xxiv, 366–68. Less direct evidence can be found in Margaret B. Bailey, “Community Orientations Toward Social Casework,” Social Work, Vol. IV, July 1959, pp. 60–66, and Leo Srole and others, Mental Health in the Metropolis: The Midtown Manhattan Study, Vol. I, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1962, pp. 147–48.

These ideas are developed more fully in Mayer John E. , and Rosenblatt Aaron , “The Client's Social Context: Its Effect on Continuance in Treatment,” Social Casework, Vol. XLV, November 1964, pp. 511–18. For a follow-up study that tests one of the hypotheses growing out of this framework, see Aaron Rosenblatt and John E. Mayer, “Client Disengagement and Alternative Treatment Resources,” Social Casework, Vol. XLVII, January 1966, pp. 3–12.