Dr. David Olson Performed Additional Analysis with My Dissertation Data

It was such a surprise when I received an email from Dr. David Olson telling me that he had done additional analysis with my dissertation data. Dr. Olson, from the University of Minnesota has authored 100s of publications, including four marital satisfaction inventories that have been used by millions of couples. He’s like a guru in the marriage and family field and he used my research. I thank God for this. It came out of the blue – like a gift from heaven. Olson used the same data I used for my dissertation and did a comparison of the four groups on couple typology. It is unreal how similar the percentages are in each type across the four groups. He is featuring it in the PREPARE/ENRICH Newsletter since they are coming out with the Empowering Couples book in Spanish. You can read a short summary at this address - http://image.exacttarget.com/members/3362/hispanic_study.pdf - Or I pasted the summary below. _________________________

Hispanic and Caucasian Couples have Similar Couple Types Jeffery Garrett & David Olson (2006)

Although it is often assumed that couples from different ethnic groups will have unique patterns of marriage, this study found considerable similarity in the ENRICH couple types across four ethnic combinations (both Hispanic, both Caucasian, Male Hispanic—Female Caucasian, Male Caucasian—Female Hispanic) of married couples. The results indicate that the four groups had very similar numbers of couples in each of the five ENRICH types. These findings are based on ENRICH data used in a dissertation by Jeffery Garrett (2004) who found no significant differences between the four groups of couples on the major ENRICH scales (i.e. marital satisfaction, communication, conflict resolution). Using a national sample of 868 married couples who took ENRICH, these four groups of married couples were compared on the ENRICH Couple typology. The average age of the males was about 35 and females was 33 and they were married an average of 9 years. The individuals were second or third generation Hispanics. As illustrated in Figure I (see http://image.exacttarget.com/members/3362/hispanic_study.pdf), there are no significant differences in the percentage of the four groups of couples in any of the five couple types. About 20-25% of the couples were Vitalized, 5-10% were Harmonious, 10-15% were Traditional, 20-30% were Conflicted and about 25-35% were Devitalized. The only difference (not statistically significant) was that there were slightly more Hispanic couples that were Traditional and Devitalized, and fewer that were Conflicted than the other ethnic groups. This study clearly demonstrates the ENRICH Couple typology is relevant to Hispanic couples where one or both are Hispanic. It also demonstrates there is no significant differences between the Caucasian and Hispanic ethnic groups using this couple typology. These findings are similar to a study by Bill Allen and David Olson (2001) that found no significant difference between African American couples and Caucasian couples on the ENRICH couple typology. In summary, the current and earlier studies demonstrate that the five couple types based on ENRICH are valid for use with Hispanic, African American and Caucasian marriages. This is a powerful and important finding since it says that marriages across ethnic groups are not that different in terms of their underlying patterns. References: Allen, W.D. & Olson, D.H. (2001) Five types of African American Marriages based on ENRICH. Journal of Marital & Family Therapy. 27, 3, 301-314. Garrett, J. (2004) The Marital Satisfaction of Hispanic-White Interracial Couples. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Counselor Education, Ohio University. Garrett, J. & Olson, D.H. (2006) ENRICH Couple Typology and Hispanic and Caucasian Married Couples. Unpublished manuscript. Minneapolis, MN: Life Innovations.