Hypothesis 2. The Associations Between Wives’ Anxiety and Perceptions of RQ Will Be Moderated by Wives’ Anxiety-Specific Relationship Adjustment (CIQ), but Not Global Relationship Functioning (DAS)

We tested the moderation hypothesis in two separate multilevel analyses. The same model described in Equation 1 was used for each analysis. However, Level 2 equations included the following additional predictors as moderators: CIQ and DAS. Because we were interested in the effects of wives’ anxiety on wives’ and husbands’ relationship quality (denoted as b_3w and b_3h in Equation 1, respectively), b_3w, and b_3h were modeled as a function of these moderators, as such:

CIQ_wi reflects wives’ report of anxiety-specific relationship adjustment for dyad i, and DAS_wi reflects wives’ report of global relationship functioning. We did not alter the specifications of the random effects for the moderation tests.

CIQ scores moderated the within-person association between wives’ anxiety and their own ratings of positive relationship quality that same day, γ_31w = 0.017, t(32) = 2.57, p < .05, such that for wives who reported low CIQ scores, their anxiety was negatively associated with their positive RQ. For wives who reported high CIQ scores, their anxiety was not associated with their positive RQ. Figure 1 is the visual representation of this interaction, for CIQ scores one standard deviation above and below the mean. CIQ scores did not moderate any other hypothesized within-dyad associations, Positive RQ: γ_31h = 0.001, t(32) = 0.17, ns; Negative RQ: γ_31w = −0.006, t(32) = −0.89, ns; γ_31h = 0.005, t(32) = 0.79, ns. As hypothesized, DAS did not moderate the association between anxiety and negative or positive RQ, Positive RQ: γ_32w = 0.005, t(32) = 0.60, ns; γ_32h = 0.004, t(32) = 0.52, ns; Negative RQ: γ_32w = −0.011, t(32) = −1.20, ns; γ_32h = −0.010, t(32) = −1.24, ns.

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