We again used multilevel modeling to investigate these associations. However, we were only interested in husbands’ distress as our outcome, as follows:
As indicated previously, we specified the variance-covariance matrix as autoregressive. Each distress measure (anxiety, anger, and depression) was modeled separately, with all Level 1 coefficients specified as random.
As hypothesized, wives’ anxiety was associated with greater husbands’ distress on the same day, Anxiety: b3 = 0.11, t(32) = 3.04, p < .01; Anger/Hostility: b3 = 0.14, t(32) = 2.84, p < .01; Depression: b3 = 0.15, t(32) = 3.95, p < .01. There were no significant variations around the effects of wives’ anxiety on husbands’ distress (Anxiety: τ = 0.01, LR test = 0.60; Anger/Hostility: τ = 0.02, LR test = 0.20; Depression: τ = 0.01, LR test = 0.30). The LR test here represents the difference between the −2 log likelihood of a model that treats the effect of a particular coping strategy as random and a model that does not.
