Humility as a relational virtue: establishing trust, empowering repair, and building marital well-being.

Wang, Frank ; Edwards, Keith J. ; Hill, Peter C. 等

Being involved in a satisfying marriage relationship comes with great benefits to both physical and mental health. Happily married couples tend to experience less physical and psychological distress, possess

stronger immune system, and are more health-conscious (Gottman & Silver, 2015). When compared with married couples, singles are more likely to experience anxiety, depression, and other types of psychological distress (Coombs, 1991; Simon, 2002). Evidence showed that marital satisfaction is associated with better overall quality of life (Bookwala, 2011; Proulx, Helms, & Buehler, 2007; Holt-Lunstad, Birmingham, & Jones, 2008; Le Poire, 2005; Rostami, Ghazinour, Nygren, Nojumi, & Richter, 2013). On the flip side, being stuck in a distressed marriage increases the chance of getting sick by 35 percent and decreases life expectancy for four to eight years (Gottman & Silver, 2015). Due to marital satisfaction's relationship to well-being, many studies have examined the predictors of marital satisfaction, such as individual attachment styles, work environment, or partner's mental health (Raga-ei, Nay-yeri, & Sedaghati, 2007; Feeney & Noller, 1990; Givertz, Woszidlo, Segrin, & Knutson, 2013; van Steenbergen, Kluwer, & Karney, 2014; & Segrin, 2013). Trust is often identified in the marriage literature as an important factor that contributes to a happy marriage (Gottman & Silver, 2012; Larzelere & Huston, 1980; Rempel, Holmes, & Zanna, 1985; Simpson, 2007; Murray et al., 2011; Campbell, Simpson, Boldry, & Rubin, 2010). However, it is less clear how trust is developed in marriage relationships. Here we examine the role that dispositional humility may play in marital trust.

Development of Trust through Relational Repair

Trust is defined as the belief that one's partner has the best interest of one in mind when one's partner makes choices pertaining to their relationship (Gottman, 2011). Gottman described initial trust formation in marriage as a process of character discernment. Partners begin obtaining knowledge of each other's priorities and values through their day to day interactions. Once sufficient information is gathered, they make a character judgment on each other's trustworthiness. Once a partner is deemed trustworthy, this established trust will self-perpetuate, leading to greater marital satisfaction. If the partner is experienced as insensitive or unresponsive to one's priorities, needs, or values, trust will be eroded as the partner is viewed as less and less trustworthy. Eventually, eroding trust leads to a state of negative sentiment override, where negative emotions cloud all relational interactions. Thus, the development and deterioration of trust can be seen as self-perpetuating processes once character discernment has been made.

A partner's insensitivity or unresponsiveness is experienced as misattunement, a failure to perceive and responds to a partner's needs or desires. All relationships experience episodes of misattunement. According to Gottman (2011), trustworthiness can develop if the couple can engage in a process of successful relational repairs after experiences of misattunement. For example, a wife may come home after a long day at work and say to the husband, "I am worn out," which implies "I need you to get the dinner ready and tidy up the house." If the husband replies, "well, I told you to draw some boundaries at work. Now, you are suffering as a result," he has failed to attune to his wife's needs and respond effectively, and the wife will likely have felt emotionally abandoned. However, if the husband is able to acknowledge his own failure in responding appropriately to his wife's needs and take the steps to resolve the lingering hurt or relational rupture between him and his wife, the message may be communicated that he has her best interest in mind, which may in turn facilitate trust. Thus, their marriage is less likely to fall into a state of negative sentiment override (Gottman, 2011).

Essential components of relational repair are forgiveness and reconciliation. Forgiveness entails the decision to work through negative emotions and let go of retribution rights of a perceived offense. Successful repair also includes a commitment to trust again (Jankowski, Sandage, & Hill, 2013). Forgiveness can be attained by an offended individual, but relational repair and reconciliation require both partners to work together to mend the relational hurt and bring their emotional climate back to a satisfactory level. Since successful repair is so important in increasing trust in marriage relationships, it is important to explore certain dispositions of a marital partner that may contribute to successful repair. The purpose of the present research is to examine whether partner's level of humility influences the development of marital trust by facilitating successful repair.

The Relational Benefits of Humility

Humility is a construct found to possess many pro-relationship qualities. Humility, which consists of possessing an accurate view of the self (including both limitations and strengths) and exhibiting other-oriented attitudes and behaviors, has been identified as a variable that fosters stronger relational bonds (Farrell et al., 2015; Van Tongeren et al., 2014; Davis et al., 2013) and facilitates relational repair through forgiving wrong doers (Davis et al., 2013; Farrell et al., 2015; Jankowski et al., 2013). For example, humble people are better received in social groups (Davis et al., 2013) and exhibit less resistant toward a stranger (Exline, 2012). They are also open to acknowledge the benefits they receive from others, including feeling loved, which makes it easier to develop relationship attachments (Exline, 2012; Johnson, 2008a, 2008b). Also, humility has been associated with lower mistrust (Exline, 2012). Humble people project their own trustworthiness onto others and facilitate a higher cooperativeness in the relationships (Thielmann & Hilbig, 2014). Furthermore, humility is negatively correlated with defensiveness (Kernis, 2005), a toxic element that decreases marital quality (Gottman & Silver, 2015). Indeed, humility predicts greater relationship satisfaction in a sample of predominately dating couples (Farrell et al., 2015). Based on these research findings, it is not hard to see the benefits of humility in fostering trust in non-married population. However, no research has examined the relational benefits of humility in an exclusive married population.

Humility and Relational Repair

Much of the research on the relational benefits of humility focuses on the relationship between humility and forgiveness. In facilitating forgiveness, humble offenders are more likely to be forgiven (Farrell et al., 2015; Jankowski et al., 2013; Worthington, 1998) and humble individuals are also more likely to forgive (Davis et al., 2010; Exline, Baumeister, Zell, Kraft, & Witvliet, 2008). However, as discussed previously, forgiveness alone does not equate with successful relational repair which, according to Gottman (2011), is a crucial step to the development of marital trust. Nevertheless, there are reasons to assume that humble individuals are more likely to put in the effort to repair broken relationships. The accurate view of the self in a humble individual who is offended may instill more empathy for the offender, and thus be more willing to work through hard feelings to bring the relational state back to the baseline (Davis et al., 2010). The accurate view of the self in a humble offender may help the person to recognize his or her shortcomings and experience more genuine remorse with the desire to win back the offended (Farrell et al., 2015). The present research examines this assumption and Gottman's (2011) proposed relationship between relational repair and trust by hypothesizing the path model indicated in Figure 1. Specifically, we propose that humility contributes positively to the development of marital trust through the mediator of relational repair.

Before we examine this relationship, it is important that we address some unique measurement challenges to the study of humility. It is possible that when reporting one's own level of humility, humble individuals would underreport their level of humility (a "modesty effect"; Davis et al., 2010) while less humble individuals may over report their humility (see Hill & Laney, 2017; Hill et al., 2017 for a more thorough discussion of measurement issues). As a result, a humility measure based on others' perception (Davis et al., 2011) was developed to bypass this potential limitation of self-report humility measure. Nevertheless, it is also important to obtain self-reports of humility since such perceptions may also predict relational repair. The present study will examine the extent of shared variance between the two measures in a married population. The present study will also assess which measure bears more weight in influencing the likelihood of successful repair and the development of marital trust.

Hypotheses

The full path model is shown in Figure 2. The main hypotheses of the present study are: 1) given the relational benefits of humility in other relational contexts in facilitating forgiveness (Farrell et al., 2015; Jankowski et al., 2013; Davis et al., 2010; Exline, et al., 2008) and maintaining relational bonds (Van Tongeren, et al., 2014), humility will positively predict successful repair for married couples: and 2) as proposed by Gottman (2011), successful repair positively predicts higher levels of marital trust which, in turn, is associated with higher levels of marital satisfaction.

Method

Participants

Participants were 195 marital dyads (195 male) recruited from Qualtrics, a private data collection company. The dyads were involved in monogamous heterosexual marital relationships at the time of survey, had internet access, and were able to read English. There were no restrictions on age, ethnicity, social economic status, level of education, residential location, and disability status. Before participant recruitment, this study proposal was approved by Biola University's Protection of Human Rights in Research Committee (IRB).

Measures

Marital satisfaction. Marital satisfaction was assessed with the Couples Satisfaction Index (CSI; Funk & Rogge, 2007). The CSI is a 16-item self-report rating scale measuring the satisfaction of one's marriage relationship. CSI demonstrated a Cronbach's alpha of .98. Fifteen items are rated on a 6-point Likert scale (0= not at all/ at all true to 5=completely/completely true). One item is rated on a 7-point Likert scale (0=extremely unhappy to 6=perfect). High overall score indicates high marital satisfaction. Sample items include, "my relationship with my partner makes me happy" and "how well does your partner meet your needs?"

Trust. Trust was measured using the Trust Scale (Rempel et al., 1985). The Trust Scale measures the felt sense of security in the relationship with a romantic partner. The Trust Scale is a 17-item questionnaire consisting of three subscales: Faith, Dependability, and Predictability. Each item is rated on a 7-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). High score indicates a high level of trust. Sample items include "even when I don't know how my partner will react, I feel comfortable telling him/her anything about myself; even those things of which I am ashamed," and "when I am with my partner I feel secure in facing unknown new situations." The overall Cronbach's alpha has been found to be .81.

Humility. Humility was measured using both the General Humility Scale (Hill, Laney, & Edwards, 2015) and the Relational Humility Scale (Davis et al., 2011). The General Humility Scale, a 13-item questionnaire with each item rated on a 5-point Likert scale (strongly disagree to strongly agree), assesses one's subjective sense of humility and consists of three subscales: Low Concern for Status, Other-Orientation, and Accurate Assessment of Self. A high score indicates a high level of humility. The Cronbach's alphas of the subscales range from .72 to .84. Sample items measuring Low Concern for Status include "getting special attention from others is not that important to me." Items measuring Other-Orientation include "it is important that my work benefits others as much as it benefits me." Items measuring Accurate Assessment of Self include "to view myself more honestly, I am willing to face things I don't like about myself." The Relational Humility Scale measures the perceived level of humility of another person and consists of three subscales: Global Humility, Superiority, and Accurate View of Self (Davis et al., 2011). The Relational Humility Scale is a 16-item questionnaire with each item rated on a 5-point Likert scale (strongly disagree to strongly agree). A high score indicates a high level of humility. The Cronbach's Alpha was found to be .91. Sample items measuring Global Humility include "he/she has a humble character." Items measuring Superiority include "he/she thinks of him/herself too highly." Items measuring Accurate View of Self include "he/she knows him/herself well."

Repair. Repair was measured with the Repair Attempts Questionnaire (RAQ; Gottman & Silver, 2015). The RAQ is a 20 item self-report rating scale measuring one's effectiveness in repairing relational rupture. Each item of the RAQ is rated as either True or False. A high score indicates that the couple can successfully resolve hard feelings in their relationship and feel good about each other again. Cronbach's alphas were found to be .78 for both husbands and wives. Sample items include, "When I apologize, it usually gets accepted by my partner," and "My attempts to repair our discussions, when they get negative, are usually effective."

Procedure

All measures were compiled into a single battery at the Qualtrics website. The participants received emails containing information regarding informed consent to participate in this study, including a statement on the general purpose of examining factors involved in marital satisfaction, an explanation of confidentiality and de-identification of data, and possible risks of experiencing martial conflicts as a result of participation in this study. Proper referrals for marital and individual therapy could be obtained by contacting the author through email. Qualtrics compensated participants. Once participants consented, they had immediate access to complete the online assessment instruments. The participants were informed that the survey takes about 15-20 minutes, and they needed to confirm that their spouses were available to complete the survey right after them.

Data Analysis

Missing data were removed from the final analysis. Assumptions such as linearity, normality, skewness, and kurtosis were examined. Zero-order correlations were run between predictor variables (e.g., general humility, relational humility) and criterion variables (relational repair, trust towards partner, marital satisfaction). The software, STATA (version IC 12.1), was used for the path analysis (Figures 1 and 2). Standard global fit indices were used to test the model fitness (Schumacker & Lomax, 2004). In addition to the global fit indices, other steps were used to further evaluate the model. The steps included evaluating standardized residual covariances (they should be between -2.00 and 2.00), examining for Heywood cases, and a thorough consideration of the modification indices to improve model fitness. The maximum-likelihood estimation was used to evaluate the model.

Results

We first checked for assumptions and found that the sample tends to be mildly negatively skewed (showing more couples reporting positive marital experience than negative) but the skewness and kurtosis were within normal range. The demographics of the couples consisted of 77% White, 9% Hispanic, 7% African American, and 7% Asian Pacific Islanders. All were residents of the United States of America.

Perceived Humility and Self-Report Humility

We then checked if humility is positively associated with marital trust and successful repair, using the zero-order correlations (see Table 1). This hypothesis was supported for both self-report and partner-rating measures of humility for both husbands and wives. However, the association between perceived partner humility (ex. wives' relational humility measured by the husbands) and trust (husbands' trust toward their wives) is much stronger (r = .75) than the association between self-reported humility (husbands' self-report of their own humility) and trust (husbands' trust toward their wives) (r = .23). The same relationship is found with wives' marital trust towards their husbands (r = .74 versus r = .39). This finding suggests that trust as a relational experience is better predicted by perceived humility of one's partner than one's own perceived humility based on self-report. Since perceived partner humility was found to be more highly correlated with other variables in the model, we used perceived partner humility to represent the humility variable in the rest of analysis. However, moderate correlations (r = .39~.41, p < .001) were found between self-report humility and perceived partner humility, suggesting that there is credibility of one's self-report humility. Additionally, despite common beliefs that wives would be more sensitive to their relational experience and show stronger correlations among the relational variables measured by this study than husbands, the results revealed that the strengths of correlations among all variables are similar between wives and husbands. This may indicate that the relational experience of humility, repair, and trust are equally important to the husbands as they are to the wives.

We also examined Gottman's (2011) hypothesis that successful repair would be positively associated with marital trust and that trust would be positively associated with marital satisfaction. This hypothesis is supported by the results of zero-order correlations. For both husbands and wives, how successful they experience repair in their marriage is strongly associated with how much they trust their partners (r = .77, for husbands, r = .80, for wives). Similarly, how much they trust their partners is strongly associated with how satisfied they are in their marriages (r = .78, for husbands, r = .81, for wives). Also, data did not show a notable gender difference in these relationships.

Mediational Analyses

Next, we examined the path model of successful repair mediating the relationship between humility and trust. This model (Figure 3) passed all goodness of fit tests except Chi-square test, likely due to sample size. This result showed that the model is a good fit, supporting the hypothesis that humility enhances marital trust through a full mediation relationship with relational repair as the mediator. In the follow-up regression analysis, it was found that the majority of humility's contribution to marital trust could be explained by successful repair (82% for the husbands; 79% for wives), demonstrating the importance of repair in the development of marital trust in marital relationships.

Next, we examined Gottman's hypothesis that successful repair would be positively associated with marital trust and that trust would be positively associated with marital satisfaction. This hypothesis is supported by the results of zero-order correlations. For both husbands and wives, how successful they experience repair in their marriage is strongly associated with how much they trust their partners (r = .77, p < .001 for husbands, r = .80, p < .001 for wives), and also how much they trust their partners is strongly associated with how satisfied they are in their marriages (r = .78, p < .001 for husbands, r = .81, p < .001 for wives). Also, data did not show a notable gender difference in these relationships.

Analysis of the Full Path Model

We tested our full path model as represented by Figure 2. Unfortunately, the model failed all goodness of fit tests except for CFI, so we added a causal relationship between repair and marital satisfaction to see if the fitness increases. Our reasoning was that it is possible that by forcing all the variance of the variables into the model without allowing some direct relationship between those two variables, we decreased the fitness of the model. As a result, for both husbands and wives, the fit of the model increased but still did not pass all goodness of fit tests. We followed by adding another causal relationship between perceived humility and marital satisfaction, but the strength of the added relationship was found to be weak and the fit of the model was not enhanced. It is possible that since the endogenous variables in Figure 2 are all highly correlated with each other, the path analysis software may have grouped them together as a single latent variable, which skewed the fit of the model. Due to this possibility, we simplified the model by testing two mediation relationships.

We first tested whether trust mediates the relationship between perceived partner humility and marital satisfaction with both path analysis and regression analysis. The results confirmed a full mediation relationship for both husbands and wives (See Figure 4). The goodness of fit of this path model passed all fitness tests except the Chi-Square test due to large sample size. Trust explained nearly all the variance between perceived partner humility and marital satisfaction ([R.sup.2] of perceived humility on marital satisfaction while controlling for trust = .001 for the husbands and .000 for the wives).

Next, we tested whether repair mediates the relationship between perceived partner humility and marital satisfaction with both path analysis and regression analysis. The results also confirmed a full mediation relationship for both husbands and wives (See Figure 5). The goodness of fit of this path model passed all fitness tests except the Chi-Square test due to large sample size. Repair explained nearly all the variance between perceived humility and marital satisfaction ([R.sup.2] of perceived humility on marital satisfaction while controlling for repair = .007 for the husbands and .042 for the wives).

Discussion

The goal of this study was to examine the relational benefits of humility on the development of marital trust through the mediating mechanism of successful relational repair. We hypothesized that humility will positively contribute to marital trust through the mediator of successful relational repair in the context of marriage relationship. This hypothesis was supported. It was found that 6875% of the variance in marital trust was explained by the mediated effect of perceived humility through successful repair. While perceived humility has strong contribution to the levels of marital trust, this contribution is largely explained by the mechanism of successful repair. This finding expands our understanding that perceived humility not only strengthens and maintains relationships in the general (Davis et al., 2013; Exline, 2012; Van Tongeren et al., 2014) and dating population (Farrell et al., 2015) but also in a married population. This finding further supports Gottman's (2011) theory on successful relational repair as a preventive mechanism of negative sentiment override. To keep a house sanitized and comfortable, household trash needs to be regularly removed. Similarly, to keep a marriage enjoyable, the inevitable hard feelings generated by emotional misattunement need to be ameliorated through relational repair, or the marriage will eventually be overwhelmed by all sorts of negative sentiments and end up in a state of negative sentiment override.

Furthermore, we found that perceived partner humility is a greater contributor to marital trust and satisfaction than self-perceived humility. One explanation may be that since marital trust and satisfaction both measure experiences in marriage, an experiential measure of humility (perceived partner humility) speaks more volume than one's own self-understanding (self-report humility). Another explanation of this discrepancy may be due to the self-enhancing tendency discussed in humility measurement literature, which led to the development of perceived humility measure. Self-perception may inherently include a distortion of oneself, but the partner's perception is not affected by such distortion. Another reason that perceived humility demonstrated greater explanatory power than self-report humility may be that quality of relationship has more bearing on one's perceived humility of spouse since marital satisfaction increases how likable a spouse is, thus positively affecting one's perception of spouse's humility. Despite the discrepancy in their contribution to marriage dynamics, self-report humility and perceived humility shared considerable amount of variance. This finding contributes to humility literature by suggesting that humility is a virtue that can be discerned by self and others.

Lastly, since the full path model (Figure 2) was not a good fit to our data, we reconfigured our model into two mediation models: 1) marital trust mediating the relationship of humility on marital satisfaction, and 2) successful repair mediating the same relationship. Both models were found to be good fit to the data, indicating that marital trust and successful repair may represent two measures of a latent variable that mediates humility and marital satisfaction. Much marital research has focused on attachment security as a powerful predictor of marital satisfaction (Butzer & Campbell, 2008; Russell et at., 2013). It is possible that the latent variable the current study is tapping into by measures of marital trust and successful repair is attachment security in a marital relationship. Trust may be linked with emotional safety of a securely attached relationship, and successful repair may reveal the responsiveness of one's partner. If this is the case, the virtue of humility may indeed play an important role in fostering attachment security in marriage.

Therapeutic Implications

The findings from the present study point to several therapy treatment considerations. First, humility, especially perceived partner humility, plays an important role in enhancing marital trust and satisfaction. In treatment of married couples, since marital trust and satisfaction are more influenced by other co-created experiences of the couple such as perceived humility than self-understanding such as self-reported humility, a more experience-focused couple therapy may be more effective. The therapist may benefit from exploring partners' experience of each other's levels of humility while noting the gap between a partner's self-understanding and how the partner is being perceived and experienced by the other partner. This may lead to discovery of inaccurate discernment of partner's character due to ineffective communication.

Second, the present study identified three points of intervention, perceived partner humility, successful repair, and marital trust to enhance marital satisfaction. In prior research, individual attachment style has been identified as a major contributor to marital satisfaction (Butzer & Campbell, 2008; Russell et at., 2013). However, treatment that aims to correct insecure attachment styles tend to take longer, given the fact that individual attachment styles are hard to change (Bowlby, 1969, 1973, 1980). The three contributors identified in the present study may be more sensitive to short-term treatment interventions. While there is no current research detailing the time it takes to develop humility, this virtue may be learned through practice. Successful repair could also be obtained by helping couples develop ways of mending hurt feelings and recover their emotional climate to the prior positive state. Trust may be enhanced as a result of mending the hurt feelings, emotional attunement, and responsiveness of the partners, which were goals of short-term therapy models (Johnson, 2004; Johnson, 2008a).

Limitations and Suggestions for Future Research

There are several limitations in the present study. First, we utilized a cross-sectional design, so the results only revealed plausible relationships amongst the constructs at one point in time. No conclusion could be drawn regarding how the relationships may change over time. Also, while the proposed mediation models fit the data, causal relationships can only be stated tentatively since different causal hypotheses could possibly fit the data. Specifically, without using a longitudinal or experimental design, we cannot say for certain that perceived humility helps foster successful repair and marital trust. it could also be the case that trust fosters humility in that married couples who trust each other are more likely to let go of their self-focus and exhibit more other-orientated behavior (more humble) because they trust that their partners would look out for them.

Second, in the present study, we did not measure dyadic attachment and individual attachment styles, but attachment has been found in marriage literature to be a significant contributor to marital satisfaction (Butzer & Campbell, 2008; Russell et at., 2013). At the same time, we discovered that both marital trust and successful repair also contribute significantly to marital satisfaction. it would be interesting to explore and see how marital trust and repair are related to dyadic attachment.

Third, a similar prior study identified commitment to be a mediator between perceived humility and relational satisfaction in a population of mostly dating couples (Farrell et al., 2015). It would also be interesting to examine where commitment fits with the models of the present study.

Lastly, the same prior study (Farrell et al., 2015) also identified commitment to be a mediator between perceived humility and forgiveness while the present study examined perceived partner humility and successful repair, with repair being the mediator. it would be interesting to see if commitment also facilitates the relationship between perceived humility and successful repair in future research.

Conclusion

Humility can enhance marital satisfaction. We found evidence that perceiving one's partner as humble has a positive effect on one's satisfaction in marriage through the mediating effects of successful relational repair and higher marital trust. The present study was unique in affirming the value of self-report humility measure and in comparing the effects of both perceived humility and self-reported humility on marital satisfaction. The findings inform couple therapy of the power perceived humility in predicting marriage satisfaction. It may be the case that humble married couples are more satisfied partly because they are better at repairing their relationships and are more trusting of each other. We hope that future studies could examine the role of humility in fostering secure attachment in marriage.

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Frank Wang, Keith J. Edwards, Peter C. Hill

Biola University

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Frank Wang, Rosemead School of Psychology, Biola University, 13800 Biola Ave., La Mirada, CA 90636; frank.wang@biola.edu

Frank Wang (M.A. in Clinical Psychology, Biola University) is a Ph.D. Student at the Rosemead School of Psychology, Biola University (CA). Mr. Wang's interests include marriage issues and treatment, the integration of psychology and religion, trauma and recovery, and member care for oversea missionaries.

Keith J. Edwards (Ph.D. in Quantitative Methods, New Mexico State University; PhD. in Social & Clinical Psychology, University of Southern California) is Professor of Psychology at the Rosemead School of Psychology, Biola University (CA). Dr. Edwards's interests include psychometrics, measurement, interpersonal neurobiology/attachment perspectives on intimate relationships, emotion focused experiential therapies, and the integration of psychology and religion..

Peter C. Hill (Ph.D. in Social Psychology, University of Houston) is Professor of Psychology at the Rosemead School of Psychology, Biola University (CA) and editor of the Journal of Psychology and Christianity. Dr. Hill's interests include measurement issues, the integration of psychology and religion, the psychology of religion, and positive psychology.

Caption: Figure 1. Repair mediates the relationship between humility and trust.

Caption: Figure 2. The full linear casual path model.

Caption: Figure 3. Repair mediates between perceived partner humility and trust.

Caption: Figure 4. Trust mediates between perceived partner humility and marital satisfaction.

Caption: Figure 5. Repair mediates between perceived partner humility and marital satisfaction. Table 1 Zero-order correlations of the variables 2. 3. 4. 5. 1. H's Satisfaction .66 ** .24 ** .24 ** .40 ** 2. W's Satisfaction -- .21 ** .32 ** .60 ** 3. H's Self-report Humility -- -- .35** .41 ** 4. W's Self-report Humility -- -- -- .30 ** 5. W's View of Humility of (H) -- -- -- -- 6. H's View of Humility of (W) -- -- -- -- 7. H's Relational Repair -- -- -- -- 8. W's Relational Repair -- -- -- -- 9. H's Trust towawrds (W) -- -- -- -- 10. W's Trust towards (H) -- -- -- -- 6. 7. 8. 9. 1. H's Satisfaction .57 ** .73 ** .56 ** .78 ** 2. W's Satisfaction .38 ** .55 ** .74 ** .56 ** 3. H's Self-report Humility 29 ** .28 ** .19 ** .23 ** 4. W's Self-report Humility .39 ** .26 ** .38 ** .37 ** 5. W's View of Humility of (H) .36 ** .32 ** .59 ** .39 ** 6. H's View of Humility of (W) -- .66 ** .43 ** .75 ** 7. H's Relational Repair -- -- .63 ** .77 ** 8. W's Relational Repair -- -- -- .54 ** 9. H's Trust towawrds (W) -- -- -- -- 10. W's Trust towards (H) -- -- -- -- 10. 1. H's Satisfaction .60 ** 2. W's Satisfaction .81 ** 3. H's Self-report Humility .34 ** 4. W's Self-report Humility .39 ** 5. W's View of Humility of (H) .74 ** 6. H's View of Humility of (W) .43 ** 7. H's Relational Repair .56 ** 8. W's Relational Repair .80 ** 9. H's Trust towawrds (W) .58 ** 10. W's Trust towards (H) -- ** p < .001. (H) = Husbands, (W) = Wives.