心事誰人知：個人網絡組成對配偶親密關係的影響

Abstract

本研究探討個人網絡如何影響已婚者是否將配偶視為主要的談心對象。由於過去個人網絡研究關注人是否疏離、是否擁有足夠的社會支持，加上配偶經常被視為已婚者情感上主要依賴的對象；因此本研究將聚焦於配偶所提供的情感支持，以延續個人網絡研究的關懷。另外，在台灣雖然經常有「夫妻之間的事情不只是兩人的事，而是兩家人的事」這類說法，但是既有研究大多關注個人或是夫妻兩人的屬性對夫妻關係的影響，卻較少關注個人網絡的重要性。因此本研究以Bott (1956) 的夫妻角色理論為主軸，關注情感性網絡的規模、性別組成、親屬組成，對已婚者是否將配偶視為主要談心對象的影響。 本文使用1997年「台灣社會變遷調查」社會網絡與社區組的資料，以已婚者為研究對象，透過迴歸分析得到的主要結果為：(1)情感性網絡規模越大，越不容易配偶納入情感性網絡。(2)情感性網絡性別組成的影響有性別差異，男性的情感性網絡同性別比例越高，越容易將配偶納入情感性網絡。(3)情感性網絡親屬比例越高，越容易將配偶納入情感性網絡。上述研究結果呈現出考量個人網絡成員屬性的重要，以及個人網絡在台灣社會特定文化脈絡下如何對夫妻關係產生影響。

In Taiwan, people often say “marriage is not only a union between two people, but also between two families.” However, current studies mainly focus on how personal attribution, and both attributions of husband and wife affect martial relationship, ignoring the effect of personal networks that married people are situated in. Therefore, based on Bott’s theory about how conjugal role associates with social networks, the main objective of this study is to examine how personal networks affect whether married people view their spouse as their confidant (the person that they mainly depend on emotionally). Using the data from the 1997 Taiwan Social Change Survey, this study investigates how the size, gender composition, and kin composition of the emotional networks affect whether married people include their spouse into their emotional networks or not. The following are the three most important findings of this study: first of all, the bigger the emotional networks’ size are, the less likely for married people to include their spouse into their emotional networks. Secondly, sex difference is observed in the emotional networks’ gender composition; married men are more likely to include their spouse into his emotional networks when it is predominantly male. Lastly, married people with higher kin proportion in their emotional networks are more likely to include their spouse. These results imply that it is important to consider the composition of the members in the personal networks. The implications of Taiwan society’s speciality are also discussed.