Journal of Behavioral Medicine, Vol. 30, No. 1, February 2007 ( C  2006) DOI: 10.1007/s10865-006-9086-z Hostility, Anger, and Marital Adjustment: Concurrent and Prospective Associations with Psychosocial Vulnerability Kelly Glazer Baron, 1 Timothy W. Smith, 1,2 Jonathan Butner, 1 Jill Nealey-Moore, 1 Melissa W. Hawkins, 1 and Bert N. Uchino 1 Accepted for publication: October 27, 2006 Published online: December 13, 2006 Hostility may contribute to risk for disease through psychosocial vulnerability, including the erosion of the quality of close relationships. This study examined hostility, anger, concurrent ratings of the relationship, and change in marital adjustment over 18 months in 122 mar- ried couples. Wives’ and husbands’ hostility and anger were related to concurrent ratings of marital adjustment and conflict. In prospective analyses, wives’ but not husbands’ hostility and anger were related to change in marital adjustment. In hierarchical regression and SEM models wives’ anger was a unique predictor of both wives’ and husbands’ change in marital adjustment. The association between wives’ anger and change in husbands’ marital satisfac- tion was mediated by husbands’ ratings of conflict in the marriage. These results support the role of hostility and anger in the development of psychosocial vulnerability, but also sug- gest an asymmetry in the effects of wives’ and husbands’ trait anger and hostility on marital adjustment. KEY WORDS: hostility; anger; marital adjustment; psychosocial vulnerability. Hostility is a personality trait associated with in- creased risk for the development of coronary heart disease (CHD) and premature mortality (Miller et al., 1996; Smith, Glazer, Ruiz, and Gallo, 2004). Research has suggested that the association between hostility and health may be due in part to increased physiological reactivity to interpersonal stressors, in- creased psychosocial vulnerability in the form of in- creased social conflict and decreased social support, and the transactional process of creating a more hos- tile interpersonal environment (Smith, 1992, 1994). Therefore, it is informative to investigate the effects of hostility on the individual as well as his or her so- cial network. Many studies demonstrate that hostile individ- uals compared to non-hostile individuals experience 1 Department of Psychology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112. 2 To whom correspondence should be addressed at Department of Psychology, University of Utah, 390 South 1530 East (rm. 502), Salt Lake City, UT 84112; e-mail: tim.smith@psych.utah.edu. lower levels of social support and greater conflict in interpersonal relationships (Hart, 1999; Houston and Kelly, 1989; O’Neil and Emery, 2002; Smith et al., 1988). Marriage is a unique and important context for these mechanisms (Kiecolt-Glaser and Newton, 2001; Smith and Ruiz, 2002). Marital research allows us to study the effects of hostility within and between individuals. That is, studies of married couples permit the examination of effects of the individual’s level of hostility on their own relationship functioning as well as that reported by their partner. Such cross-spouse effects provide evidence that these traits are asso- ciated with indications of psychosocial vulnerability that are not influenced by the common method vari- ance potentially contributing to within person associ- ations. Further, these cross-spouse effects would sug- gest that anger and hostility do not simply influence perceptions of close relationships but also influence interactional processes apparent to the partner. To date, two studies indicate that hostility is associated with increased risk for future exposure to marital difficulties. Miller et al. (1995) reported 1 0160-7715/07/0200-0001/0 C  2006 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC