Sociology

Findings from various studies have indicated a direct association between sexual satisfaction and relationship satisfaction (Sprecher, 2002 Hatfield et al., 1982). Building on extant literature, this study posits the following conceptual hypothesis The greater the sexual satisfaction, the greater the relationship satisfaction. This study defines sexual satisfaction is as level of sexual activity (Rosen  Bachmann, 2008) and operationally defines relationship satisfaction as the level of happiness in a marriage. The independent variable (sexual activity) is predicted to influence the dependent variable (marriage happiness). This correlational research proposes to test the following operational hypotheses

H1 The higher the sexual activity in a marriage, the higher the level of happiness in a marriage.
An alternative hypothesis is also posited as

H2 There is no relationship between sexual activity and level of happiness in a marriage.
Research Method
This study is designed to be a correlational research using survey data in order to test whether there is a direct relationship between sexual activity and happiness among married couples. Datasets to be utilized for this research will be taken from The General Social Survey (GSSS) undertaken by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC)  of the University of Chicago. The GSS (2009) features data on sexual behavior and attitudes among the adult population since 1972. For this research, the independent variable (sexual activity) will measured in the GSS as frequency of sexual activity (FREQSEX) and the dependent variable (relationship satisfaction) will be measured as level of marriage happiness (MARHAP). The datasets required will be downloaded with permission from the NORC Website (2009) and will be subject to statistical analysis using SPSS software. Pearson Product Moment Correlation will be conducted at .05 level of significance to test whether or not there is a direct correlation between sexual activity and marriage happiness.