Communication during marital conflict: When couples alter their appraisal, they change their behavior.

In a sample of 77 recently married couples, within-person variance in cognitive appraisal was expected to predict corresponding within-person variance in communication behavior during conflict. Three types of appraisal were considered: expectancies of partner understanding, expectancies of partner negative communication, and attributions. Couples were observed in 4 different conflict conversations, completed during 2 assessment sessions, and appraisals were assessed prior to each conversation. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to analyze within-person effects. Changes from one conversation to the next in all 3 types of appraisal predicted corresponding within-person change in communication, and many effects were larger for wives than for husbands. Results were strongest for expectancies of partner understanding. Expectancies predicted change in one's own behavior after controlling for the accuracy of the expectancy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Assessing attributions in marriage: The Relationship Attribution Measure.

A brief, simple measure of different types of attributions for partner behavior was examined in 3 studies of married couples. Reliability was established by high internal consistency and test–retest correlations. Causal and responsibility attribution scores correlated with marital satisfaction, attributions for marital difficulties, and attributions for actual partner behaviors generated by spouses. Responsibility attributions were related to (1) reported anger in response to stimulus behaviors used in the measure and (2) the amount of anger displayed by wives during a problem-solving interaction with their partner. The extent to which husbands and wives whined during their discussion also correlated with their responsibility attributions. The results addressed several problems with existing assessments, and their implications for the measurement of attributions in marriage are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

In search of the "hot" cognitions: Attributions, appraisals, and their relation to emotion.

Two studies examined the hypothesized status of appraisals, relative to attributions, as proximal antecedents of emotion. In Study 1, which looked at 6 emotions (happiness, hope-challenge, anger, guilt, fear-anxiety, and sadness), 136 undergraduates reported on their attributions, appraisals, and emotions during past encounters associated with a variety of situations. In Study 2, which focused on anger and guilt, 120 undergraduates reported on these same variables in response to experimenter-supplied vignettes that systematically manipulated theoretically relevant attributions. The results of both studies indicated that the emotions were more directly related to appraisals than they were to attributions, and Study 2 provided evidence that appraisal serves as a mediator between attribution and emotional response. These findings lend support to the hypothesized status of appraisal as the most proximal cognitive antecedent of emotion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Specific and generalized expectancies in marital interaction.

40 married couples engaged in 2 laboratory interactions. The Marital Agendas Protocol was used to assess relational efficacy, and spouses' expectancies for partner behaviors during each interaction were elicited. Subsequent to the interactions, spouses' perceptions of their partners' actual behaviors were indicated, and spouses chose situational or dispositional attributions for each behavior. Results showed that distressed couples expect more negative and fewer positive behaviors and that spouses with high relational efficacy choose relationship-enhancing attributions more often than do low-efficacy spouses. The low-efficacy group showed strong preferences for distress-maintaining attributions. The results are interpreted as supporting the concept of sentiment override as well as the usefulness of the specific operationalization of relational efficacy utilized. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Validation of a new self-report measure of parental attributions.

Attributional theory and empirical evidence suggest that a tendency to make stable, global self-causal attributions for undesirable events is associated with negative outcomes. However, existing self-report measures of parental attributions do not account for the possibility that dysfunctional parent-causal attributions for child misbehavior might be important predictors of poor family functioning. To address these concerns, the authors developed and tested a new measure of both parent-causal and child-responsible attributions for child misbehavior in a sample of 453 community couples. Structural validity, convergent validity, discriminant validity, internal consistency, and temporal stability of the new measure were examined. As expected, confirmatory factor analysis resulted in 2 factors, Child-Responsible (9 items) and Parent-Causal (7 items); the final model was cross-validated in a holdout sample. The final scale demonstrated adequate internal consistency (αs = .81–.90), test–retest reliability (rs = .55–.76), and convergent and discriminant validity. Dysfunctional parent-causal and child-responsible attributions significantly predicted parental emotional problems, ineffective discipline, parent–child physical aggression, and low parenting satisfaction. Associations with parent–child aggression and parenting satisfaction were generally larger than with partner aggression and relationship satisfaction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Trust and communicated attributions in close relationships.

The attributional statements intimate partners communicate to one another were examined as a function of trust. In discussions by 35 married couples, 850 attributions and corresponding events were coded on dimensions of valence, globality, and locus. Results of regression and contingency analyses indicate that attributional statements expressed in high-trust relationships emphasized positive aspects of the relationship. Medium-trust couples actively engaged issues but focused mom on negative events and explanations. Low-trust couples expressed more specific, less affectively extreme attributional statements that minimized the potential for increased conflict. Results could not be accounted for by relationship satisfaction. These findings also highlight the importance of focusing on features of the events for which attributions are expressed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Predicting inept discipline: The role of parental depressive symptoms, anger, and attributions.

Relations among parents' psychological difficulties (i.e., depressive symptoms, overt anger), dysfunctional attributions for child misbehavior, and inept discipline were investigated in a representative community sample of 451 mothers and 449 fathers. Depressive symptoms and anger were hypothesized to relate to discipline via their link with parents' attributions. Path analyses revealed that depressive symptoms predicted parent-centered causal attributions (i.e., stable, global, and dispositional), which, in turn, related to laxness. Depressive symptoms also predicted child-centered responsibility attributions (i.e., controllable, intentional, and negative), which, in turn, related to overreactivity. Anger predicted overreactivity directly. The patterns of relations were similar for fathers and mothers. The importance of addressing parents' psychological difficulties and dysfunctional attributions in interventions for families with disruptive children is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Now why'd he do that? The nature and correlates of mothers' attributions about negative teen behavior.

This study examined the attributions that mothers make about their teens' negative behaviors and whether these attributions are related to their own attributional styles, as well as the relationship between mothers' attributions and parent-teen relationship conflict. Globality of mothers' attributions was particularly important: Globality of attributions about events in their own lives was correlated with globality of attributions about teens' behavior, and globality of mothers' attributions about teen behavior was correlated with conflict. The nature of the negative behavior (whether it directly involved the parent or did not) made a difference in predictable ways. The results highlight the ways in which a full understanding of the role of attributions in parent-teen relationships calls for more complex conceptualization of traditional attribution dimensions, notably, the internal-external dimension. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Causal attributions of married couples: When do they search for causes? What do they conclude when they do?

Administered an attribution questionnaire and a partner behavior checklist to 20 nondistressed and 22 distressed couples (as determined by a dyadic adjustment scale). Instruments contained indirect and direct probes. Wives were aged 20–59 yrs; husbands were aged 20–61 yrs; 11 distressed couples had been referred to a clinic for marital therapy. Spouses were asked about frequent as well as infrequent relationship events and about partner behaviors that had positive or negative impacts on the recipient. Attributions were coded for content and contribution to the relationship. Results show that husbands in unsatisfying relationships reported more attributional thoughts than did happily married husbands, whereas wives in the 2 groups did not differ. Behaviors having negative impacts elicited more attributional activity than did positive behaviors. Behavioral frequency and impact interacted in ways contrary to predictions. Finally, distressed couples were particularly likely to report distress-maintaining attributions and were particularly unlikely to report relationship-enhancing attributions when compared with their nondistressed counterparts. (40 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of marital interaction on chronic pain and disability: Examining the down side of social support.

Discusses family systems, social support, operant conditioning, and cognitive-behavioral (CB) perspectives on the role of families in chronic illness and, specifically, chronic pain. A reformulated CB model is advanced that emphasizes patients' appraisals and interpretations of their spouses' responses to communications of pain. Using data from 148 married patients with chronic pain and their spouses, the quality of the marital relationship was specifically documented as a critical mediator. Relationships between spouses' responses to pain and important dimensions of the pain experience generally were present only among maritally satisfied couples. A CB model that integrates patients' appraisals, attributions, and expectancies with actual reinforcement contingencies appears to provide a reasonable way to conceptualize the role of spousal interactions and responses in perpetuation of pain, disability, and extent of suffering. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perceived threat and perceived neglect: Couples' underlying concerns during conflict.

The Couples Underlying Concern Inventory assesses 2 fundamental types of distress that couples experience during interpersonal conflict. Perceived threat involves a perception that one's partner is blaming and controlling the self. Perceived neglect involves a perception that one's partner is failing to make desired contributions or investments. Scales measuring these 2 underlying concerns were developed in Study 1, where a sample of 1,224 married people rated a pool of 57 words describing oneself and perceptions of a partner during a specific episode of conflict. Factor analysis identified 2 dimensions, and 2 brief 8-item scales were created. In Study 2, a sample of 2,315 married people completed the resulting 16-item inventory along with 10 self-report scales measuring types of emotion, cognition, and behavior during conflict. A 2-dimensional factor structure was confirmed, and measurement invariance was demonstrated across 4 racial/ethnic groups. Both perceived threat and perceived neglect correlated with relationship satisfaction and conflict communication. More importantly, each concern was associated with a different, and theoretically expected, set of variables regarding self emotion, emotion perceived in a partner, and cognition during conflict. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An attributional analysis of personal and interpersonal motivation for collaborative projects.

Attribution theory provides a framework for examining personal and interpersonal motivation for collaborative projects. Undergraduates were asked to read vignettes concerning student dyads engaged in collaborative projects. The vignettes systematically varied on outcome of the project, student self-ability, student self-effort, partner ability, and partner effort. Participants responded to Likert items measuring personal affect of shame, guilt, and pride; interpersonal affect of pity, anger, and gratitude; and expectations for performance on future projects. Ability and effort attributions were expected to lead to different emotional consequences and future expectations, because they differ on the dimensions of controllability and stability. Overall, student motivation was tied more closely to effort than ability. Specific results are discussed within the framework of attribution theory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Contributions of Ineffective Discipline and Parental Hostile Attributions of Child Misbehavior to the Development of Conduct Problems at Home and School.

Data were collected in a longitudinal study of 134 boys and 132 girls and their families during kindergarten and first grade. Four hours of parent-child interaction were coded to ascertain parent discipline practices. A structured interview assessed maternal attributions about child behavior. Maternal ratings of child conduct problems at kindergarten entry reliably predicted the mother's subsequent hostile attributions concerning child misbehavior and use of ineffective discipline tactics. Ineffective maternal discipline and the interaction of ineffective discipline and hostile attribution predicted growth in child conduct problems at home during kindergarten and first grade. Changes in teacher-reported and observed child conduct problems at school during kindergarten and first grade were predicted by growth in conduct problems at home and by the interaction of ineffective discipline and hostile attribution. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Linking hearts and minds in couple interactions: Intentions, attributions, and overriding sentiments.

This study examined the role of emotion and relationship satisfaction in shaping attributions about a partner's intentions in couple interactions. Using video recall, participants (N = 156 couples) reported on their own and their partner's intentions and emotions during affective moments of a discussion about an upsetting event. Links were found between relationship satisfaction and factor-analytically derived intention and attribution scales. Attributions about a partner's intentions were weakly to moderately correlated with the partner's self-reported intentions. Relationship satisfaction accounted for part of the discrepancy between self-reported intentions and partner attributions. Emotions mediated the links between relationship satisfaction and attributions, suggesting that clinicians working with distressed couples should pay more attention to the emotional climate in which attributions are made. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Proud Americans and lucky Japanese: Cultural differences in appraisal and corresponding emotion.

Appraisal theories of emotion propose that the emotions people experience correspond to their appraisals of their situation. In other words, individual differences in emotional experiences reflect differing interpretations of the situation. We hypothesized that in similar situations, people in individualist and collectivist cultures experience different emotions because of culturally divergent causal attributions for success and failure (i.e., agency appraisals). In a test of this hypothesis, American and Japanese participants recalled a personal experience (Study 1) or imagined themselves to be in a situation (Study 2) in which they succeeded or failed, and then reported their agency appraisals and emotions. Supporting our hypothesis, cultural differences in emotions corresponded to differences in attributions. For example, in success situations, Americans reported stronger self-agency emotions (e.g., proud) than did Japanese, whereas Japanese reported a stronger situation-agency emotion (lucky). Also, cultural differences in attribution and emotion were largely explained by differences in self-enhancing motivation. When Japanese and Americans were induced to make the same attribution (Study 2), cultural differences in emotions became either nonsignificant or were markedly reduced. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Benevolent cognitions as a strategy of relationship maintenance: "Don't sweat the small stuff"....But it is not all small stuff.

To maintain intimate relationships in the face of negative experiences, many recommend cognitive strategies that minimize the implications of those experiences for global evaluations of the relationship. But are such strategies always adaptive? Suggesting otherwise, 2 longitudinal studies spanning the 1st 4 years of 251 new marriages revealed that the effects of benevolent cognitions on relationship development depended on the initial levels of negativity in the relationship. Cross-sectionally, the tendency to make positive attributions or otherwise disengage global evaluations of the relationship from negative experiences was associated with higher levels of satisfaction in marriages characterized by more frequent negative behavior and more severe problems. Longitudinally, in contrast, such strategies only demonstrated benefits to healthier marriages, whereas they predicted steeper declines in satisfaction among spouses in more troubled marriages by allowing marital problems to worsen over time. These findings highlight the limits of purely cognitive theories of relationship maintenance and suggest that widely recommended strategies for improving relationships may harm vulnerable couples by weakening their motivations to address their problems directly. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The causal effects of emotion on couples' cognition and behavior.

The authors conducted 2 translational studies that assessed the causal effects of emotion on maladaptive cognitions and behaviors in couples. Specifically, the authors examined whether negative emotions increased and positive emotions decreased partner attributions and demand-withdraw behaviors. Study 1 (N=164) used video clips to assess the effects of emotion on individuals' attributions. Study 2 (N=47 couples) was a therapy analogue study intended to assess whether emotion generated from couples' conversations would influence subsequent attributions and behaviors. Results indicate that participants in the negative emotion conditions tended to attribute more blame to their partners and were more likely to engage in demand-withdraw patterns and other negative behaviors than were those in the positive emotion conditions. Implications for research and practice are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relationship of attributions to marital distress: A comparison of mainland Chinese and U.S. Couples.

Research on attribution theory has focused on a number of different social contexts. Close personal relationships and marriage in particular have been investigated widely. Cross-cultural differences in attribution patterns have also been explored, although mostly in relation to academic achievement or employment. This article focused on cross-cultural variations in marital attributions. Thirty-six couples from the People's Republic of China (P.R.C.) and 32 couples from the United States (U.S.) were included. Marital attributions were correlated with marital distress for both groups. However, the P.R.C. spouses tended to report more relationship-enhancing causal attributions than did U.S. spouses. There were also some differences in attributions of responsibility and blame across cultures. These findings are discussed in relationship to current marital attribution theory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age, marital satisfaction, and optimism as predictors of positive sentiment override in middle-aged and older married couples.

This study examined whether positive sentiment override (greater positive appraisal of spouse's affiliative behavior than is warranted by observed behavior) occurred more frequently in older compared with middle-aged married couples and whether age differences were mediated by older adults' greater marital satisfaction when controlling for optimism. Participants included 270 middle-aged (40-50 years old) and older (60-70 years old) couples who discussed a marital disagreement and completed an errand task. Couples provided appraisals of their spouse's affiliation, and the authors coded affiliative interactions using the structural analysis of social behavior. Hierarchical multivariate linear modeling indicated that older husbands and wives viewed their spouse's behavior as more positive during disagreement interactions than did independent observers; in the errand task, only older wives demonstrated positive sentiment override. Age differences in positive sentiment override were mediated by marital satisfaction, even when controlling for optimism. The results are consistent with theories of emotion regulation, such as socioemotional selectivity theory, that suggest that older adults are biased toward the positive aspects of close relationships. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Three-year follow-up of same-sex couples who had civil unions in Vermont, same-sex couples not in civil unions, and heterosexual married couples.

This study was a 3-year follow-up of 65 male and 138 female same-sex couples who had civil unions in Vermont during the 1st year of that legislation. These couples were compared with 23 male and 61 female same-sex couples in their friendship circles who did not have civil unions and with 55 heterosexual married couples (1 member of each was a sibling to a member of a civil union couple). Despite the legalized nature of their relationships, civil union couples did not differ on any measure from same-sex couples who were not in civil unions. However, same-sex couples not in civil unions were more likely to have ended their relationships than same-sex civil union or heterosexual married couples. Compared with heterosexual married participants, both types of same-sex couples reported greater relationship quality, compatibility, and intimacy and lower levels of conflict. Longitudinal predictors of relationship quality at Time 2 included less conflict, greater level of outness, and a shorter relationship length for men in same-sex relationships and included less conflict and more frequent sex for women in same-sex relationships at Time 1. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)