Surveyed 65 couples beginning marital therapy and 37 couples from the community to examine interspousal reliability on reports of marital violence. Agreement between partners on the occurrence of violence was low to moderate for both samples. Husbands underreported their violent behavior, and/or wives tended to overreport violence performed by…

Distressed and nondistressed couples held discussions of their major marital problem. Mismatch errors or differences in intent and impact were most likely to occur when the receiver of the message evaluated the message more negatively than it was intended regardless of the group. The results provide some support for both the semantic and…

Assessment of community couples (N=272) revealed that more women than men reported physically aggressing against their partners at premarriage and 18 months. At 30 months, men and women did not report significantly different rates of aggression. Likelihood of physical aggression at 30 months given aggression before marriage and at 18 months was…

Presents revisions and item analyses of the Positive Feelings Questionnaire (PFQ) from a contrasted group of l04 clinic and community couples. Results found the PFQ to be internally consistent, relatively stable over time, correlated with measures of marital interaction, and sensitive to changes during marital therapy. (LLL)

Examined effects of dysphoria on husbands' and wives' later marital adjustment among 264 couples about to marry. Assessed relationship satisfaction and level of dysphoria in both spouses prior to marriage, 6 months after marriage, and 18 months after marriage. Premarital dysphoria was associated with later marital dissatisfaction. Gender…

Abusive, discordant, and satisfactorily married couples were compared on self-report measures of general assertion, spouse-specific assertion, spouse-specific aggression, and spousal physical aggression in their families of origin. Low levels of spouse-specific assertion were characteristic of discordant couples whether abusive or not. Spousal…

Discussed methodological errors in child and marital treatment research. Made suggestions to avoid such errors. Areas covered are selection of subjects and therapists, scope and source of dependent measures, treatment specification and experimental design. Errors include unsubstantiated diagnoses; client labels; restricted outcome criteria; and…

Distressed couples were assigned to behavioral marital therapy, communication therapy, or a wait-list. Treated couples demonstrated more change than controls in marital problems and general communication patterns, but not in feelings toward spouse or communication during conflict resolution discussions. No overall differences were reported between…

Data were collected from 20 couples with satisfactory marriages and 20 maritally dysfunctional nonviolent couples to evaluate characteristics associated with wife abuse. Abusive husbands were less assertive, abusive to children, and witnesses to parental spouse abuse; they were also likely to be conservative and alcoholics. (Author/RC)

A defining feature of behavior therapy is its application of general psychological principles and its consequent responsiveness to developments in general psychology. However, there are indications that a new movement already labeled in behavioral circles as "affect in the eighties" may be influencing the cognitive behavior therapy of…

Examined how spousal behaviors related to global and daily marital satisfaction. Eighty-two couples completed daily checklists of spousal behaviors for seven days using an individualized or a standardized assessment method. Daily behavioral event measures were significantly related to global and daily measures of marital satisfaction,…