Assessing Spontaneous Attributions in Marital Interaction: Methodological and Conceptual Considerations

With a reliable association between self-reported attributions and marital satisfaction now established, a next logical step is to investigate attributions as they occur spontaneously in marriage. An analysis of this task leads to several recommendations for future research. At the methodological level these include ruling out artifacts due to pseudounilaterality, the base rates of events for which attributions are made, the specific content of marital interactions in which attributions occur, and the general class of interactions that is sampled. Conceptual considerations involve distinguishing among types of attributions, including implicit versus explicit attributions and private versus public attributions, and examining different functions that attributions may serve. The implications of these issues for research on spontaneous attributions in marriage are discussed.