Causal Inferences for Spouse Behavior in Maritally Distressed and Nondistressed Couples

This study investigated the causal inferences made by maritally distressed and nondistressed spouses regarding their partners' positive and negative behavior. The partners in 32 marital couples rated the most likely cause of hypothesized actions by their spouses on several dimensions, indicated the feeling evoked by each action, and stated what they would do in response to it. For positive acts, the nondistressed group rated inferred causes as more global and controllable, whereas distressed spouses considered the causes more global for negative behavior. Results from both regression and path analyses suggest that affective responses are more important than are causal attributions in predicting behavior. These results are discussed in relation to the emerging literature on cognitive marital therapy, and their therapeutic implications are outlined.