Communication and Empathy in Marital Adjustment

Abstract

To examine relationships between measures of empathy and communication in terms of marital adjustment, 105 couples were given the Short Form Marital Adjustment Test by Locke and Wallace (to assess marital adjustment), the Yale Marital Inventory Bat tery by Buerkle and Badgley (to assess empathic responses), and finally, the Marital Communication Inventory by Bienvenu (to assess communication patterns). Marital communication was significantly correlated with marital adjustment, both for individu als and for couples. However, these relationships could be spurious artifacts due to other factors common to the Short Form Marital Adjustment Test, the Marital Communi cation Inventory, and the Yale Marital Interaction Battery. Another study should eliminate common inventory items and factor the Marital Communication Inventory and the Yale Marital Interaction Battery to determine what each inventory actually measured. Further, neither sex was assessed as more empathic, more communicative, or better maritally adjusted than the other. Although research findings are contradictory about the relationship between empathy and both marital adjustment and marital com munication, this study found no significant correlation between empathy and marital communication or between empathy and marital adjustment, either for couples or for individuals. The Barrett‐Lennard Relationship Inventory subscale on empathy is rec ommended as an improved empathy measure for future studies.