Dysfunctional Beliefs and Marital Conflict in Distressed and Non-Distressed Married Individuals

Abstract

To test the hypothesis that the irrational evaluative beliefs, postulated by Rational-emotive behavior therapy, are related to marital conflict, 17 individuals from distressed marriages and 20 from non-distressed marriages participated in the Articulated Thoughts during Simulated Situations procedure. Four scenes, representing different dimensions of marital conflict (power/control, boundaries, expressive investment and instrumental investment), were used. On all the scenes, the distressed group showed significantly more irrational cognitions than the non-distressed group, while the scenes elicited significantly more positive thoughts with the non-distressed individuals compared to the distressed group. The results also showed that the non-distressed group displayed significantly more positive than negative thoughts for all the conflict scenes combined. However, no significant difference between positive and negative thoughts was found for the distressed group.