Explanations for family events in distressed and nondistressed couples: Is one type of explanation used consistently?

Abstract

Distressed and nondistressed spouses differ in their attributions or explanations for marital events. This study investigated whether the attributional patterns of distressed and nondistressed spouses are (a) unique to marriage or instead reflect a general attributional style used in the family, and (b) an artifact of depression. Sixteen couples seeking marital therapy and 19 couples drawn from the community made attributions for marital difficulties and child behaviors. It was found that clinic couples, compared to community couples, viewed the cause of both types of events as more global, and tended to perceive their spouse as the cause of marital problems. In addition, attributions for child behavior and marital events correlated positively. Finally, depression did not account for the association found between attributions and marital satisfaction. These results are discussed in terms of their significance for understanding family dysfunction, and their implications for therapy are outlined. The importance accorded attributions in understanding marital and family dysfunction (e.g., Baggarozzi & Giddings, 1983) has been supported by several recent studies. For example, distressed spouses, compared to their nondistressed counterparts, tend to perceive the causes of negative partner behaviors and of marital difficulties as located in the spouse, to be stable or enduring over time, and to be global or influential in many areas of the marriage (see Bradbury & Fincham, 1990). Such patterns of attribution are thought to accentuate the impact of negative marital events and to maintain and/or initiate marital distress. In a similar vein, attributions for child behavior have been linked to parental maltreatment of children. Larrance and Twenty man (1983) found that mothers with a prior history of abuse or neglect rated the causes of their child's negative behavior as more internal to the child and more stable than did mothers with no such history. The emergence of such studies on attributions in dysfunctional marital and parent-child relationships has resulted in recent attempts to develop interventions designed