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The following study was done by Bradbury and Fincham to

study the communication styles of couples. This study may
be used to discuss the role of communication in
relationships, why relationships fall apart or any question
on ethics or research methods in the study of personal
relationships.

Background information

Bradbury and Fincham’s research focused on the role of communication in relationships. The researchers found
that couples that are in happy relationships engage in relationship enhancing patterns when there is
disagreement - that is, they don't blame their partner or assume that the partner did things "on purpose."
Negative behaviours are attributed to situational factors. Unhappy couples blame their partners for what
happens and don't give them credit for positive events. He called this a distress-maintaining pattern of
behaviour

The study below was an observational study in which the researchers were looking at both causal attributions
(why is there a problem) and responsibility attributions (whose fault is it?).

Procedure and results

The participants were recruited through advertisements in the local media. Couples were considered only if they
were married, living together and had not been for marriage counseling. 47 couples participated. The average
length of marriage was 8.5 years. All participants were asked to fill out a survey to determine their level of
marital satisfaction.

Prior to the observation, the couple was asked to individually fill in a questionnaire to determine what the
greatest problems were in the marriage. The researchers chose a common problem from the questionnaires
and then asked each participant questions about the cause of the problem and who was responsible for the
problem. They were also each asked about a problem that was identified in their questionnaire which their
spouse did not identify as a problem.

After the individual session, they were brought together and instructed to discuss a possible solution to the
problem that they had both identified. The observation took place in a laboratory setting. The observation was
discontinued after 15 minutes had elapsed. The observation was videoed.

Two trained researchers independently coded the videotape to identify relationship enhancing and distress
maintaining patterns of communication.

Couples that reported lower levels of marital satisfaction had more frequent distress maintaining patterns of
communication – in other words, they were more likely to attribute marital problems to the partner and have a
greater tendency toward seeing the partner as behaving intentionally and with selfish motivation. The
interaction between such couples was rated as more hostile and rejecting of the positive approaches of the
partner.

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Evaluation

As the results are only correlational, there is the problem of bidirectional ambiguity. We cannot know if
distress-maintaining communication is the cause or the result of marital dissatisfaction.

The researchers used researcher triangulation in the coding of the observation, increasing the reliability of the
data.

There could be other variables that influenced the results. For example, depression or other forms of mental
illness were not measured and may have played a role in the communication style.

Not all of the problems that were discussed were of the same level of seriousness – the distressed couples
discussed issues that were more difficult to resolve than those discussed by non-distressed couples.

Administration of the questionnaire before the interaction may have interfered with the behaviour in the
observation. The study was not counterbalanced to prevent order effects.

There was a sampling bias – all of the couples were from a Western culture - so this may have had an effect
on the communication styles used in a marital relationship.

The study used a cross-sectional design, so it is not possible to observe change over time.

References

Bradbury, T. N., & Fincham, F. D. (1992). Attributions and behavior in marital interaction. Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 63(4), 613-628. doi:10.1037//0022-3514.63.4.613

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