Motivation in marital communication: Comparison of distressed and nondistressed husbands and wives

Abstract Most research and training efforts concerned with marital communication have focused on the communication skills of spouses. Much less research has examined the communicative intentions of spouses. Some research suggests that wives may be “barometers” of the marital state, and in distressed marriages may have more negative intentions than their husbands. Thus, the current study hypothesized that wives in distressed marriages would make more negative ratings about the intents and impacts of communication than husbands in distressed marriages or husbands and wives in nondistressed marriages. Sixty marital dyads completed the Dyadic Adjustment Scale and participated in problem discussions while using the communication box. Ratings were made of message intent, predicted message impact, actual message impact, and perceived message intent. Intent ratings of distressed wives were significantly more negative than those provided by distressed husbands or by nondistressed wives. Distressed wives predicted ...

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