Cognitive Processes in Relationships

Attribution Processes

One cognitive process that has been shown to be important for relationship satisfaction and stability is the explanations or attributions that people make for events that occur in their relationship. People are particularly motivated to make attributions for unexpected or novel experiences, negative experiences, and experiences that are personally relevant. For example, consider the situation in which a partner does something negative and unexpected, such as criticize his or [Page 225]her partner in front of his or her friends or family. In such a situation, the criticized partner may ask, “Why did my partner do that?” The explanation that the criticized partner comes up with is his or her causal attribution of why the event occurred. Attributions are typically studied by presenting people with relationship events and asking them to rate the cause of the event, or the partner's responsibility for the event, along several dimensions. For example, in one prominent line of research, the kinds of causal attributions people make about their partner's behavior are evaluated along the following dimensions: (a) internal reasons (e.g., something about the person) versus external reasons (e.g., something about the situation or circumstances), (b) stable reasons (e.g., something likely to continue over time) versus unstable reasons (something that is transient or time-limited), and (c) global reasons (e.g., something likely to affect many areas of a relationship) versus specific reasons (e.g., something likely to affect only one or a few areas of a relationship). People in distressed relationships make attributions that lessen the impact of positive events and accentuate the impact of negative events, whereas the opposite patterns occur in nondistressed relationships (i.e., the impact of positive events is enhanced and the impact of negative events is negated). For example, people who believe that negative partner behavior is due to internal, stable, and global causes (e.g., a partner's broad and unchangeable traits) tend to be less satisfied with their relationship and exhibit greater declines in their relationship satisfaction over time. Furthermore, people also make responsibility attributions for events in which they judge whether their partner should be blamed for their behavior. Compared with people who are happy with their relationships, people who are unhappy with their relationships tend to blame their partner for relationship problems, viewing their partner's behavior as intentional or selfishly motivated. People who make negative causal and responsibility attributions not only are less satisfied with their relationships but also tend to have less effective problem-solving discussions and behave more negatively toward each other. Finally, it has been shown that the association between attributions and relationship functioning is not due to potential confounding variables, such as personality (i.e., neuroticism), self-esteem, physical aggression, depression, or measurement procedures.

...