OBSERVATIONAL CODING OF RELATIONSHIP-SCHEMATIC PROCESSING

Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, Jan 2005 by Sullivan, Laura J, Baucom, Donald H

In this article, we introduce the construct Relationship-Schematic Processing (RSP), which is defined as the degree to which individuals process information in terms of their romantic relationship. We also present an observational coding system that was developed to assess the behavioral manifestations of RSP. The coding system was applied to videotaped problem-solving interactions completed by 55 maritally distressed couples. Findings indicated that wives engaged in more frequent and higher quality RSP than husbands did. Husbands reported greater relationship satisfaction when wives engaged in more frequent and higher quality RSP; wives reported greater satisfaction when husbands engaged in higher quality relationship processing. In addition, we assessed convergent validity with other measures of marital functioning.

In recent years, there has been an increase in the amount of research linking social cognition to marital phenomena. Historically, cognitive-behavioral marital researchers have focused on the association between cognitive content (i.e., what partners think) and relationship satisfaction. Indeed, "standards, assumptions, attributions, and several other cognitive contents have been shown to be related to a variety of interesting and important marital processes and outcomes" (Fincham & Beach, 1999, p. 688). Until recently, however, marital researchers have paid little attention to the cognitive processes that underlie partners' cognitive content. In contrast, "the social psychological literature contains numerous illustrations of how a social cognitive perspective can inform our understanding of close relationships" (Fincham & Beach, 1999, p. 687). Fincham and Beach (1999) have proposed a joining of marital and social psychological research, advocating the application of the social cognition literature to investigate marital phenomenon. In the last several years, an increasing number of researchers have utilized social cognition literature and methodology to study the link between cognitive processes (i.e., how people encode, organize, and act on information) and marital functioning. In this investigation, we introduce a type of cognitive processing (i.e., Relationship-Schematic Processing [RSP]) and explore the feasibility of measuring this construct using an observational coding system. In addition, we examine the association between RSP and marital functioning.

A social-cognitive phenomenon that appears to be related to marital interactions is relationship processing (i.e., focusing attention on one's romantic relationship and the events that occur within it). Several studies suggest that females tend to engage in more relationship processing than males do. For example, Burnett (1987) studied gender differences in relationship "reflection," individuals' thoughts about their relationships, both when alone and when in interactions. Burnett found that women were more likely than men to make assessments of their relationships. They also "cared more about monitoring and evaluating intrinsic relationship events and experiences" than men did (Burnett, 1987, p. 89). Men, in contrast, were less interested, thoughtful, and communicative about relationships. They had more difficulty explaining relationships, and they were less likely to enjoy analyzing personal relationships than women were. Similarly, Acitelli (1992) investigated gender differences in "relationship awareness," defined as "a person's thinking about interaction patterns, comparisons, or contrasts between himself or herself and the other partner in the relationship" (p. 102). Acitelli found that wives were more relationship aware (i.e., they tended to talk more about their marital relationships) than their husbands were. Furthermore, Cross and Madson (1997) studied gender differences in "self-construal." They suggested that men tend to form independent self-construals (i.e., others are regarded as being separate from the self), whereas women are more likely to form interdependent self-construals (i.e., others are considered part of the self). The authors proposed that these self-construals function as "lenses" for the perception and inteipretation of information. More specifically, they noted that women, who have interdependent self-construals, are more likely than men to attend to information concerning relationships, to encode and organize information in terms of relationships, and to remember events important to relationships.

Given this apparent disparity between females' and males' relationship processing, it becomes important to investigate whether and how this gender difference influences relationship functioning. Acitelli (1992) found that wives' marital satisfaction was positively associated with husbands' degree of relationship talk. In contrast, husbands' marital satisfaction was not related to either spouse's relational talk. Fletcher, Fincham, Cramer, and Heron (1987) also demonstrated a link between relationship thinking and relationship satisfaction. However, these investigators did not test the correlation between relationship processing and relationship satisfaction separately for each gender. Fletcher et al. demonstrated that participants who described their relationships in interpersonal terms were happier with their relationships, more committed to their relationships, and more in love than those who described their relationships in individuals terms (i.e., commented on themselves and/or their partners as individuals, rather than as a couple).