Unilateral marital intervention: training low satisfaction spouses to train their partners in communication skills

Date

1979-08

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Texas Tech University

Abstract

The purpose of this study was twofold: 1) to assess whether low satisfaction spouses in marital dyads could train their partners in interpersonal communication skills, and 2) to assess what effect this training in interpersonal communication skills had on marital communication and marital adjustment of both marital partners. The participants in the study were all women from the Lubbock, Texas community or the surrounding area. After the participants had been trained in communication skills for five weeks, they were randomly assigned to a trainer group and a modeling group. Then the participants in the trainer group were trained and supervised in teaching their partners the same communication skills they learned during the first five weeks.

It was discovered that this population of low satisfaction spouses was very difficult to study, because of the small percentage of partners who were willing to cooperate with research aspects of the study. Because of the small sample size, no valid or reliable conclusions could be made. Nevertheless, using the results of the data collected, the trainer group seemed to be significantly higher in marital cohesion than the modeling group at posttest.

Description

Keywords

Communication in marriage, Marriage counseling, Interpersonal communication

Citation