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PERSONALITY PROCESSES AND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES
Attributions in Marriage: State or Trait? A Growth Curve Analysis
Benjamin R. Karney
University of FloridaThomas N. Bradbury
University of California, Los Angeles
Research on attributions in marriage rests on 2 assumptions. First, the attributions spouses make for their
partners' behaviors have been treated as a style or a trait, reflecting enduring aspects of the perceiver.
Second, attributions have been described as a causal factor in the development of the marriage over time.
To evaluate the evidence for these assumptions, the authors analyzed 8 waves of longitudinal data from
a sample of newlywed couples. Results offered no support for the idea of an enduring attributional style;
attributions changed linearly, and changes in attributions were strongly associated with changes in marital
satisfaction within each spouse. Nevertheless, controlling for these associations, initial levels of attribu-
tions predicted changes in marital satisfaction more than initial satisfaction predicted changes in
attributions. Effects of neuroticism and effects on marital dissolution were also examined.
Spouses in satisfied and distressed marriages can be distin-
guished by the attributions they make for each other's behaviors
(e.g., Fincham, 1985; Jacobson, McDonald, Follette, & Berley,
1985).
Satisfied spouses tend to view their partners' positive
behaviors as the result of stable, internal causes and dismiss
negative behaviors as the result of temporary, external causes.
Distressed spouses, in contrast, tend to view their partner as the
cause of negative behaviors and find temporary, external causes
for positive behaviors. This association holds true even when
controlling for depressive symptoms (Fincham, Beach, & Brad-
bury, 1989), negative affectivity (Karney, Bradbury, Fincham, &
Sullivan, 1994), and level of marital violence (Fincham, Bradbury,
Arias,
Byrne, & Karney, 1997). On the basis of this research,
attributions have been assigned a prominent role in theories of
relationship development (e.g., Bradbury & Fincham, 1991) and
have been described as a target of change in interventions designed
to alleviate or prevent marital dysfunction (e.g., Baucom, Sayers,
& Sher, 1990; Markman, Stanley, & Blumberg, 1994).
Underlying these developments are two assumptions about the
nature of attributions in marriage. First, this research assumes that
attributions reflect an enduring, relatively traitlike tendency that
each spouse brings to the relationship (e.g., Fincham & O'Leary,
Benjamin R. Karney, Department of Psychology, University of Florida;
Thomas N. Bradbury, Department of Psychology, University of California,
Los Angeles (UCLA).
Preparation of this article was supported by a UCLA Graduate Division
Dissertation Year Fellowship, by Grant 4-4040-19900-07 from the Com-
mittee on Research of the UCLA Academic Senate, and by Grant
MH48674 from the National Institute of Mental Health.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Benjamin
R. Karney, Department of Psychology, University of Florida, P.O. Box
112250, Gainesville, Florida 32611-2250.
1983).
Second, practitioners who have focused on attributions in
marital interventions assume that attributions play a causal role in
the maintenance of marital satisfaction and the development of
marital distress (e.g., Baucom, 1987). In part, the assumption of
causality follows from the assumption of stability. Similar to the
way attributional style has been thought to play a causal role in the
etiology of depression (Abramson, Seligman, & Teasdale, 1978),
an enduring tendency to make maladaptive attributions has been
thought to place spouses at risk for developing marital distress.
Despite the widespread acceptance of these premises, however,
alternative models of attributions have not been ruled out. As
Bradbury and Fincham (1990) noted in their review of this liter-
ature, "Attributional style in marriage has been assumed rather
than demonstrated, and the issue has yet to receive programmatic
attention" (p. 25). If attributions in marriage are not relatively
constant, or if they change as a result of changes in marital
satisfaction, then the causal role that attributions have been as-
signed in theories of relationships may be called into question. To
the extent that attributions reflect the developing state of the
marriage, rather than an enduring style, then interventions that
attempt to enhance marriages by changing spouses' attributions
may be misguided.
The purpose of this study was to evaluate these assumptions and
thereby place research on attributions on a firmer theoretical and
empirical foundation. To this end, the remainder of this part of the
article is organized into four sections. The first section reviews
evidence for the existence of an attributional style in marriage. The
second section reviews evidence that attributions may play a
causal role in the development of marital satisfaction. The third
section outlines a study designed to address each of these issues
directly, through multiple waves of longitudinal data from a sam-
ple of newlywed couples. The final section discusses two addi-
tional issues raised by this investigation: the longitudinal associ-
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2000, Vol. 78, No. 2, 295-309
Copyright 2000 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. O022-3514rtX)/$5.O0 DOI: 10.1037//0022-3514.78.2.295
295
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