The Reliability of Written Reports and Verbal Inquiry in Assessing Marital Interactions.

摘要

Previous research has shown that affects, construals and response expectancies in the interactions of married couples can be reliably inferred from written interaction records (Peterson, 1978). This study was conducted to determine whether reliabilities could be improved by interviewing participants about their interactions after written records of the interactions have been completed. Four raters were exposed to two sources of information concerning the interpersonal interactions of six married couples: 1. each spouse's written account of the interactions; and 2. audio-recorded inquiry of spouses designed to enrich and clarify their accounts of the interactions. Each rater's interpretations involved the selection of specific interaction codes to describe different kinds of affect, construals and expectations associated with major acts in each marital interaction, and summary characterizations concerning the degree of intimacy, effectiveness of communication, self-regard, regard for spouse, control, assertiveness and aggression that existed in each marital relationship. Orders of presentation were counterbalanced, and judgments were made following presentation of each kind of information. After the individuual interpretations were complete, all four raters met and reached consensus interpretations involving interaction codes and summary characterizations for each married couple. Levels of agreement between individual and consensus interpretations were computed (using kappa statistics to correct for chance agreement) and compared.