Maturana's (1988) theory of constituted reality is used to explain the relationships among language, cognitive domain and emotion. His theory is applied to explain distressed couples' conversations about their own marital problems. The sample was composed of 30 married couples who had requested marital therapy at the Florida State University Marriage and Family Therapy Center. The researcher used 7 measurement instruments: (1) self report measure of marital distress (Dyadic Adjustment Scale, Spanier, 1976); (2) Brief Structured Interview; (3) self-report Affect Checklist; (4) self report Objectivity Checklist; (5) self-report Representative Simulation Questionnaire; (6) Demographic Questionnaire; (7) Interpersonal Influence Strategies Coding System (Newton & Burgoon, 1990). Couples completed Affect Checklists and Objectivity Checklists at predetermined intervals during their conversations. Conversations were videotaped then coded by trained raters. Results indicate that specific emotions of anger, sadness, frustration, hatefulness, hopelessness, and hurt are correlated with marital distress. Accusatory statements were correlated with high marital distress and supportive statements were correlated with low marital distress. Direct correlations between marital distress and cognitive domain were not evident. Results suggest correlations among verbal strategies, cognitive domain and specific emotions. Although no clear pattern of correlation was evident from turn to turn, findings lend support to Maturana' s theory. Methodological issues concerning operational definitions of cognitive domain, inter-rater reliability, and the verbal strategy coding system are addressed. Discussion of implications for marital therapy includes the importance of clinical evaluation that emphasizes clients' desires to maintain their marriages. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-07, Section: B, page: 3758. / Major Professor: Thomas E. Smith. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1992.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_76711 |
| Contributors | Whitsitt, Thomas Michael., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 218 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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