Denial of responsibility, videotape feedback and attribution theory: Relevance for behavioral marital therapy.

Abstract

Methods currently used in marital therapy appear to be moderately effective; it is now time to identify (a) which therapeutic components are responsible for change, and (b) what psycholog ical and social processes underlie changes. As difficulties in communication, faulty social perception, mutual attribution of blame and denial of responsibility tend to characterize many couples seeking marital therapy, this review concerns itself only with therapy for spouses with these particular problems. Studies bearing on the therapeutic effectiveness of one component of therapy, videotape playback, will be examined from an attribution-theory framework. Relevant studies on self confrontation, social skills t raining and attribution theory are reviewed. The implications of the findings of these studies are used to generate proposals for