Citation

Ronan GF, Dreer LE, Dollard KM, Ronan DW. J. Fam. Violence 2004; 19(2): 131-137.

Affiliation

Central Michigan University, Mount Pleasant, Michigan

Copyright

(Copyright © 2004, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1023/B:JOFV.0000019843.26331.cf

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Twelve married couples court-ordered to attend a violence reduction treatment program completed self-report measures of anger, social problem-solving skills, and strategies employed for dealing with high-conflict situations. They were subsequently videotaped while discussing 3 different scenarios. Three raters independently coded the videotapes for the use of effective and ineffective communication strategies used by the participants. Aggregate reliability estimates were acceptable. No gender-based differences were found on the self-report measures or the communication skill ratings. When couples discussed low-conflict situations use of effective skills exceeded use of ineffective skills, and when couples discussed high-conflict problems use of ineffective skills exceeded use of effective skills. Implications for treatment of spousal assault are presented.