Attribution, Communication Behavior, and Close Relationships

Attribution, Communication Behavior, and Close Relationships brings together scholars from a variety of disciplines whose work focuses on the interplay of attribution processes and communication behavior in close relationships. The book shows ways in which diverse scholarly perspectives can blend to provide insight into areas of common interest. In this case, it is the ways that people in relationships think about communication, make attributions through communication, and communicate about the attributions they make.

• Focuses on the influence of emotions on attributions and communication • The interplay between attributions and communication in marriage • New directions for thinking about attributions and communication

Introduction; 1. Affective influences on communication and attributions in relationships; 2. Communication and attributions; 3. When caring hurts; 4. The association between the accounts of relational development events and relational and psycosocial well-being; 5. Section commentary: affect, attribution, and communication; 6. Attributions, communication, and the development of marital identity; 7. Causal attributions of relationship quality; 8. The content of married couples’ attributions for nonverbal behaviors; 9. Handling pressures for change in marriage; 10. Stepping into the stream of thought; 11. The role of attributions in the longitudinal association between marital behavior and marital quality; 12. Section commentary: thanks for the curry; 13. Children who are fooled by lies; 14. Attributions and regulative communication by parents participating in a community-based child physical abuse prevention program; 15. Weighing the pros and cons of disclosing about the HIV diagnosis to relationship partners; 16. Attributions about communication styles and strategies; 17. Why do people have affairs? 18. Attribution in social and parasocial friendships; 19. Extending attribution theory; 20. The status of attribution theory in personal relationships; 21. Responses to Spitzberg.