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Distressed and nondistressed couples in two studies made decisions on highland low-conflict tasks. They continuously coded both the intended impact of their own behavior and the impact of their spouse's behavior. In Study 1 distressed couples did not differ from nondistressed couples on how they intended their behavior to be received. However, the behavior of distressed spouses was actually received more negatively by their partners than the behavior of their nondistressed counterparts. The couples in Study 2 also behaved in a way consistent with a communication deficit explanation of distressed marriages; that is, distressed couples' behavior was likely to be coded as more negative than they intended. Task effects and a reciprocity hypothesis were also tested Data from Study 1 showed no conflict effect, but the results of Study 2 suggested that high-conflict tasks may be a better means for discriminating distressed from nondistressed couples than low-conflict tasks. The data on reciprocity indicate only minimal support for the view that distressed marriage is characterized by less positive or more negative reciprocity than nondistressed marriage. Recently, two different hypotheses have been proposed to describe conflict resolution in distressed and nondistressed marriages. One hypothesis, based on behavior exchange theory, is that it is more likely that nondistressed couples will produce behaviors coded as positive by observers than will distressed couples. This hypothesis has recently received some support (Birchler, Weiss, & Vincent, 1975). A second hypothesis is that there is a greater reciprocity of positive exchange in nondistressed than in distressed marriages. Reciprocity of positive exchange has been suggested as die central characteristic of successful marital interaction in the clinical literature on marriage counseling (Azrin, Naster, &

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