We thank Carol Diencr, Ross Parke, and Thomas Bradbury for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of the article.

ࡗ Research on the Nature and Determinants of Marital Satisfaction: A Decade in ReviewScientific study of marital satisfaction attracted widespread attention in the 1990s from scholars representing diverse orientations and goals. This article highlights key conceptual and empirical advances that have emerged in the past decade, with particular emphasis on (a) interpersonal processes that operate within marriage, including cognition, affect, physiology, behavioral patterning, social support, and violence; (b) the milieus within which marriages operate, including microcontexts (e.g., the presence of children, life stressors and transitions) and macrocontexts (e.g., economic factors, perceived mate availability); and (c) the conceptualization and measurement of marital satisfaction, including 2-dimensional, trajectory-based, and social-cognitive approaches. Notwithstanding the continued need for theoretical progress in understanding the nature and determinants of marital satisfaction, we conclude by calling for more large-scale longitudinal research that links marital processes with sociocultural contexts, for more disconfirmatory than confirmatory research, and for research that directly guides preventive, clinical, and policy-level interventions.

Guided by Grych and Fincham's theoretical framework for investigating the relation between interparental conflict and child adjustment, a questionnaire was developed to assess children's views of several aspects of marital conflict. The Children's Perception of Interparental Conflict Scale (CPIC) was initially examined in a sample of 222 9-12-year-old children, and results were cross-validated in a second sample of 144 similarly aged children. 3 factor analytically derived subscales (Conflict Properties, Threat, Self-Blame) demonstrated acceptable levels of internal consistency and test-retest reliability. The validity of the Conflict Properties scale was supported by significant relations with parent reports of conflict and indices of child adjustment; the Threat and Self-Blame scales correlated with children's responses to specific conflict vignettes. The CPIC thus appears to be a promising instrument for assessing perceived marital conflict, and several issues regarding its interpretation are discussed.

The prevailing behavioral account of marriage must be expanded to include covert processes. This article therefore examines the attributions or explanations that spouses make for marital events. A review indicates that dissatisfied spouses, compared with satisfied spouses, make attributions for the partner's behavior that cast it in a negative light. Experimental, clinical outcome, and longitudinal data suggest further that attributions may influence marital satisfaction. Rival hypotheses for these findings are examined. Because continued empirical development in this domain depends on conceptual progress, a framework is presented that integrates attributions, behavior, and marital satisfaction. This framework points to several topics that require systematic study, and specific hypotheses are offered for research on these topics. It is concluded that the promising start made toward understanding marital attributions holds considerable potential for enriching behavioral conceptions of marriage.

The investigators proposed that transgression-related interpersonal motivations result from 3 psychological parameters: forbearance (abstinence from avoidance and revenge motivations, and maintenance of benevolence), trend forgiveness (reductions in avoidance and revenge, and increases in benevolence), and temporary forgiveness (transient reductions in avoidance and revenge, and transient increases in benevolence). In 2 studies, the investigators examined this 3-parameter model. Initial ratings of transgression severity and empathy were directly related to forbearance but not trend forgiveness. Initial responsibility attributions were inversely related to forbearance but directly related to trend forgiveness. When people experienced high empathy and low responsibility attributions, they also tended to experience temporary forgiveness. The distinctiveness of each of these 3 parameters underscores the importance of studying forgiveness temporally.