What is assessment?

Assessment is an umbrella term used for the evaluations counselors make to understand the
characteristics of people, things and situations.

The first part of the definition from any to sources indicates that a broad range of evaluation
methods such as tests scaled observations etc. may be used as means of obtaining data about the
client. The second part of the def from used to programs emphasizes the use of assessment data to
help counselors understand their clients and the situation in which clients find themselves.

AERA- American Educational Research Association

APA- American Psychological Association

NCME- National Council on Measurement in Education

Need for assessment in counseling

Assessment is beneficial in providing info for both client and counselor so they can understand and
respond to client concerns and plan accordingly. But in addition to that there are other purposes of
assessments as well.

As stated by Paul in 1967, the information obtained during the assessment process should help to
answer this well thought out question “WHAT treatment, by WHOM, is most effective for THIS
individual with THAT specific problem and under WHICH set of circumstances?”

Baseline data is the info collected about the client and the problem that needs to be changed and
worked upon. Subsequent data is the info that is gathered after the treatment is done so as to
evaluate the change occurring.

Intro to family counseling

One important thing to note is all families deal with some sort of dysfunction at one time or another,
and most families retain and regain a sense of wholeness and happiness and family therapy offers a
way to do this that is a way to develop and maintain a happy functional family.

Mental health professionals in India have always involved families in therapy. However, formal
involvement of families occurred about one to two decades after this therapeutic modality was
started in the West by Nathan Ackerman (pioneer in the field of family psychology). The Ackerman
Institute for the Family was founded in 1960 by Dr. Nathan W. Ackerman. Although trained as a
classical analyst, Dr. Ackerman broke with this approach after World War II when he began to
experiment with seeing patients and their families in a group. He published, taught and showed
movies demonstrating this new method, pioneering not only a new type of therapy, but also the
tradition of the audio-visual documentation of clinical work that became one of the cornerstones of
family therapy training.

Types of family screening assessment

genogram:

A genogram (pronounced: jen-uh-gram) is a graphic representation of a family tree that displays

detailed data on relationships among individuals. It goes beyond a traditional family tree by allowing
the user to analyze hereditary patterns and psychological factors that punctuate relationships.
Genograms allow a therapist and his patient to quickly identify and understand various patterns in
the patient's family history which may have had an influence on the patient's current state of mind.
The genogram maps out relationships and traits that may otherwise be missed on a pedigree chart.

Genograms were first developed and popularized in clinical settings by Monica McGoldrick and
Randy Gerson through the publication of a book in 1985. Genograms are now used by various groups
of people in a variety of fields such as medicine, psychology, social work, genealogy, genetic research,
and education. There are many books and websites on the topic of genograms.

Genograms contain a wealth of information on the families represented. First, they contain basic
data found in family trees such as the name, gender, date of birth, and date of death of each
individual. Additional data may include education, occupation, major life events, chronic illnesses,
social behaviors, nature of family relationships, emotional relationships, and social relationships.
Some genograms also include information on disorders running in the family such as alcoholism,
depression, diseases, alliances, and living situations. Genograms can vary significantly because there
is no limitation as to what type of data can be included.

Family apgar

The Family APGAR was introduced by Gabriel Smilkstein in 1978 to assess adult satisfaction with
social support from the family. 15 It draws its name from a 5-item measure of perceived family
support in the domains of adaptation, partnership, growth, affection, and resolve.

The acronym APGAR has been applied to the functional components of Adaptability, Partnership,
Growth, Affection, and Resolve. The use of the Family APGAR is discussed, as well as ways of
assessing family resources and reporting data in a family problem-oriented record. These guidelines
are offered for the management of the family in trouble, so that the physician may view the use of
the Family APGAR in the context of clinical practice

Faces

The FACES is capable of discriminating between different patterns of family functioning. Its ease of
administration, and the information it provides, should recommend it for wider use in clinical
settings.

4. SCREEM Model

It is an acronym that represents family resources and is a tool where the family physician helps the
family members identify and assess their resources to meet a crisis. If there is a lack of resources, it
can also serve as a kind of pathology in certain situations. Relationships of health behavior, practices,
and utilization of health services and barriers to patient care. It is commonly used when the need for
care is long or lasts a lifetime such as in the case of chronically-ill, terminally-ill, and hospice care
patients. It can also be used to assess the resources of difficult and non-compliant patients.

5. FES Model
The Family Environment Scale (FES) is a self-report instrument developed by Rudolf Moos and
colleagues in 1974 to assess the social climates of the families. It focuses on the measurement and
description of the interpersonal relationships among family members, on the directions of personal
growth which are emphasized in the family, and on the basic organizational structure of the family
(Moos, Insel, & Humphrey, 1974, p. 3). It was administered to family members (parents and
adolescent children) as a paper-and-pencil inventory with true or false answers. It is one of the ten
social climate scale developed to assess the social climate in different setting: community,
educational, treatment and residential care, and institution. According to the authors the
measurement of social climate represents one of the major ways in which human environments may
be characterized, and it may have an important impact on his attitude and mood, his behavior, his
health and overall sense of well-being.

Reasons for family intervention

What is family intervention?

Family intervention includes family members in therapeutic sessions with the goal of improving all
family members’ mental health and understanding of the disorder. This type of intervention aims to
enhance the capacity of both patients and their families for problem solving and illness
management. Family interventions have a focus on providing information about the disorder, and
emphasizing instructions for medication and treatment adherence.

Types of Family Therapy

There are several types of family therapy. A few that you might encounter include:1

Family systems therapy: This type is an approach that focuses on helping people utilize the strengths
of their relationships to overcome mental health problems. : The family systems approach is a theory
developed by psychiatrist Murray Bowen in the 1950s

Functional family therapy: This is a short-term treatment often utilized for young people
experiencing problems with risky behavior, violence, or substance use. It helps teens and families
look for solutions while building trust and respect for each individual. Functional Family Therapy
(FFT) is a family-based prevention and intervention program for high-risk youth that addresses
complex and multidimensional problems through clinical practice that is flexibly structured and
culturally sensitive. The FFT clinical model concentrates on decreasing risk factors and on increasing
protective factors that directly affect adolescents, with a particular emphasis on familial factors.

Narrative family therapy:

Narrative therapy was developed by social worker Michael White and family therapist David Epston
in the 1980s.This type encourages family members to each tell their own story to understand how
those experiences shape who they are and how they relate to others. By working with this narrative,
the person can start to view problems more objectively than just seeing things through their own
narrow lens.
Psychoeducation: This type of treatment is centered on helping family members better understand
mental health conditions. By knowing more about medications, treatment options, and self-help
approaches, family members can function as a cohesive support system.

Supportive family therapy: This type of therapy focuses on creating a safe environment where family
members can openly share what they are feeling and get support from their family.

Process and methods of family assessment

There are multiple methods and vantage points from which to evaluate families. These include
self-reports of family interactions and relationships, reports of family members on their views of
other family members, observational methods, and clinician ratings. These methods represent
different types of data about the family and are useful for answering different kinds of questions
about family functioning.

SELF REPORT METHODS

Self-reports of family functioning are probably the most common method for use in research
contexts for assessing family relations and processes. Self-reports include perceptions of the family
by individual family members, ratings of other family members' behaviour or relationships, and
reports of affect and emotions while engaging in certain behaviours. There are many advantages to
self-reports in clinical and research contexts. First, self-reports are relatively easy to gather and
inexpensive to use. In clinical settings, self-reports can be gathered prior to meeting with the clinician
and can save valuable time. Sometimes individuals feel more comfortable reporting their views and
feelings on a paper and pencil test to avoid stating their views in front of other family members.
There are several limitations of self-reports. First, it is important to remember that self-reports of
family functioning are only individual perceptions of family relations or represent attitudes of the
reporter. Many self-report instruments were designed for research purposes and do not have the
normative and psychometric data necessary for use as clinical instruments. There are hundreds of
self-report measures of family functioning. Three of the most commonly used instruments for family
assessment are the Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scales (FACES; Olson, Bell & Portner,
1983), the Family Environment Scale (FES; Moos & Moos, 1974), and the Family Assessment Device
(FAD; Epstein et al., 1983). Each of these scales has good psychometric properties and normative
data that can help clinicians determine functional and dysfunctional family functioning (Halvorsen,
1991).

OBSERVATIONAL METHODS

Observational methods of family assessment are at the heart of research and clinical work with
families. Unlike paper and pencil measures, viewing live interactions provides an opportunity to
observe both verbal and nonverbal behaviour and cues. Interviews enable the clinician to develop
alternative perspectives to family functioning that may or may not be consistent with
self-perceptions. Unlike paper and pencil measures, viewing live interactions provides an opportunity
to observe both verbal and nonverbal behaviour and cues. Interviews enable the clinician to develop
alternative perspectives to family functioning that may or may not be consistent with
self-perceptions. Interviews and observations also allow more flexibility than self-report instruments
in gathering information about the family. interviews and observations enable clinicians to test
hypotheses about family functioning through their questioning and the family members' responses.
There are three aspects to standardized observations: what is observed (i.e., what task family
members are asked to perform), where it is observed (i.e., home, office), and how it is observed (i.e.,
the coding system employed). A common type of task in standardized observations is a
problem-solving interaction (Markman & Notarios, 1987), where family members are asked to
identify a common problem, discuss it, and attempt to develop a solution to the problem. This type
of interaction elicits family discord and conflict. The setting for observation can be in the home,
laboratory, school, or clinic. The setting usually depends on the purpose of the evaluation, that is,
parent-child problems might benefit from home or clinic observations, whereas observations of
pathology may benefit from a clinic or laboratory setting. Recent research indicates that families
show little reactivity to observation (Jacob, Tennenbaum, Seilhamer, Bargiel, & Sharon, 1994),
although different types of behaviour may be exhibited in different settings.

CLINICIAN RATING METHODS

Clinician ratings are a specialized form of observational method. Clinician rating systems can be used
in clinical interviews (standardized or unstandardized) and provide valuable information about family
interactions (Carlson & Grievant, 1987). Floyd et al. (1989), Humphrey and Benjamin (1986), and
Kinston and Loader (1988) provide good examples of how clinicians can utilize behavioural
observations and ratings in a clinical context. A useful clinical method for assessing families is the
genogram, a standard format for recording information about family relationships over at least three
generations (Guerin & Pendergast, 1976; McGoldrick & Gerson, 1985). Genograms are
recommended widely from family therapy settings to family medicine settings and for the
assessment of gender relations (McGoldrick & Gerson 1985; Rogers & Cohn, 1987; White &
Tyson-Rawson, 1995). McGoldrick and Gerson (1985) and Rogers and colleagues (Like, Rogers, &
McGoldrick, 1987; Rogers & Cohn, 1977; Rogers & Rohrbaugh, 1991) have developed systematic
methods for using and interpreting genograms in clinical practice. Several clinical rating systems have
been developed that are based on family theories and self-report measures (Carlson & Grievant,
1987). The McMaster Clinical Rating Scale (MCRS) is based on the McMaster model of family
functioning and provides a system for clinicians to rate family interactions on the dimensions used in
the FAD. Recent research indicates that the MCRS is both a reliable and valid rating system, correlates
with self-reports on the Family Assessment Device, and can discriminate various types of families
(Miller et al., 1994). The Clinical Rating Scale (CRS), based on the Olson circumplex model, also
provides a valid and useful method for clinicians to rate family interactions on the two primary
dimensions (adaptability and cohesion) from the FACES (Thomas & Olson, 1993).

Application of family assessment

Acute and chronic illness exists in a social context. The importance of developing a biopsychosocial
formulation leading to treatment that addresses the biological, psychological and social components
of a patient’s illness is well established. A biopsychosocial assessment should include an evaluation of
the patient’s social situation, the nature of the patient’s interpersonal connections and particularly
his/her family’s functioning. A patient’s most important resource is the family, the group that helps
the patient to function [1]. Families have a powerful influence on health equal to traditional medical
risk factors [2]. Improved health care has led to prolonged periods of living with disease. Longer
periods of illness increase strain on patients and their significant others leading to caregiver burden
which in turn impacts on the ability of caregivers to provide support for ill family members [3].
Emotional support (being listened to, cared for and empathized with) is the most important and
influential type of support provided by families. Negative, critical or hostile family relationships, in
turn, have a stronger, detrimental, influence on health than positive or supportive relationships [2].
Families can influence health by direct biological pathways, health behaviour pathways and
psychophysiological pathways. Examples of direct biological pathways include spreading of infectious
agents, sharing similar toxic environments and genetic vulnerabilities. Health behaviour pathways
include lifestyle behaviours such as smoking, exercise, diet and substance abuse. Healthcare
behaviours include adherence to treatment as well as family caregiving. Pathophysiological pathways
refer to the effects of family environment on neuroendocrine and psych immunological pathways [2].
There are a large number of family-based risk factors that adversely influence the onset and course
of illness. These include: poor conflict resolution, low relationship satisfaction, high interpersonal
conflict, criticism and blame, intra-familial hostility, lack of congruence in disease beliefs and
expectations, poor problem solving, extrafamilial stress, lack of extra-familial support systems, poor
organization, inconsistent family structure, family perfectionism and rigidity, low cohesion and
closeness, and presence of psychopathology in family members Most patients prefer that physicians
involve their family in their medical care. Family members can provide valuable information about
the patient’s functioning at home and can help patients to comply with treatment recommendations
[1]. Families can also help to keep track of medication side effects and prodromal and residual
symptoms. They can help in sharing responsibilities, lessen the patient’s anxieties and facilitate as
well as encourage communication between providers [6]. Family interventions have been found to
be helpful in the management of chronic physical diseases. Hartmann et al. [7] undertook a
meta-analysis of 52 methodologically sound randomized clinical trials involving 8,896 patients with
cardiovascular diseases, cancer, arthritis, diabetes, AIDS and systemic lupus erythematosus. They
found that the physical health of the patient was significantly improved with family interventions
compared to standard treatment. They also noted that the mental health of the medically ill patient
was significantly improved with family interventions in comparison to standard treatment. Family
interventions, in addition, had a significant effect on improving the health of other family members.
A family-focused approach addresses the educational, relational and personal needs of the patient
and their family members, and includes the patient and their family members in treatment and the
assessment of outcome [5]. The first step in this process is undertaking a family assessment.

What is couple’s counseling?

Couples therapy is counseling for couples who are in a relationship, married or not. It's often referred
to as marriage counseling. The goal is to improve the couples' relationship, or sometimes to help
them decide whether or not they should continue staying together. Although the focus is on the
couple, there are times when the individual psychological issues of one or both parties need to be
addressed. Depending on the level of distress in the relationship, therapy can be short-term or over a
period of several months or even years. While a licensed therapist can counsel couples, marriage and
family therapists specialize in relationship issues.

Introduction to couple assessment

Now imagine a couple married 8 years present for their first therapy session saying “we can’t
communicate anymore” and the therapist starts working on I statements with the couple. 5 mins into
this process, the husband rolls his eyes and interrupts a lot and the wife turns away to express
contempt at his comments. Although the therapist encourages active listening, the discussion quickly
escalates into crying and shouting. The couple doesn’t return for their next session.

Therapists just assume that both the parties are willing to work on their relationship/themselves as
individuals and as a couple’s counselor you may want to avoid using usual set of techniques
stereotypically to whomever walks in the door.

Areas of couple assessment

Marriages and families also go through various stages of evolution and development, each of which
presents its own unique challenges and satisfactions. It is helpful to have some conception of these
different phases to better understand the issues that a particular couple may be presenting.

Courtship and early marriage- Couple formation is best done when both individuals have completed
the task of restructuring relationships with their parents, learned enough about themselves to
become aware of their characteristic problems and had enough freedom and adventure that the
demands of an intense relationship feel comforting rather than constrictive. They must establish an
identity as a couple, developed effective ways of communicating and solving problems and begin to
establish a mutual pattern of relating to parents, friends and work. Common stress points in early
adult marriages are childbearing, attempting an egalitarian marriage in a nonegalitarian culture, and
enduring midlife transitions as one or both partners go through a period of reevaluating themselves.
Individuals often enter into a marriage with unrealistic expectations. Individuals tend to want
somebody who is familiar and comfortable – in other words, like themselves – while at the same
time hoping that the other person will complement and complete those parts of themselves that
they feel are deficient or problematic. A lack of acceptance of individual differences between couples
leads to attempts by one individual to make the other more like them, often resulting in conflict and
disappointment.

Empty nest- As children leave home, parents need to be able to redefine their roles and priorities. It
is an opportunity for parents to spend more time together, to feel less pressure, and to explore
individual interests. It is also a time of potential distress when interpersonal problems between the
parents that had been sidelined by focusing on the needs of the children may surface. There is a
need at this stage to redefine goals and meaning, while at the same time finding ways of connecting
more closely to one’s partner.

Retirement- Retirement requires individuals to redefine their identity and place in society. The
solution to these challenges inevitably affects relationships. Finding new interests and goals and
feeling connected and useful allow for successful enjoyment of new leisure time. Couples have to
find ways of managing the increased amount of time they spend together. The health and financial
stability of the couple will have a major impact on their ability to experience this stage of their lives
in a satisfying way.

Death and grieving- As couples age and health problems increase, they will increasingly have to deal
with the death of friends, their partner and eventually themselves. Individuals have to come to terms
with their own mortality and find ways of resolving issues of importance to them before dying. They
are likely to be worried about the health of their partner and experience fears of loss, dependence
and isolation. Couples need to find ways of discussing their concerns and plan together how they
want to deal with the problems they are likely to face. The involvement of children and extended
family members can ease many concerns.

Couple assessment process and methods

Clinical interview

The clinical interview is the first step in assessing couples.1 It can aid in identifying a couple’s
behavior problems and strengths, help specify a couple’s treatment goals, and be used to acquire
data that are useful for treatment outcome evaluation. The assessment interview can also serve to
strengthen the client–assessor relationship, identify barriers to treatment, and increase the chance
that the couple will participate in subsequent assessment and treatment tasks. Furthermore, it is the
primary means of gaining a couple’s informed consent about the assessment–treatment process.
Data from initial assessment interviews also guide the assessor’s decisions about which additional
assessment strategies may be most useful. The interview can also be used to gather information on
multiple levels, in multiple domains, and across multiple response modes in couple assessment. It
can provide information on the specific behavioral interactions of the couple, including behavioral
exchanges and violence; problem-solving skills; sources of disagreement; areas of satisfaction and
dissatisfaction; each partner’s thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes; and their feelings and emotions
regarding the partner and relationship. The couple assessment interview also can provide
information on cultural and family system factors and other events that might affect the couple’s
functioning and response to treatment. These factors might include interactions with extended
family members, other relationship problems within the nuclear family (e.g., between parents and
children), economic stressors, and health challenges.

Observational method

An empirically driven couple assessment would seem empty without an observation of the couple’s
interaction. Viewing live interactions provides an opportunity to observe both verbal and nonverbal
behaviour and cues. Interviews and observations also allow more flexibility than self-report
instruments in gathering information about the couple.

Self-report methods

The rationale underlying self-report methods3 in couple assessment is that such methods (a) are
convenient and relatively easy to administer; (b) are capable of generating a wealth of information
across a broad range of domains. The limitations of traditional self-report measure also bear noting.
Specifically, data from self-report instruments can (a) reflect bias in self- and other presentation in
either a favourable or unfavourable direction, (b) be affected by differences in stimulus interpretation
and errors in recollection of objective events, (c) inadvertently influence respondents’ nontest
behaviour in unintended ways.

Measures of behaviour: Although distinctions among measures of behaviour, cognition, and affect
are imperfect, we focus here on measures purporting to assess couples’ behaviour exchanges,
including communication, verbal and physical aggression, and sexual intimacy. One of the earliest
and most widely used measures of couples’ behaviour is the SOC (Birchler et al., 1975), a list of 400
discrete behaviours divided on an a priori basis into 12 categories such as affection and physical
intimacy, companionship, communication, parenting, finances, and division of household
responsibilities. Although specific administration instructions may vary, each individual is asked to
complete the checklist covering a specific time period (e.g., the previous 24 hr), indicating which
behaviours their partner had emitted and whether these were experienced as pleasing or
displeasing. As a clinical tool, the SOC generates menus of individual reinforcers and has the potential
to delineate relative strengths and weaknesses in the relationship, transforming diffuse negative
complaints into specific requests for positive change. A brief adaptation of the SOC asks respondents
to provide summary satisfaction ratings for each of the 12 SOC categories (O’Leary, 1987).

Measures of cognition: Earlier we noted the importance of evaluating couples’ assumptions,

standards, attentional sets, expectancies, and attributions for relationship events. Several self-report
measures have been developed to assist in this process. The DAI (Baucom et al., 1989) is a 24-item
measure that asks respondents to imagine hypothetical relationship events and then, for each event,
generate attributions for their partner’s behaviour in that situation with regard to (a) source of
influence (self, partner, or external factors), (b) stability or instability of causal factors, and (c) their
specificity or globality. The DAI is designed to assist clinicians in identifying and modifying
dysfunctional attributional sets contributing to subjective negativity surrounding specific relationship
events. the Marital Attitude Survey (Pretzer et al., 1992), elicits attributions along six dimensions
reflecting causal influence from one’s own behaviour or personality, the partner’s behaviour or
personality, and attributions regarding the partner’s malicious intent or lack of love.

Measures of relationship sentiment: Measures of relationship satisfaction and global affect abound.
The two oldest and most widely used are the Locke–Wallace Marital Adjustment Test (MAT; Locke
&Wallace, 1959) and the DAS (Spanier, 1976). The MAT is a 15-item questionnaire that asks partners
to rate their overall happiness in their relationship as well as their extent of agreement in key areas
of interaction. Displacing the MAT as the most frequent global measure of relationship satisfaction is
the DAS, a 32-item instrument purporting to differentiate among four related subscales reflecting
cohesion, satisfaction, consensus, and affectional expression. The Relationship Satisfaction Scale
(Burns & Sayers, 1992) is a 13-item Likert-type measure that assesses satisfaction in such areas as
handling of finances and degree of affection and caring. The QMI (Norton, 1983) is a 6-item
Likert-type measure asking respondents to rate their overall level of marital happiness and the
accuracy of additional descriptors of overall relationship stability and accord

RESEARCHES ON COUPLE ASSESSMENTS

The PAIR (Personal Assessment of Intimacy in Relationships) Inventory Schaefer, M. T. & Olson, D. H.
(1981)

It is a 36 item instrument that assesses five types of intimacy: emotional, social, sexual, intellectual,
and recreational. It enables a person to describe their own relationship as they perceive and
experience it. It can be used for a variety of relationships from friendship to marriage.

PAIR measures several kinds of intimacy that a couple may experience: emotional intimacy, social
intimacy, sexual intimacy, recreational intimacy, and intellectual intimacy. PAIR measures both the
perceived (36 items) and expected (36 items) levels of intimacy in that relationship. The discrepancy
between the “perceived-expected” descriptions provides an assessment of their satisfaction in each
of these areas. It can also provide directions and goals for couples in either therapy or enrichment
programs.

Schaefer, M. T. & Olson, D. H. (1981) Assessing intimacy: The PAIR Inventory, Journal of Marital and
Family Therapy, 1, 47-6

marital/dyadic adjustment

The Marital Adjustment Test (MAT; Locke & Wallace, 1959) and Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS;
Spanier, 1976) are two widely used measures of dyadic adjustment.

Satisfaction
The Quality of Marriage Index (QMI; Norton, 1983) and Kansas Marital Satisfaction Scale (KMS;
Schumm et al., 1986) are widely used measures of global relationship satisfaction.

Semantic approach

Researchers and clinicians also began to assess relationship satisfaction using a semantic differential
approach, a way of quantifying partners’ evaluations of their relationships by having them rate their
perceptions on scales between two opposite adjectives (e.g., satisfied to dissatisfied, good to bad;
Osgood, Suci, & Tannenbaum, 1957; Huston & Vangelisti, 1991). Since the mid-1990s, there has been
a move toward assessing relationship satisfaction and adjustment with multidimensional
approaches. For example, the Positive and Negative Quality in Marriage Scale (PANQIMS; Fincham &
Linfield, 1997), on which partners evaluate the positive and negative qualities of their partner and
relationship, yields scores for two distinct aspects of relationship satisfaction.

Distress levels

the PANQIMS allows partners to be categorized as happy (high positive and low negative), distressed
(low positive and high negative), ambivalent (high on both positive and negative), or indifferent (low
on both positive and negative). The Marital Satisfaction Inventory (MSI-R; Snyder & Aikman, 1999) is
a multidimensional measure of relationship adjustment that differentiates among levels and sources
of distress.Dimensions include assessments of family of origin conflict, sexual satisfaction, and
problem-solving communication strategies.

Self report questionnaires

self-report questionnaires are vulnerable to biases including social desirability (Godoy et al., 2008;
Kluemper, 2008), depressed mood and depressive cognitions (e.g., Cohen, Towbest, & Flocco, 1988;
Raselli & Broderick, 2007), memory biases in retrospective reports (Karney & Frye, 2002), and
cognitive dissonance (e.g., newlyweds may be more likely to present couple processes in a positive
light because they have just gotten married and do not want to consider the possibility that their
marriage already has difficulties; McNulty, O’Mara, & Karney, 2008; Miller, Niehuis, & Huston, 2006).