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Attributions Associated with Significant Turning Points in Premarital Relationship Development and Dissolution

University of Utah

Rodney M. Cate

Washington State University

The purpose of this study was to describe attributions about significant changes in involvement level during the course of permarital relationship development and dissolution. The Retrospective Interview Technique (RIT) (Fitzgerald & Surra, 1981) was employed to reconstruct, for 100 individuals, the history of serious, heterosexual, romantic relationships that had dissolved within the last twelve months. The average length of such relationships was 15.70 months. In all, 1,988 attributions were made concerning 797 significant turning points in these relationships. The attributions broke down as follows: 43 percent dyadic, 30 percent individual, 15 percent network, 12 percent circumstantial. Chi-square tests were conducted to test whether the distribution of the four types of attributions varied as a function of (1) stage of the relationship, (2) sign and magnitude of the change in the relationship, (3) gender and (4) initiator of the breakup of the relationship. Results indicate significant differences in the distributions of attributions for all four of these breakdowns. Discussion centres around the role of attributions in relationship development versus dissolution and around gender differences in romantic relationships.

Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, Vol. 2, No. 4, 419-436 (1985)
DOI: 10.1177/0265407585024003


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