Date of Award:

5-1978

Document Type:

Thesis

Degree Name:

Master of Science (MS)

Department:

Psychology

Committee Chair(s)

William R. Dobson

Committee

William R. Dobson

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of assertive training on the marital adjustment of those participating. It was of particular interest to identify the effects of training wives only as compared to training couples jointly in assertiveness.

There were a total of 56 subjects sampled for this study, constituting 28 marriages, all investigated for marital adjustment. All of the subjects were volunteers and were obtained through the Women's Center at Utah State University. The subjects were placed in one of two treatment conditions depending upon the condition for which they volunteered. The wives only treatment condition provided assertiveness training exclusively for the wives of the couples participating. Both husbands and wives received training in the couples treatment condition. All of the 56 subjects, both husbands and wives, completed the Marital-Adjustment Test during the first and last session of assertive training. The assertive training groups met for six weeks for two hours each week.

An analysis of covariance was used to analyze the data for the first two hypotheses. The pretest scores for both treatment conditions for husbands and wives were held constant and the posttest scores on the Marital-Adjustment Test were compared for both husbands and wives of the other treatment condition.

The z test for significant differences in correlations was used to test the following questions: (a) Is there a difference in the amount of correlation of the pretest scores and the posttest scores on the Marital-Adjustment Test for husbands and wives in the wives only treatment condition? and (b) Is there a difference in the amount of correlation of the pretest scores and the posttest scores on the Marital-Adjustment Test for husbands and wives in the couples treatment condition?

It may be concluded that there is no advantage for marital adjustment when husbands and wives are both given assertiveness training as opposed to the wife only receiving training.

There was a statistical difference (beyond the .01 level of significance) between the correlations of the pretest and posttest scores for husbands and wives in the wives only treatment condition. No difference in amount of correlation was found between pretest and posttest scores on the Marital-Adjustment Test for husbands and wives in the couples treatment condition.

It was concluded that when spouses were trained together, no change in perceptions of marital adjustment occurred. When wives were trained alone, perceptions of marital adjustment between spouses was in greater agreement.

No evidence was found that marital adjustment was affected by teaching assertion skills to the wife only as opposed to teaching the couple.

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