ABSTRACT
This chapter describes some embryonic work on people’s attributions and perceptions in situations involving conflict and separation in heterosexual, close relationships. Former partners exhibited little attributional agreement on the contribution of factors internal to the relationship and moderate to high agreement on external factors. Weiss, a sociologist, conducted a very informative study of marital separation that has strong attributional implications. B. R. Orvis et al. found a few significant sex differences in attributions. For example, in line with K. Deaux’s review and analysis of attributional sex stereotyping, they found that the behavior of the female was more often attributed to the environment and to inability to cope with tasks than was the behavior of the male. In terms of more specific attributional conclusions, a strong parallel between the data in the conflict study and the data in the separation study was the participants’ emphasis upon the role of outside romantic involvements as a source of difficulty.
