ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we present a method for enabling participants in couple interactions to provide ratings of their own and their partners’ emotional experience during their interactions. At the core of this method is a video recall technique in which participants review a videotape of their couple interactions to cue their memories and are then asked to report what they were feeling and what they perceive their partners to have been feeling during the interactions. In this chapter, we illustrate how we have used this technique to obtain participants’ ratings of their overall positive and negative feelings throughout their interactions, as well as self-and partner-ratings of the intensity and quality of specific emotions during key affective moments of their interactions. We have applied this methodological approach to laboratory-based couple interactions, but the general method is applicable to any type of couple or family interaction that can be videotaped.
