ABSTRACT
The assessment of affect in marriage stands at the interface of three broad domains of psychological inquiry. Assessment, the first of these domains, has been a topic of long-standing interest to psychologists (cf. Sattler, 1982). In a similar vein, the study of affect or emotion is well established and spans the time from James (1884) and Lange (1885) to the present (e.g., Izard, Kagan, & Zajonc, 1984; Scherer & Ekman, 1984). However, the investigation of close relationships such as marriage has only recently attracted empirical attention in psychology even though sociologists (e.g., Terman, Buttenwieser, Ferguson, Johnson, & Wilson, 1938) and family therapists (e.g., Ackerman, 1938) have studied marriage for some time. It is therefore perhaps not surprising that theory and research at the interface of these three areas is virtually nonexistent. The purpose of the present chapter is to address this lacuna and to underscore the significance of affect as a critical component of marriage. 1
