ABSTRACT
The Rapid Marital Interaction Coding System (RMICS) is an event-based system designed to code observed dyadic behavior. Behavior is defined broadly to include all observable actions (i.e., affective, motoric, paralinguistic, and linguistic). The RMICS was designed to measure frequencies of behavior and behavioral patterns (i.e., sequences) between intimate partners during conflicts. As is discussed later, the RMICS is the second-generation extension of the Marital Interaction Coding System (MICS), the oldest and most widely used couples observational system (Heyman, 2001). The RMICS has been used in approximately 20 separate investigations with a range of ages (primarily adult married couples, but also preteen siblings, high school dating couples, and engaged couples), populations (e.g., general married population, marital clinics, cancer patients and their spouses, families at risk for adolescent drug abuse, Vietnam veterans), and research purposes.
