An Approach for Assessing Marital Decision-Making Processes

Bibliographic Data

ID2587960
AuthorsWayne Hill (corresponding author), John Scanzoni
Year1982
Volume44
Issue4
Pages927
Publication date1982-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Marriage and the Family (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-2445 • E-ISSN: 1741-3737
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/351455
OpenAlexW2313795003
LanguageEN
Citations received15
References cited12

Recent years have witnessed the emergence of a vast literature evaluating the research and theory pertaining to family decision making. Since we cannot survey that literature here, we merely cite prior exhaustive reviews (Cromwell and Olson, 1975; McDonald, 1980) and proceed directly to one of the issues that surfaces repeatedly throughout that literature, namely, the conceptualization and measurement of decisionmaking processes. Although there was a wide disparity of opinion over many matters expressed throughout the Cromwell and Olson anthology, there was a virtual unanimity regarding the point that the field can no longer be content with the Blood and Wolfe (1960) outcome-focused technique to assess marital decision making. Strongly held was the conclusion that it is desirable and indeed necessary, for both theoretical and substantive reasons, to try to come to grips with the measurement of processes. While the several contributors to that anthology concurred that it is a horrendously complex empirical matter, the measurement of processes is an essential next step if we are to begin to go beyond our present levels of understanding of decision making in particular, and family dynamics in general. In his foreword to that anthology, Hill (1975:xi) argued that this 'benchmark' book. . . can save scholars much grief if they ... carry research and theory-building forward rather than repeatedly making the same mistake-one of those mistakes being over-reliance on the final-say technique. Nevertheless, in spite of Hill's urgings, the final-say technique has not disappeared from the recent literature (Straus et al., 1980; Quarm, 1981; Allen, 1981); it maintains its continued vitality and appeal owing chiefly to the ease with which it can be administered

Conceptualization · Economics · Empirical research · Epistemology · Mistake · Political science · Positive economics · Sociology · Attachment and Relationship Dynamics · Computer Science · Conflict Management and Negotiation · Family Dynamics and Relationships · Law · Philosophy · Psychology

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