The Communication Patterns Questionnaire: The reliability and validity of a constructive communication subscale.

This study provides evidence for the reliability and validity of a 7-item constructive communication subscale of the Communication Patterns Questionnaire (CPQ-CC, Christensen & Sullaway, 1984). Seventy married couples completed the CPQ and participated in videotaped problemsolving discussions. The constructiveness of spouses' behavior during the videotaped problem-solving discussions was rated by trained observers. The CPQ-CC had high internal consistency and moderately high agreement between spouses. The CPQ-CC also was strongly associated with observer ratings of the spouses' constructiveness during videotaped problem-solving discussions. Finally, the CPQ-CC was strongly associated with spouses' self-reported marital adjustment. These data support the reliability and validity of this brief self-report measure of constructive communication. There is now a clear recognition of the central role of communication in marriage. Abundant research demonstrates that the quality of a couple's communication is associated with their marital adjustment. This is particularly true of communication during times of conflict. There is also evidence that certain aspects of conflict communication predict longitudinal changes in relationship adjustment (Bradbury & Karney, 1993; Heavey, Christensen, & Malamuth, 1995). Both global and mircoanalytic coding systems have been developed to characterize the nature of marital conflict behavior (see Markman & Notarius, 1987). However, using these observational systems is extremely time consuming and costly. Thus, there is a need for measures of conflict communication that are easier to employ. Despite this, there are few self-report measures of conflict communication with demonstrated reliability and validity. One measure is the Communication Patterns Questionnaire (CPQ, Christensen & Sullaway, 1984). The CPQ is a 35-item self-report measure that addresses spouses' behavior during three stages of conflict: (a) when some problem in the relationship arises, (b) during a discussion of a relationship problem, and (c) after a discussion of a relationship problem. Christensen (1988) presented data concerning the reliability and validity of three subscales of the CPQ: demand/withdraw communication, demand/withdraw roles, and mutual constructive communication. He demonstrated that there was relatively high agreement between partners' independent reports for these three subscales (r's above .70). He also found that the mutual constructive communication and demand/withdraw communication subscales were significantly related to marital adjustment in the expected direction. Christensen and Shenk (1991) examined three similar CPQ subscales in a later study. The subscales used in their study were mutual constructive communication, mutual avoidance, and demand/withdraw communication. The study compared three groups: nondistressed married couples, married couples beginning treatment for marital distress, and separated or divorcing couples. The mutual constructive communication subscale differentiated among all three groups, whereas the mutual avoidance and the demand/ withdraw communication subscales only differentiated the nondistressed couples from the other two groups. Noller and White (1990) also addressed the validity of the CPQ. They divided married couples into categories of high, medium, and low marital adjustment. They found that 27 of the 35 items significantly discriminated between couples of low and high marital adjustment. They also developed four subscales based on a factor analysis. All four of the subscales, coercion, mutuality, post-conflict distress, and destructive processes, discriminated between the high and low marital adjustment groups. Thus, there is some evidence for the reliability of CPQ subscales and considerable evidence for the discriminant validity of various subscales. However, there have not been any studies comparing couples' reports of communication behavior on the CPQ with observer ratings of their behavior during problem solving. …