Through the eyes of the beholder: The mediating role of relationship acceptance in the impact of partner behavior

Integrative Behavioral Couple Therapy (IBCT) posits that emotional reactions to a partner's behavior can be as important to the relationship as the behavior itself. This study examined whether acceptance (a) is distinct from relationship sentiment, (b) mediates the link between a partner's behavioral frequency and own relationship satisfaction, and (c) mediates the association between frequency of partner behavior and frequency of one's own behavior. Both members of 307 married couples (N = 614 persons) completed self- and spouse-report measures of frequency and acceptability of positive and negative behaviors. Acceptance was distinct from satisfaction and mediated both relations for all types of relationship behaviors. Findings support IBCT's model of emotional-cognitive acceptance of partner behaviors as a key source of relationship distress. Key Words: acceptance, behavior, marital satisfaction, mediation. Recent estimates suggest that 43% of all couples will divorce within the first 15 years of marriage (Bramlett & Mosher, 2002). Dysfunctional, unsatisfying, or conflict-laden marriages have been linked to physical health problems (Bloom, Asher, & White, 1978; Burman & Margolin, 1992), mental illness (see Whisman & Uebelacker, 2003, for a review), and adverse outcomes in children, including lower academic achievement, depression, and conduct-related problems (Amato & Booth, 1997; Emery & O'Leary, 1982). Thus, there are many compelling reasons to identify the most efficacious interventions for marital distress. Unfortunately, between 30 and 70% of couples completing marital therapy will fail to show long-term improvement (Baucom, Shoham, Meuser, Daiuto, & Stickle, 1998). Because an understanding of specific mechanisms that facilitate improvement in relationship functioning is critical in modifying existing treatments (Doss, 2004), this topic has garnered renewed interest in recent years in the marital literature (Doss, Thum, Sevier, Atkins, & Christensen, 2005; Whisman & Snyder, 1997). In this study, we examine an important mechanism thought to be at work in Integrative Behavioral Couple Therapy (IBCT; Christensen & Jacobson, 2000; Jacobson & Christensen, 1998), namely, emotional acceptance. With its focus on acceptance within the romantic relationship, IBCT parallels the incorporation of acceptance into many types of psychotherapy for individuals (Hayes, Follette, & Linehan, 2004). Most empirically based marital therapies have their foundations in BCT, which focuses on directly changing behavior by maximizing positive exchanges and minimizing punishing, negative exchanges (Jacobson & Margolin, 1979). Evidence demonstrates that the frequency of positive and negative relationship behaviors between partners is a critical determinant of marital distress. Across studies, distressed couples can be reliably discriminated from nondistressed couples on the basis of frequency of nonneutral behaviors; specifically, pleasurable behaviors are positively related to marital satisfaction and negative behaviors are negatively related to satisfaction. These findings have been replicated both with investigator-defined classes of behavior (Wills, Weiss, & Patterson, 1974) and with participant-defined positive and negative behavioral valences (Johnson & O'Leary, 1996). Additionally, maritally distressed husbands and wives tend to reciprocate negative behaviors more than positive behaviors, so that distressed couples will often exhibit escalating cycles of destructive relationship behaviors (see Gottman, 1998, for a review). Although frequency of behaviors are certainly important, several theoretical and empirical lines of research suggest that assessing and intervening with one's reactions to a partner's behavior is also important (Halford, Keefer, & Osgarby, 2002; Jacobson, Follette, & McDonald, 1982; McNulty & Karney, 2002). IBCT differs from both behavioral (Jacobson & Marolin, 1979) and cognitive behavioral couple therapy (Epstein & Baucom, 2002) in the formulation of a couples' problem and in the goal of treatment. …