Construct Validity of the Perceived Criticism Measure

The construct validity of the Perceived Criticism Measure (PCM) was examined in 2 studies. In Study 1, 50 community couples participated in problem-solving interactions after which they rated interaction-specific perceived criticism and their criticism of their spouses. In addition, they provided ratings of perceived criticism for their relationship overall and completed measures of psychopathology and marital satisfaction. For both husbands and wives, convergent validity was demonstrated by moderate-to-large correlations between the PCM and spouses' own ratings of their criticism for both general and interaction-specific perceived criticism. In Study 2, 37 patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder and their spouses participated in problem-solving interactions and provided ratings of marital satisfaction and general perceived criticism. Five untrained coders rated the interactions according to their own definitions of the relatives' destructive criticism of the patient. Their aggregated ratings proved strongly related to patients' PCM scores. Higher PCM scores were related to lower marital satisfaction in both Studies 1 and 2. The results of these studies are supportive of the convergent validity of the Perceived Criticism Measure. Evidence of discriminant validity was mixed.