Cognitive-behaviour therapy for marital conflict: refining the concept of attribution

In recent years, the concept of attribution has received increasing attention in the field of cognitive-behavioural marital therapy. Research has found that the attribution dimensions of source, globality, stability, intent and voluntariness are related to marital distress and conflict behaviours. This paper argues that the application of the attribution dimensions has been conceptually problematic, and proposes a distinction between attributions made for a specific conflict episode, a behaviour in an episode and the causal schema for the conflictual relationships. Different reattribution techniques should be employed to target attributional change at appropriate levels of conflict attributions. This proposition is illustrated with a case example.