A Multidimensional Analysis

The role of cognitions in marital relationships has received increasing attention. Specific beliefs about marital relationships have shown consistent correlations with overall marital satisfaction. As a measure of dysfunctional beliefs about intimate relationships, the Relationship Belief Inventory provides five dysfunctional beliefs scores. This study extended reseal-ch in the area of unrea.tstic beliefs and marital satisfaction in two ways. The first was the development of an additional measure of Beliefs About Relationship Change. The second focus of this research was the use of a multidimensional measure of marital satisfaction in response to the call for mapping of different beliefs and different domains of marital interaction/satisfaction. Married couples (N=36) participated in the study. Multiple regression procedures showed that: global marital distress is predicted by dysfunctional beliefs %at th