Describe the terms "marital cognitions" and "marital quality". What methods have been used to

assess these constructs? Why are these constructs important?

What will be an ideal response?

Marital cognitions pertain to our general relationship beliefs, expectancies, attributions,
and standards. They are important to study, because they predict marital behavior and
quality, and are clearly different when comparing distressed and non-distressed
couples. Marital quality, is the participant's general view of their marital health or
satisfaction. Such self-evaluations are important, because they forecast relationship
stability. By in far, researchers have used questionnaires to assess these constructs. This
tactic makes sense, because relationship cognitions are largely unobservable and marital
quality is in fact defined as a self-evaluation.