Areas of Change Questionnaire: A Practical Approach to Marital Assessment

This study investigates the Areas of Change Questionnaire (AC), a cost-efficient inventory that assesses marital partners' presenting complaints, their perceptions of one another's complaints, and perceptual accuracy between actual and perceived complaints. Psychometric and normative questions related to the AC were examined for 163 couples, 136 of whom met stringent criteria to be categorized as distressed or nondistressed. From a psychometric perspective, substantial support is offered for the concurrent validity of the AC as a measure of overall marital adjustment, but less evidence exists for its convergent validity with reports of daily marital events. The normative data reveal that (a) distressed, compared to nondistressed, couples want more change, perceive that more change is desired of them, and show greater perceptual accuracy; (b) women, compared to men, exhibit a greater intensity and range of requests and less perceptual accuracy; and (c) length of marriage is a significant factor influencing spouses' actual and perceived requests for change. The implications of these findings for use of the AC and for greater understanding of marital relationships are discussed.