Heterosexual couples' initial role and outcome expectations as predictors of the therapeutic alliance and relationship satisfaction prior to the fourth session.

Abstract

We sampled routinely collected measures of role and outcome expectations, the expanded therapeutic alliance, and relationship satisfaction completed by 253 heterosexual couples seen by 35 therapists in the Marriage and Family Research Practice Network (Johnson et al., 2017) and investigated these variables as interdependent dyadic processes using the latent congruence model (Cheung, 2009) and the mediated actor-partner interdependence model (Ledermann et al., 2011). Taken together, we found a direct association between a couple's mean role and outcome expectation scores at Session 1 and individual partners' alliance perceptions at Session 3. Further, men rated the alliance more favorably when their outcome expectations were higher and the partners' outcome expectations were less discrepant. In terms of role expectations, both men and women began therapy expecting to be more actively engaged in the process than their partner. Whereas women rated the alliance more favorably when they had high role expectations for their partner as well as themselves, men rated the alliance more favorably when they had high expectations for their female partner's engagement in the therapy. Notably, alliance at Session 3 did not mediate the association between initial expectations and Session 4 relationship satisfaction due to a strong association (r = 0.85) between relationship satisfaction rated prior to Sessions 1 and 4. In other words, although the best predictor of relationship status before the fourth session was how the relationship was perceived before couple therapy began, men's and women's initial role and outcome expectations were important contributors to the early alliance. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).