COGNITIVE ACCESSIBILITY AND SENTIMENT OVERRIDE - STARTING A REVOLUTION - COMMENT

F. D. Fincham, P. C. Garnier, S. Gano-Phillips, and L. N. Osborne (199 5) present a methodology new to the marital arena (reaction time asses sment) and use it to illuminate a classic issue in the marital area, s entiment override. In doing so, they highlight the potential of this n ew methodology for enhancing marital assessment and allowing for the r igorous test of theory. However, the promise of this specific methodol ogy and its implications for marital assessment may be less important than the broader research agenda implied. Because Fincham et al. utili zed an information-processing approach developed within the robust tra dition of social-cognition research, they open the marital area to a b road array of potential assessment techniques and implicitly invite th e field to join them in a profound reconceptualization of the role of cognition in shaping each spouse's response to the other.