Intimacy Status and Couple Conflict Resolution

Abstract

Fifty couples participated in a study to assess the relationship between individual intimacy development and conflict resolution style. Each individual was given an intimacy status interview, and couples were videotaped while discussing an area of conflict in their relationship. The hypothesis that men and women classified into the Intimate status would use more cognitively oriented conflict resolution strategies was not supported, although a trend indicated that women in the Pseudointimate status used more cognitive, problem-focused conflict resolution strategies than women in the Merger status, while women in the Merger status used more affective, emotion-focused strategies than women in the Pseudointimate status. Men in the Merger status were more coercive than other men when paired with Merger women. Sequential analyses showed that partners tended to respond to each other in kind, and that both affective and coercive acts temporarily discouraged problem-focused acts from the partner for the next two acts. Intimacy status had little relationship with the sequencing of conflict behavior between partners, but was predictive of individuals' own sequences of behavior. Results support in part the notion that intimacy status affects the way in which individuals resolve conflict in an important relationship.