Perceptions about marital conflict: Individual, dyadic, and family level effects

Abstract

Husbands and wives often provide different reports about the qualities of their relationship—a pattern of reporting that is often discounted as measurement error. In the present study, we tested three research questions related to perceptions of marital conflict in a sample of 123 married couples. First, we tested whether individual and partner attachment and depressive symptoms were associated with reports of conflict. Then, we examined whether these characteristics also explain absolute and directional discrepancies in reports of marital conflict. Finally, we examined how discrepancies in reports of marital conflict might be related to discrepancies in other dyadic reports within the family. Analyses revealed that individuals’ attachment avoidance and anxiety, but not depressive symptoms, were linked to their own perceptions of marital conflict. Further, partners’ attachment anxiety was positively associated with one’s own perceptions of marital conflict. Additional analyses revealed that wives’ attachment avoidance was positively associated with absolute discrepancies about conflict. Wives’ attachment avoidance predicted directional discrepancies, such that they reported relatively more conflict than their husbands reported as their attachment avoidance increased. Husbands’ attachment anxiety was marginally associated with overreporting conflict relative to their wives’ reports. Finally, discrepancies in spouses’ reports of marital conflict were associated with mother–adolescent and father–adolescent discrepancies in reports of parent–adolescent conflict. Results highlight the importance of measuring both partners’ perceptions of the relationship in order to capture meaningful variation in multi-informant reports.