Marital Conflict Resolution Research Articles

Marital relationships and conflict resolution skills of bulimics

Twelve bulimic couples were compared to 14 maritally distressed couples and 15 normal control couples on measures of relationship satisfaction, conflict resolution styles, and beliefs about intimate relationships. Bulimics reported global relationship dissatisfaction with their marriages similar to that felt by women seeking marital therapy. Bulimics were also similar to females in distressed marriages in their reported use of few problem-solving skills and withdrawal from conflict. Bulimics and maritally distressed females subscribed to the dysfunctional belief that “partners cannot change.” These results provide support for the contention that bulimics experience dissatisfaction with their interpersonal relationships and that this dissatisfaction is accompanied by self-reported deficiencies in conflict resolution skills.

Marital Interaction, Affect and Conflict Resolution

Abstract By observing the problem-solving behaviour and affect of 9 non-distressed and 9 distressed couples the following questions were investigated: (1) Do non-distressed and distressed couples differ in affect? (2) Do they differ in the way they experience their partner's behaviour (=impact)? (3) Do observers and married couples differ in how they decode the behaviours? (4) Do non-distressed and distressed couples differ in problem-solving behaviour? The results indicated that non-distressed couples exhibited more positive affect while distressed couples showed more negative affect. The analysis of Not Tracking (the listener does not look at the speaker for at least 3 seconds) showed very significant satisfaction effects. Non-distressed listeners looked at their spouse much more than distressed listeners did. With respect to impact, it appeared that distressed couples experienced more of the behaviour emitted by their spouse as being negative than the non-distressed couples did. There is a good deal of...

A Psychoanalytic Approach to Marital Conflict Resolution

A Psychoanalytic Approach to Marital Conflict Resolution

Marital conflict resolution: Factors influencing concordance between partners and trained coders

Abstract This investigation sought to further delineate the factors which influence the concordant perceptions of distressed and nondistressed husbands and wives and trained coders who observed samples of marital conflict resolution. Twenty-eight couples entering marital therapy and 28 volunteer “happy” couples repeatedly rated five-minute videotaped samples of their own and a stranger couple's problem solving. These tapes were also scored by trained coders using the Marital Interaction Coding System. Correlational analyses suggested greater insider-outsider perceptual agreement for distressed than nondistressed couples and for negative than positive behavior being rated. Intracouple agreement was higher when couples rated their own versus stranger problem solving. After minimal training, only the distressed partners increased their agreement for their own problem solving. Findings are discussed in light of previous research.

Marital Conflict Resolution

Thirty white, middle-class, married couples were interviewed concerning the strategies each spouse used in attempting to resolve a number of actual conflicts experienced by each couple. Four types of strategies are examined: authority, control, influence, and manipulation. Findings show that husbands win most conflicts regardless of the strategies they or their wives employ. Controls for possession of strategy-relevant resources, area of responsibility, and belief in the use of various strategies demonstrate no consistent relationship to strategy choice or conflict resolution outcome. Wife's employment status, husband's education, and the general degree of familial traditionalism are related to strategy choice and outcome, but controlling for these does not produce a relationship between strategy and outcome. The evidence suggests that individual conflicts are not resolved on an individual basis; general background factors of the marriage shape outcomes but the process by which they are translated into outcomes in specific cases is still unclear.

Marital conflict resolution of alcoholic and nonalcoholic couples during drinking and nondrinking sessions.

The marital interactions of alcoholics and their wives did not differ significantly from those of nonalcoholic maritally distressed couples, but both differed from the interactions of nonalcoholic, nondistressed couples.