Romantic Conflict Research Articles

People Attribute a Range of Highly-Varied and Socially-Bound Meanings to Naturalistic Sad Facial Expressions

Depictions of sadness are commonplace, and here we aimed to discover and catalogue the complex and nuanced ways that people interpret sad facial expressions. We used a rigorous qualitative methodology to build a thematic framework from 3,243 open-ended responses from 41 people who participated in 2020 and described what they thought sad expressors in 80 images were thinking, feeling, and/or intending to do. Face images were sourced from a novel set of naturalistic expressions (ANU Real Facial Expression Database), as well as a traditional posed expression database (Radboud Faces Database). The resultant framework revealed clear themes around the expressors’ thoughts (e.g., acceptance, contemplation, disbelief), social needs (e.g., social support or withdrawal), social behaviours/intentions (e.g., mock or manipulate), and the precipitating events (e.g., social or romantic conflict). Expressions that were perceived as genuine were more frequently described as thinking deeply, reflecting, or feeling regretful, whereas those perceived as posed were more frequently described as exaggerated, overamplified, or dramatised. Overall, findings highlight that facial expressions — even with high levels of consensus about the emotion category they belong to — are interpreted in nuanced and complex ways that emphasise their role as other-oriented social tools, and convey semantically related emotion categories that share smooth gradients with one another. Our novel thematic framework also provides an important foundation for future work aimed at understanding variation in the social functions of sadness, including exploring potential differences in interpretations across cultural settings.

Politeness Strategies of Romantic Conflicts in Bridgerton’s Netflix Series (2020)

Romantic conflicts can be managed with the use of politeness strategies. Therefore, this study was carried out to investigate the usage of politeness strategies performed by main male and female characters in Bridgerton’s Netflix Series (2020) while dealing with romantic conflicts. The aims of this present study are at identifying the types of politeness strategies employed by main male and female characters in Briedgerton’s Netflix Series (2020) and revealing politeness strategies impact romantic conflicts of main male and female characters in Bridgerton’s Netflix series (2020). In order to conduct this study, this study adapted theory of politeness strategies proposed by Brown and Levinson (1987) and conflict resolution strategies as proposed by Sillars et al (1983). The method applied was a descriptive qualitative method since the data were in the forms of utterances and being identified descriptively based on the theory adapted. This recent study found that all types of politeness strategies employed by main male and female characters in Bridgerton’s Netflix series (2020) while dealing with romantic conflicts. This research revealed that there are differences regarding Simon and Daphne applying types of politeness strategies. Other than that, positive politeness is mostly employed to actualize cooperative strategy in dealing with romantic conflicts. Furthermore, in applying competitive strategy in dealing with romantic conflict, main male and female characters preferred adapting off-record. The least strategy in solving romantic conflicts used by main male and female characters is that avoidance strategy. This strategy can be done with mostly negative politeness.

Assessment of Correlation between Attachment Style and Romantic Conflict Management Skills among University Students

Understanding Attachment Styles and Romantic Conflict Management Skills is crucial for addressing relationship challenges like recurring conflicts and communication breakdowns due to unresolved attachment issues, which can cause emotional damage and deteriorate relationship quality over time. This study explores the relationship between Attachment Styles and Romantic Conflict Management Skills in university students, with 350 college respondents providing a diverse sample. The study found that attachment styles particularly avoidant attachment have a slightly high level while romantic conflict management skills show variations in subscales with compromise and avoidance tending toward higher levels. The Spearman's rank correlation coefficient showed a weakly positive connection, rejecting the null hypothesis and highlighting the influence of attachment styles on romantic conflict management skills. Moreover, the linear regression analysis identified avoidant and anxious attachment as significant predictors of Romantic Conflict Management Skills, suggesting that these styles may play a role in determining how conflicts are resolved in relationships. These results improve our understanding of the relationship between college students' attachment styles and their ability to resolve romantic conflicts. The study suggests that institutions should offer workshops on communication, attachment styles, self-awareness, and conflict resolution to foster healthy student relationships and provide counselors with guidance. Future research should explore additional variables and use advanced sampling techniques.

Fighting the good fight: Relating warmth and dominance across romantic conflict to resolution

Research on romantic conflict has persuasively documented that the way partners communicate with one another during disagreements is a driving factor in predicting how they perceive the conflicts in their relationships. The current research added to this literature by differentiating couples who resolve conflicts more, versus less, successfully. Specifically, the current work examined how couples’ behavioral trajectories across the course of conflict related to their perceptions of conflict resolution. To this end, we coded warmth and dominance behaviors exhibited by 173 couple members (346 individuals) over the course of an eight-minute conflict discussion. We examined how participants’, and their partners’, perceptions of conflict resolution were related to their interpersonal behaviors. In line with predictions, less average interpersonal warmth was associated with worse perceptions of resolution, and declining warmth over time was also associated with worse perceptions of resolution. Dominance behaviors were not associated with conflict resolution perceptions.

Love better by fighting smarter: How intercultural couples develop dyadic cultural affinity through romantic conflict management

Guided by the conflict face-negotiation theory and the culturally based romantic relationship model, this study employed in-depth interviews with twelve intercultural couples (n = 24) to explore relational dynamics and nuances of couples handling conflicts and developing dyadic cultural affinity through their conflict management experiences. Aligning with extant literature, our findings uncovered five conflict management styles employed by intercultural couples: avoiding, competing, compromising, yielding, and emotional expression. Additionally, three primary relational outcomes emerged from the data: reaching temporary satisfaction, recognizing positive changes, and identifying recurrent problems. The findings further demonstrated how intercultural romantic partners developed dyadic cultural affinity by progressively gaining deeper mutual understanding through their conflict interactions, building consensus, and consequently nurturing a shared sense of cultural affinity as a couple. Theoretical and practical implications were discussed.

Не вполне русская любовь в русской исторической драме и опере. Царская невеста – Василиса Мелентьева – Царская невеста

In Russian historical drama of the nineteenth century, The Tsar’s Bride (1849) by Mey and Vasilisa Melentieva (1868) by Ostrovsky and Gedeonov stand out for unusually complex and developed love themes. It has recently been noted that Mey’s play was influenced not only by Walter Scott’s novel The Bride of Lammermoor, but particularly by Donizetti’s opera Lucia di Lammermoor, which is based on the novel. I show that Gedeonov, the original author of Vasilisa Melentieva, was inspired not so much by Shakespeare’s Henry VIII, but by Donizetti’s Anna Bolena. As in Mey’s case, this explains the special importance of female characters and romantic conflict in the play. The experiments of Mey and Gedeonov led Rimsky-Korsakov to compose an opera (1898) – based on and named after Mey’s The Tsar’s Bride – which was the most Italianate of Russian operas dedicated to the national past. In other words, the composer gave the love theme from ancient Russian history a musical beauty that elevated the theme to the highest level of artistic hedonism. But the main focus of the article is on Vasilisa Melentieva by Gedeonov and Ostrovsky.

Poem as Text and as Song (Case Study of J. Brodsky’s Lyric Poetry of the 1970s and 1980s)

The article focuses on the concept of poetry presented in J. Brodsky's compositions of the 70s and 80s. The author semantically opposes the two forms of presentation of a poetic work – written and oral. This opposition is based, firstly, on the contrast between the linguistic and empirical realities, while it is the sphere of language that acquires the highest, determining value. In the process of writing, the poet creates a second self, projects himself into the area of the text and thus gains access to a special textual space, which becomes for him a kind of refuge from the material world. However, the reproduction of a poem in oral form correlates with the image of the living world and is carried out in empirical reality. In this regard, the romantic conflict between the poet and the crowd, characteristic of Brodsky's early compositions, is preserved in his work of the 70s and 80s only when the poem is realized orally and addressed to the poet's contemporaries. The interaction of the poet and the audience in terms of the written text is presented as communication between an abstract sender and addressee. Participants of this communication lack any specific biographical features, which eliminates the possibility of a conflict between them. Secondly, the opposition of oral and written forms of poetic speech is based on the contrast between sound and silence, which in Brodsky's ontological model correspond to being and non-being. The situation of writing, characterized by soundlessness, refers the poet to the image of non-existence and helps to take a position of courageous acceptance of the thought of death. The very space of the text is likened to non-existence, therefore, during his lifetime, the poet has only partial access to it. The situation of speaking is the spreading of the poet's voice in the living world.

No response? Chronemic expectancy violation and relational turbulence in technologically-mediated romantic relational conflict

An extensive body of literature shows how people deal with conflicts, verbally and nonverbally, in interpersonal interactions. However, the role of technologically-mediated communication (TMC) in romantic relational conflict has received less attention. Through the lenses of Relational Turbulence and Expectancy Violations Theories, this study explored how a chronemic expectancy violation from a romantic partner impacts emotional well-being in a TMC-involved conflict discussion. Two online questionnaires were distributed. First, a pilot study was conducted to understand the basic online communication dynamics between emerging adult romantic partners (e.g., usual response latency) and possible emotions when they experience a chronemic expectancy violation from their partner on TMC. Results show that people are likely to experience negative affect and other specific emotions (e.g., disillusion, loneliness, frustration, hurt, anger) if their partner takes longer than expected to respond. The main study then further explored how individuals’ expectations differ in a hypothetical TMC-involved conflict scenario where they use text-based TMC to discuss a recent romantic conflict with their partners. Participants were instructed to imagine a chronemic expectancy violation whereby their partner does not respond within their expected time period (i.e., conflict expected latency) and report their feelings about it. Results show that people expect their partners to respond more rapidly in the conflict scenario than usual and report negative feelings after the expectancy violations. Conflict-specific (e.g., seriousness), personal (e.g., attachment anxiety and avoidance), and relational (e.g., commitment) variables also influence the intensity of their emotional experiences. This research enhances comprehension of nonverbal cues in text-based TMC and potential emotional repercussions in romantic conflict management.

Editable, Persistent, and Emotionally Expressive

Abstract: A 5-day diary study examined how channel affordances are related to channel use and outcomes in romantic conflict. Adults answered five consecutive days of surveys about daily conflict occurrence, channel affordances, channel use, and conflict behavior. The results of a 1–1–1 multilevel mediation analysis showed negative within-indirect effects for the channel affordances of editability and persistence on constructive conflict behavior via mobile text messaging, and a positive within-indirect effect for the channel affordance of bandwidth on constructive conflict behavior via face-to-face communication. The data suggest that channel affordances motivate channel use in romantic conflict and that these channel affordances are indirectly related to constructive conflict behavior.

Rewriting the queer potential of She’s Gotta Have It

ABSTRACT This paper argues that the 2017–2019 comedy-drama Netflix series She’s Gotta Have It attempts to rewrite the past represented within the 1986 feature-length film of the same name through its portrayal of Black women’s sexuality. While lauded, the film was met with criticism of Spike Lee’s portrayal of women in the film as ultimately misogynist and homophobic, evidenced by Lee’s decision to show protagonist Nola Darling being punitively raped by one of her sexual partners as well as by the flat and stereotypical construction of the Black lesbian character, Opal Gilstrap. In contrast, the 2017 series introduces us to Nola Darling as a pansexual and polyamorous Black visual artist in a rapidly gentrifying Fort Greene, Brooklyn. This paper identifies sexual politics and self-representational strategies as two sites of nostalgic re-construction in which elements of the past are both reproduced and revised. For instance, Nola’s self-identification as pansexual and her sustained relationship with a reimagined and more robustly characterized Opal illustrate that Nola’s sexual desires are not bound by heteronormativity. At the same time, the series echoes the film in that the primary sexual and romantic conflicts revolve around the ways Nola’s Black femininity is juxtaposed with the Black cis masculinity of her three primary suitors. The use of self-representational strategies, primarily Lee’s signature 4th wall breaking, provides a sense of continuity through its nostalgic callback to Lee’s earlier works, while also allowing Nola to articulate the ‘new’ identities of polyamory and pansexuality which depart from the language used in the ‘86 portrayal. Relatedly, Nola’s work as a visual artist allows the show to prioritize Nola’s perceptions of her lovers and herself. Overall, this paper mobilizes Black feminist, lesbian, and queer analyses in service of identifying and complicating Lee’s efforts to recuperate misogynist and heteronormative gendered portrayals in a contemporary medium.

What explains the link between romantic conflict with gambling problems? Testing a serial mediational model.

While individuals have many motives to gamble, one particularly risky motive for gambling is to cope with negative affect. Conflict with one's romantic partner is a strong predictor of negative affect, which may elicit coping motives for gambling and, in turn, gambling-related problems. Support for this mediational model was demonstrated in relation to drinking-related problems. We extended this model to gambling. Using a cross-sectional design, we examined links between romantic conflict (Partner-Specific Rejecting Behaviors Scale), negative affect (Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scales-21), coping gambling motives (Gambling Motives Questionnaire, coping subscale), and gambling-related problems [Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI)] in 206 regular gamblers (64% men; mean age = 44.7 years; mean PGSI = 8.7) who were in a romantic relationship and recruited through Qualtrics Panels in July 2021. Results supported our hypothesis that the association between romantic conflict and gambling-related problems would be sequentially mediated through negative affect and coping gambling motives, β = 0.38, 95% CI [0.27, 0.39], and also showed a strong single mediation pathway through negative affect alone, β = 0.27, 95% CI [0.17, 0.38]. Negative affect and coping gambling motives partially explain the link between romantic conflict and gambling-related problems. Interventions should target both negative affect and coping gambling motives in response to romantic conflict to reduce gambling-related problems in partnered gamblers.

Drinking to Cope Mediates the Association between Dyadic Conflict and Drinking Behavior: A Study of Romantic Couples during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic spurred public health measures to reduce viral spread. Concurrently, increases in alcohol consumption and conflict in romantic partnerships were observed. Pre-pandemic research demonstrated a bidirectional association between couples' conflict and drinking. Recent research shows one's drinking motives (proximal predictors of drinking behavior) can influence another person's drinking in close relationships. It is possible that individuals are drinking to cope with distress following romantic conflict. The current study examined 348 cohabitating couples during the first lockdown in the spring of 2020. Our analyses examined coping motives as a mediator between dyadic conflict and drinking behavior using actor-partner interdependence models. Results showed that conflict was associated with greater reports of own drinking in gendered (distinguishable) and nongendered (indistinguishable) analyses through coping motives. Further, in mixed-gender couples, men partners' coping motives predicted less drinking in women, while women partners' coping motives predicted marginally more drinking in men. Partner effects may have been observed due to the increased romantic partner influence during the COVID-19 lockdown. While these results suggest that men's coping motives may be protective against women's drinking, more concerning possibilities are discussed. The importance of considering dyadic influences on drinking is highlighted; clinical and policy implications are identified.

When Modes Collide: A Daily Diary Study of Mixed-Media Use and Conflict Behavior in Romantic Relationships

ABSTRACT A 5-day diary study examined if and how conflict behavior moderates the association between mode integration and relational and conflict outcomes among individuals in romantic relationships. Participants recorded daily conflict, conflict behavior, mode integration, relational satisfaction, and conflict resolution. In line with the communication interdependence perspective, the more mode integration individuals reported in constructive conflict, the more relational satisfaction they experienced. The data also revealed that the less mode integration individuals reported in low destructive conflict, the more conflict resolution they experienced. The results highlight the importance of examining conflict behavior and media use in tandem when studying romantic conflict.

Effects of mandatory homeschooling during COVID-19 on conflict in romantic couples.

In early 2020, schools across Canada closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, requiring parents to homeschool their children. We examined the association between homeschooling and romantic conflict among couples during the COVID-19 pandemic. Canadian couples (N = 756) completed online measures, including whether they were homeschooling, hours spent homeschooling, and romantic conflict during the month of April 2020. Two hundred ten couples (27.8%) reported that they were homeschooling their children during this period, with 173 (22.9%) couples homeschooling due to the pandemic. Multilevel regressions were used to examine the association between homeschooling status and romantic conflict, and actor-partner interdependence models (APIMs) were used to examine the association between homeschooling hours and romantic conflict among homeschoolers. In our APIM analyses, significant links between hours spent homeschooling and romantic conflict were observed, even when controlling for demographic variables. We found significant actor effects, where an individual's own homeschooling hours were positively related to the conflict they enacted toward their partner, and significant partner effects, where the partner's homeschooling hours were positively related to conflict received by the individual. Among all couples, we found significant positive associations between homeschooling status (i.e., nonhomeschooler or homeschooler) and both types of romantic conflict. However, these associations were nonsignificant when controlling for demographic variables. Our findings suggest the number of hours spent in homeschooling may be an important contributor to romantic conflict between partners during the pandemic. We discuss implications for schools and governments in providing additional support for families homeschooling children during mandated school closures. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Love's a dance you learn as you go: Evidence for interpersonal complementarity during romantic conflict and its association with relationship outcomes

AbstractHigh‐quality romantic bonds benefit people. Extant literature has explored many individual and relational factors that contribute to high‐quality relationships, yet research on how moment‐to‐moment behaviours predict quality is still in the nascent stages. The current study explored interpersonal complementarity on warmth and dominance as one index of moment‐to‐moment interaction dynamics in romantic relationships. The sample included 180 couples (360 individuals), examined at 10‐s intervals, over the course of an 8‐min conflict discussion. Analysis confirmed the predicted pattern of complementarity such that people adjusted their behaviours in response to their partner's behaviour, engaging in similar levels of warmth and opposite levels of dominance (Hypothesis 1). Additionally, results revealed that relationship length was logarithmically related to dominance complementarity, whereas it was not significantly related to warmth complementarity (Hypothesis 2). Finally, dominance and warmth complementarity were differentially associated with numerous relational constructs (Hypothesis 3a/3b).

Adaptive Audacity: Uncovering Queer Attachments and Re-evaluating Marriage Narratives in John William De Forest's Miss Ravenel's Conversion from Secession to Loyalty

Adaptive Audacity: Uncovering Queer Attachments and Re-evaluating Marriage Narratives in John William De Forest's <i>Miss Ravenel's Conversion from Secession to Loyalty</i>

“Are You Doing What I Think You’re Doing?” Momentary Goal Projection and Goal Contagion in Romantic Conflict

This study examined how individuals’ goals and inferences about partners’ goals vary moment-by-moment during romantic conflicts. Seventy romantic couples discussed a current relational conflict for 7 minutes. Participants individually reviewed video recordings of their discussion, rating the importance of their own goals and inferences about the importance of those goals for their partner during each minute. Individuals demonstrated mixed accuracy when inferring partners’ goals. We observed evidence of goal projection, as the more important a goal was to oneself, the more one inferred it was important to the partner. We also observed evidence of goal contagion, as inferences about a partner’s goals mediated several associations between the partner’s previous goals and individuals’ subsequent goals. Furthermore, inferences about partners’ goals also mediated associations between individuals’ own prior goals and their goals at the next minute.

“Technogeneous” Imagery of Alexander Eryomenko’s Poetry in the Context of Evolution of his Romantic World Outlook

The article deals with technogeneous imagery in the poetry of Alexander Eryomenko. In his texts of the 1984-1986 period technical and scientific images are often compared with natural objects. This topic has been understudied. Various statements have been made by philologists about the ethical dimension of this imagery. The main aim of this article is to disprove these statements. Poetic texts of the later period (1987-1989) are devoted to politics. The purpose of this article is to identify the link between the two periods of his work. The task is to reveal the ideological orientations of these periods. Poet actively opposed his art to Soviet ideology and Russian nationalists. The author of the article suggests the following thesis: the two periods correspond to two stages which show how his romantic world outlook unfolded. Alexander Eryomenko first absolutized the mechanistical nature of the outside world (Non-I), and later singled out the image of the enemy in it. In the postSoviet period (after 1991) the poet gave up both political and poetic activities. The reason for it is the exhaustion of the romantic conflict and the image of the enemy. Philology has studied the issue of the romantic world outlook in contemporary literature insufficiently. The methodology of this article reveals its potential results.

Development of Peer Relationships From Adolescence into Emerging Adulthood: Comparing Males and Females With and Without Type 1 Diabetes.

Friendships and romantic relationships are important sources of support that contribute to well-being for youth across adolescence and emerging adulthood and may be especially important for those with a chronic illness. We examined gender differences in trajectories of peer relationships among those with type 1 diabetes (T1D) and how they differ from those without. Individuals with T1D (N = 132) and controls (N = 131) completed questionnaires across 11 years (M age = 12 years at baseline). Trajectories of friend support, conflict, and companionship were estimated from ages 11 to 23. Romantic support and conflict trajectories were estimated from ages 17 to 23. Females experienced more friend support than males, especially in comparison to males with T1D. Control females experienced highest levels of romantic support and lowest levels of romantic conflict. In comparison to control males, males with T1D experienced less friend support in early adolescence and less companionship in late adolescence and emerging adulthood. In comparison to control females, females with T1D experienced less friend support in late adolescence and more romantic conflict in emerging adulthood. Findings that males with T1D report less friend support and companionship compared to control males, and females with T1D report less friend support and more romantic conflict than control females are of concern as these results suggest those with T1D may be missing out on important aspects of peer relationships. Understanding the broader social network of peer relationships may be useful to clinicians as they assist individuals in garnering support in general and for their diabetes.

Romantic conflict narratives and associations with psychological relationship aggression in emerging adult couples

This cross-sectional study aimed to understand how emerging adult couples interpreted relationship conflicts, and whether such meaning making was associated with psychological relationship aggression and moderated by gender. We specified the I Cubed model of relationship aggression to examine how in the context of recounting relationship conflicts, the impellance factors of anger and break-up anxiety might increase and the inhibition factor of perspective taking might decrease the likelihood of relationship aggression. Each partner in 126 couples was interviewed separately about their unmet relationship needs. Narrative-based measures of impellance and inhibition were obtained as well as self-reported psychological relationship aggression and satisfaction. Although gender was not a moderator, there was some support for associations of impellance and inhibition factors with aggression. Extending prior work using couple observations and diary methods, we found that interpreting conflict events in terms of anger and perspective taking was related to relationship aggression while controlling for relationship satisfaction. Consistent with the I Cubed model, there were actor effects such that anger ratings were an impellance factor that increased and perspective taking was an inhibition factor that decreased the likelihood of aggression. Our findings suggest that narrating past conflicts related to unmet needs is a task that involves the management of anger associated with more relationship aggression. The efficacy of relationship education programs for emerging adult couples might be improved by focusing on skills to decrease anger and facilitate perspective taking.