The way romantic partners communicate with each other can influence the quality and satisfaction of a couples’ relationship and impact their individual well-being and mental health.
New research from Toronto Metropolitan University explores how couples navigate conflict and how it impacts the quality of their relationships. The study’s findings could help romantic partners improve the way they fight.
“A central focus of couples therapy is learning skills to more effectively communicate about conflict,” said lead researcher Professor Sarah S. Dermody. “The findings help highlight the importance of maintaining supportive and positive behaviours when discussing conflict in the context of relationships.”
The study applied the time-varying effect model to existing data from a large-scale experimental study of couples. Researchers used this model to examine how positive and negative partner behaviours unfolded throughout the interaction and how these behaviours influenced their partner’s responses. Positive behaviours could be supportive or problem-solving oriented, while negative behaviours could be critical or hostile.
“The process of discussing and navigating conflict is important, not just whether or not they reach a resolution,” said Professor Dermody. “Our ability to fully understand the multifaceted exchanges between couples when they discuss conflict has been limited by the available research tools. This study demonstrates a new way of using data and helps characterize how the conflict unfolds.”
The researchers found that positive behaviours by one person tended to elicit positive responses by the other. Meanwhile, negative behaviours were quite strongly related to negative responses. The researchers also found that couples became more in sync over time when discussing conflict. This was particularly true when the couples relied on the more positive interaction style.
The findings suggest that couples commonly mirror the type of behaviour they are responding to during fights. They also highlight the importance of maintaining supportive and positive behaviours when fighting with a romantic partner.
The study also examined how the consumption of alcohol interacted with these dynamics moment-to-moment. Surprisingly, the consumption of alcohol by one or both partners did not produce statistically significant changes in how partners interacted. However, researchers suspect there would be more changes if participants consumed more alcohol than was provided in the study or if the couples did not know they were being observed.
Time-varying relational interaction dynamics in couples discussing conflict was published in Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.
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