Couple disagreement: Inevitable and healthy? Belgian and Japanese conceptions

Abstract

Couples who argue together, stay together" is a popular English saying suggesting the necessity of disagreement for a healthy and stable romantic relationship.The present study explores whether Belgian and Japanese participants similarly view couple disagreement as a necessity, and whether conceptions of disagreement have implications for partners' ideas of how to deal with disagreement. We conducted four focus groups in each culture and analyzed them using thematic analysis. The findings suggested that Belgian participants thought that partners' needs unavoidably clash. They thus saw disagreement as inevitable. In contrast, Japanese participants thought of disagreement as avoidable. To avoid disagreement, they reported that they adjusted to and accepted the differences of their partner. Consistent with these respective conceptions of disagreement, Belgian participants highlighted the importance of addressing disagreement through open communication, while Japanese participants reported to frequently engage in indirect forms of communication such as mindreading. The differences Statement of Relevance: This study is one of the first to offer a cross-cultural perspective on the meaning of couple disagreement. It explores whether 'Western' assumptions of couple disagreement, such as disagreement being inevitable and requiring verbal problem-solving, also hold in non-Western cultural contexts. Findings from focus groups suggest that Belgian conceptions were similar to, yet Japanese conceptions were different from popular assumptions in (Western) relationship literature. Implications for cross-cultural couple research and therapy are discussed.

Couple conflict observed: Emotions in Belgium and Japan.

“…This finding qualifies our earlier research yielding a positive association between fit in emotional experiences and relationship satisfaction in Belgian couples (see Boiger et al, 2022). While feeling angry might be condoned during conflict and hence adaptive for the relationship, expressing such anger may be more problematic, especially if it is disrespectful and escalates the conflict unnecessarily (Overall et al, 2009; Schouten, Boiger, Uchida, Ribbers, et al, 2023).…”

“…The data and analytical code are available on Open Science Framework: https://osf.io/x8dtj/? view_only=0feaef96ee4e4120ab472eafd1f86e24 (Schouten, Boiger, Uchida, Verstaen, et al, 2023). This study's design and its analysis were not preregistered.…”

“…We report measures that were relevant to the hypotheses in the Method section; all other measures can be found in . The data and analytical code are available on Open Science Framework: https://osf.io/x8dtj/?view_only=0feaef96ee4e4120ab472eafd1f86e24 (Schouten, Boiger, Uchida, Verstaen, et al, 2023). This study’s design and its analysis were not preregistered.…”