Recovering From Conflict in Romantic Relationships

Abstract

This study adopted a developmental perspective on recovery from conflict in romantic relationships. Participants were 73 young adults (target participants), studied since birth, and their romantic partners. A novel observational coding scheme was used to evaluate each participant’s degree of conflict recovery, operationalized as the extent to which the participant disengaged from conflict during a 4-min “cool-down” task immediately following a 10-min conflict discussion. Conflict recovery was systematically associated with developmental and dyadic processes. Targets who were rated as securely attached more times in infancy recovered from conflict better, as did their romantic partners. Concurrently, having a romantic partner who displayed better recovery predicted more positive relationship emotions and greater relationship satisfaction. Prospectively, target participants’ early attachment security and their partners’ degree of conflict recovery interacted to predict relationship stability 2 years later, such that having a partner who recovered from conflict better buffered targets with insecure histories.

O papel preditor dos estilos de apego na resolução do conflito conjugal

“…O estilo de apego influencia a regulação do afeto predominante diante de eventos estressantes, tais como as situações conflitivas (Wang, King, & Debernardi, 2012). Assim, pesquisas indicam que o apego seguro está associado a estratégias de comunicação positiva entre maridos e esposas (Salvatore, Kuo, Steele, Simpson, & Collins, 2011). Adultos com apego seguro sentem-se menos ameaçados nas discussões, utilizam menos estratégias de evitação do conflito e relatam menor frequência de conflitos e maior uso de negociação em comparação com aqueles com apego inseguro.…”

Revising Working Models Across Time: Relationship Situations That Enhance Attachment Security

“…However, when the partner making that request acknowledged the size and scope of the sacrifice, highly avoidant individuals who were asked to make the sacrifice did not feel less trust or commitment than their less avoidant counterparts (Farrell et al, 2016). In another study in which couples engaged in a conflict interaction, trained coders rated each partner's ability to recover from the conflict in a subsequent discussion of a positive topic (Salvatore et al, 2011). Avoidant individuals struggled more than others to recover in the second discussion.…”

“…Murray et al, 2011;Kim et al, in press;Overall et al, 2013;Overall, Girme, Lemay, & Hammond, 2014). Indeed, chronically secure individuals tend to recover more quickly from moments of emotional distress (Salvatore et al, 2011), which allows them to move beyond these moments and reengage in positive interactions with their partners (Feeney & Collins, 2015). These experiences increase the odds of successfully resolving problems and gradually become assimilated into more secure models of:…”

“…Regardless of the specific triggering situation, certain well-tailored partner-buffering behaviors can circumvent the potential spiral that begins with insecure responses and ends in relational strain (Farrell et al, 2016;Simpson & Overall, 2014;Overall et al, 2014;Salvatore et al, 2011;Simpson, Winterheld, Rholes, & Oriña, 2007). The ASEM Attachment security enhancement model 27 highlights distinct partner buffering behaviors that mitigate anxious and avoidant reactions that often cause relational tension.…”

Tie-Up Cycles in Long-Term Mating. Part I: Theory

“…This determines a virtuous vs. vicious circle of affective development moving from security of attachment in early childhood to development of social competence in infancy, to security of relationships in adolescence, and to quality of emotional experiences in early adulthood [71]. Moreover, a direct relationship between parental representations in terms of affective security, actual care-giving/receiving attitudes and reaction in couple dynamics [72], and increased capacity of recovery from conflict is established, with a positive post-conflict buffering (i.e., affective regulation) of less affectively secure partners [73], whose forms are strongly dependent on the type of affective insecurity [74]. The vicious circle of affective insecurity also causes individuals to become the "weak link" in couple dynamics, showing less commitment than the partner and thus subjecting the couple to breakup when the gap in commitment becomes too large [75].…”