The role of intimate partner violence and relationship satisfaction in couples’ interpersonal emotional arousal.

Abstract

To inform interpersonal models of intimate partner violence (IPV), the present study examines patterns of vocally encoded emotional arousal during the conversations of mixed-gender couples who reported on the extent of physical and psychological IPV and degree of relationship satisfaction (N = 149). All couples completed two problem-solving discussions. Emotional arousal was measured continuously during each conversation using vocal fundamental frequency. Contrary to expectations, results demonstrated that trajectories of arousal differed based on gender, IPV, and relationship satisfaction. Within conversations, men demonstrated linear increases in arousal at higher levels of IPV, suggesting that men may either struggle to contain their emotions or use heightened emotional expression as a conflict strategy in relationships with more extensive IPV. Conversely, women exhibited different trajectories of arousal depending on the combinations of relationship satisfaction and couple IPV, except at higher levels of their own satisfaction. Specifically, when women reported being highly satisfied in their relationships, they demonstrated similarly shaped trajectories across all levels of IPV and men's satisfaction. Together, this suggests that women's higher relationship satisfaction may buffer their emotional expression, although this may not always be adaptive within the context of relationships with extensive IPV. Overall, this study offers insight into the dynamic interpersonal processes linked with relationship distress and IPV and implies the need for a more nuanced, interpersonal research agenda for IPV research.

Responsivity to interviewer during interview-based assessment of physical intimate partner violence.

“…With respect to validity, greater f 0 is observed with greater emotional intensity (Bachorowski & Owren, 1995) and is associated with other measures of physiological arousal (e.g., heart rate, skin conductance) during emotionally evocative situations (Eckland et al, 2019; Johnstone et al, 2007). In addition, partners in IPV relationships displayed trajectories of emotional arousal (using f 0 ) during conflict discussions in a manner consistent with prior theoretical and empirical research (Wojda et al, 2022), further supporting the validity of f 0 as an index of emotional arousal among individuals in IPV relationships.…”

Revisiting “ill will versus poor skill”: Relationship dissatisfaction, intimate partner violence, and observed “communication skills deficits”

“…Thus, to simplify the already complicated analytic plan (and reduce the need for complicated decomposition of multiple‐way IPV interactions), we created a dyadic‐level ordinal variable by summing the individual IPV scores into a couple‐level score with a range 0–10 ( M = 5.37, SD = 2.92). This couple‐level scoring approach has demonstrated criterion validity in two recent studies (Heyman, Slep et al, 2022; Wojda et al, 2022).…”

Interpersonal emotion dynamics in obsessive–compulsive disorder: Associations with symptom severity, accommodation, and treatment outcome.

“…An extensive literature demonstrates its validity and reliability as a measure of emotional arousal and its key role in the communication of distress to close others (Busso et al, 2009;Eckland et al, 2019;Johnstone et al, 2007;Juslin & Scherer, 2005;Zeskind & Marshall, 1988). During couples' problem discussions, higher f 0 has been shown to be associated with higher blood pressure, heart rate, and cortisol (Weusthoff et al, 2013), and studies using f 0 to examine interpersonal emotion dynamics show associations with a variety of relational outcomes in couples (e.g., Baucom et al, 2009Baucom et al, , 2015Fischer et al, 2019;Wojda et al, 2021).…”