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Accommodation In Interdependent Relationships

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Even within the best relationships, close partners do not always treat each other with care and kindness. In interdependent relationships, it is inevitable that partners will sometimes behave in a manner potentially destructive to the relationship. When faced with dissatisfactory behaviours, the other partner has a choice: to respond in kind or to accommodate. Accommodation refers to responding to a partner's destructive act by inhibiting the impulse to reciprocate with another destructive act, and instead behaving in a constructive manner. Caryl Rusbult and her colleagues (1991) first identified accommodation as an important part of a relationship. They defined accommodation in terms of the typology of responses to dissatisfaction in relationships, which can vary along two dimensions: whether responses are constructive or destructive to the relationship, and whether responses actively or passively address the problem at hand. Within these two dimensions there are four categories of response: exit involves actively harming a relationship (e.g., …show more content…

Empirical evidence supports the hypothesis that individuals with a secure attachment style are more likely to accommodate than those with an insecure attachment style. Given that accommodation has been characterized as a relationship maintenance behaviour, researchers also have suggested how accommodative behaviour may benefit a relationship, repeatedly finding that accommodation is positively associated with general relationship health. More specifically, accommodation promotes trust between relationship partners. Furthermore, accommodation is associated with persistence in relationships; in particular, longer lasting relationships are characterized by high, mutual levels of accommodation between partners. Thus, although accommodation involves some immediate personal cost, the payoff of long-term relationship health may be worth

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