Conflict in Romantic Relationship

The article concludes that conflict will arise in relationships and that men and women typically handle conflict in different ways. Furthermore, it examines the various approaches each gender takes when dealing with conflict. For example, females are taught at an early age to discuss issues, “value relationships”, and be adaptive when confronting conflict (Wood, p. 212). Males , on the other hand, are socialized to not talk about conflict, be more aggressive, and try to fix

After reading the chapter “Romantic Communication in Intimate Relationships: The Romantic Construal Model”, I was left with a lot of new knowledge. The Romantic Construal Model, which identifies how people judge romantic acts via personalization, specialness and conveyed value, is something that I had never heard of before and enjoyed learning about, but like with any new concept I was left with lots of questions as well as relations to other things I have previously learned. For this thought paper my question that I am going to address is why are certain types of communication more valuable to romantic intimate relationships than others?

The topic that I have chosen to discuss throughout this paper is Managing and Resolving Conflicts in a Relationship. This topic is very important to me simply because, I personally see a lot of relationships failing, including some of mines due to lack of resolving and managing conflicts correctly. By the end of this paper I hope that I have helped the reader understand and eliminate any conflicts that confront their everyday lives.

Kerchoff and Davis used their model to do a study on students who had been together for more than or less than 18 months. They were asked to complete questionnaires over 7 months on attitudes and personality of their partners compared to theirs; it was found that this was important in relationships up

We followed Dillman’s Principles in order to make the survey as clear, concise, and simple as possible. First, we determine the research objectivity; people who developed negative attachments are more likely to be affected in their romantic relationships, such as, unstable relationships and feelings of distrust towards their romantic partners. We then construct a series of questions related to the objectivity of the research to identify how negative attachments affects romantic relationships, for example “My desire to be very close sometimes scares people away,” and “I am nervous when partners get too close to me.” We ask questions separately, avoiding two questions on the same sentence, and we chose words that are easy to understand. We chose items that are coded based on the attachment styles and some that are reverse coded to get as much a

Similarly, a study measuring the association between relationship satisfaction and the Big Five personality traits also did not find openness to experience to be a significant trait (Malouff, Thorsteinsson, Schutte, Bhullar & Rooke, 2010). However, through completing a meta-analysis of 19 samples consisting of 3,848 heterosexual individuals, the researchers concluded that relationship satisfaction was associated with lower levels of neuroticism and higher levels of agreeableness, conscientiousness and extraversion (Malouff et al., 2010). As the Malouff and colleagues (2010) explained, lower measures of neuroticism is important for both partners to

A group of 275 students, ages ranging from 18-41, participated in this study. All were currently in a romantic relationship. The majority of the participants were men.

According to Maguire (2007), uncertainty about the future, especially with LDRs, can cause stress and dissatisfaction among partners. This study explores LDRs through “a five-point Likert-type scale (1 = not at all helpful; 5 = very helpful)” (p. 421), measuring two different theories: uncertainty reduction theory (URT) and uncertainty management theory (UMT). In Berger and Calabrese’s (1975) study (as cited in Maguire, 2007, p. 416) “Increased verbal communication, seeking information from others, and monitoring of behavior are some of the strategies individuals use to reduce their uncertainty in their relationships.” UMT defines how the individual manages their relationship according to their perception of the outcome. For example, if the individual perceives the relationship is working, they will continue to manage it as such. If the relationship is dwindling, the individual will withdrawal from the relationship (as a defense mechanism) until the relationship ends.

The American Psychological Association estimates that approximately 90% of all people in the United States will marry by the time they reach the age of 50. Of those, an estimated 40-50% will divorce. Couples that remarry have even higher rates of divorce (http://apa.org/). Of the many potential presenting problems, a research study completed by Miller, Yorgason, Sandberg, and White (2003), found that communication was the most common presenting issue for both spouses. A similar study by Doss, Simpson, and Christenen (2004), identified communication and emotional affection as the leading causes for why couples seek therapy; wives generally reported communication first, while husbands reported emotional affection.

This couple has a few issues within their marriage. The first issue is that the couple do not have a secure attachment to each other (Harman et al., 2011). Instead the female partner has an anxious attachment and the male partner has an avoidant attachment. This is very damaging to a relationship and negatively influences the couple’s additional issues. For example, the type of attachment style the couple has will influence how the couple communicate. Communication is the next issue this couple have. The male partner stonewalls the female partner when there is conflict. Additionally, during arguments both

R - High conflicts between a couple can cause financial issues, stress and possibly most harmful, verbal and physical abuse. Obviously these are extreme circumstances, which is the result of a couple’s feelings bottling up over time.

relationship. I can tell you this from experience. In a healthy relationship there must be conflict

In the process of appraising various areas of the relationship, potential conflicts are more likely to be detected.

A 7-item instrument intended to measure the respondent’s relationship satisfaction. The RAS has a decent inward consistency, with an alpha of .86. No information on stability were accounted for. After opposite scoring, items 4 and 7, items are summed for a total score (A= 1, E= 5). Scores can run from 7 (low satisfaction) to 35 (high satisfaction). The RAS has great simultaneous legitimacy, with critical associations with various subscales of the adoration disposition scale and Dyadic Adjustment Scale.

Individuals that are skilled in relationship problems stress the significance of open communication in marriageable relationships. Good communication skills help adopt shared consideration and form some type of understanding. Then once emotions start to intensify, good communication skills help married couples steer their differences and resolve their conflicts more positively. When it comes to conducting research involving married couples and family research there are regulations and ethical standards that need to be monitored. Margolin, Chien, Duman, Fauchier, Gordis, Oliver & Vickerman, (2005) expounds that Couple and family research presents unique challenges in terms of interpretation and application of ethical principles to