Psychology 137C: Intimate Relationships
Week 6, Lecture 1:
Managing Differences, Part I
REMINDERS:
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Grades for the midterm will be posted soon.
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The paper is due May 19th.
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To review your exam, attend Natalie’s office hours.
Dr. K does not have the exams.
Now is a great time to start it.
Must be turned in as hard copy.
This week’s video segment is especially good!
A Few Words about the Paper
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Goal:
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Use sections of the book to address a review
question about intimacy and modern families.
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Choose a question that interests you!
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5 double-spaced pages
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Explicit instructions in your syllabus
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Make it neat. Proof-read your work.
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Make it interesting. Please!
The Mystery of Conflict in
Couples
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Consider what everyone wants from their
intimate relationships.
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Consider what everyone knows about how we
should treat our intimate partners.
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So how is it that we get into our worst, meanest,
loudest, most hostile fights with the people we love
the most?
The History of Studying Couple
Conflict
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When divorce rates climbed in the 1960s, couples
therapy became more acceptable.
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The big complaint? Conflict.
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Social learning theorists assumed that mismanaged
conflict was a primary cause of relationship distress.
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Clinicians as a driving force.
They studied conflict and developed treatments based
on this assumption.
What IS Conflict?
Kurt Lewin
1890-1947
“Conflict arises when one person pursues his
or her goals and in doing so interferes with
the other person’s goals. … Responses to
this interference can vary in many ways.”
SO:
- In every intimate relationship, some conflict is inevitable.
- What matters is how we respond to conflict situations.
- Social learning theory focuses on this question.
The Research Agenda
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The cross-sectional question:
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What exactly is it that unhappy couples are doing
wrong?
The longitudinal question:
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What behaviors predict the future outcome of the
relationship?
Methods: How to study conflict?
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Self-reports proved inadequate quickly.
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Learning to observe couples was key.
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The typical observational conflict paradigm:
Locate happy and unhappy couples.
 Ask each spouse to identify a topic.
 Record their discussion for a few minutes.
 Compare observations of happy and unhappy couples.
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Observational Coding
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Deciding what to code
Affect vs. verbal content
 Non-verbal behavior
 Sequences
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Microanalytic vs. global coding
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Behaviors as choices from a menu
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Getting reliability is hard.
So what are unhappy couples
doing wrong?
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Unhappy couples are more negative with each
other than happy couples. (No big surprise.)
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Some subtleties:
Kitchen-sinking
 Self-summarizing
 Presumptive attributions (i.e., mindreading)
 Cross-complaining
 Prescription
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Negative Patterns and Sequences
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Unhappy couples are more rigid and predictable.
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Negative reciprocity
Unhappy couples take longer to exit negative exchanges.
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Happy wives, in particular, follow partner negatives
with neutral behaviors.
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Free advice:
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Do not be the one to convert a neutral behavior into a
negative behavior!!
Escape Conditioning
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Do we ever reinforce each other’s negative
behaviors?
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A case study:
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The demand/withdraw pattern
Social learning in action!
Predicting the Future
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Negative behaviors should predict negative
outcomes, right?
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Some weird results:
Gottman & Krokoff, 1989
 Karney & Bradbury, 1997
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Is it ever productive to get angry?
Content & Affect & Slopes
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172 newlywed couples, first marriages
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Dependent Variable: Slope, or rate of
change in satisfaction over 4 years.
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Independent Variable:
 Positive vs. negative affect
 Positive vs. negative content
So, what predicts the future?
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Couples who are negative will experience faster declines
in marital quality …
But only when humor, interest, and affection are relatively
rare.
Positive emotion can override the effects of negative
content during conflict.
What do humor, interest, and affection contribute to
our conversations? What is the message? What is the
impact of this message?