Display Settings:

Format

Send to:

Choose Destination
We are sorry, but NCBI web applications do not support your browser and may not function properly. More information
    Psychol Sci. 2011 Mar;22(3):376-83. doi: 10.1177/0956797610397055. Epub 2011 Jan 18.

    Recovering from conflict in romantic relationships: a developmental perspective.

    Source

    Institute of Child Development, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA. salv0041@umn.edu

    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.

    PMID:
    21245491
    [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
    PMCID:
    PMC3060296
    Free PMC Article

    Images from this publication.See all images (1)Free text

    Fig. 1

      Supplemental Content

      Icon for HighWire Icon for PubMed Central

      Save items

      Recent activity

      Your browsing activity is empty.

      Activity recording is turned off.

      Turn recording back on

      See more...
      Write to the Help Desk