Content area
Full text
Contents
- Abstract
- Conflict and Relationship Quality
- Perceived Understanding During Conflict: Does My Partner Get Where I Am Coming From?
- The Present Research
- Study 1
- Method
- Participants and procedure
- Measures
- Conflict
- Perceived and self-reported understanding
- Relationship satisfaction
- Positive partner perceptions
- Results and Discussion
- Study 2
- Method
- Participants and procedure
- Measures
- Event-related measures
- Postevent relationship satisfaction
- Results and Discussion
- Preliminary analyses
- Main analyses and addressing alternative accounts
- Study 3
- Method
- Participants and procedure
- Measures
- Premanipulation measures
- Postmanipulation measures
- Manipulation check
- Results and Discussion
- Preliminary analyses
- Premanipulation
- Postmanipulation
- Main analyses and addressing alternative accounts
- Study 4
- Method
- Participants and procedure
- Measures
- Results and Discussion
- Data analysis strategy
- Descriptive statistics
- Main analyses and addressing alternative accounts
- Study 5
- Method
- Participants and procedure
- Measures
- Results and Discussion
- Data analysis strategy
- Main analyses and addressing alternative accounts
- Actor effects
- Partner effects
- Studies 6a and 6b
- Study 6a
- Methods
- Participants and procedure
- Measures
- Conflict characteristics
- Postconflict satisfaction
- Open-ended prompt
- Results and Discussion
- Preliminary analyses
- Analyses of open-ended responses
- Study 6b
- Method
- Participants and procedure
- Measures
- Results and Discussion
- Preliminary analyses
- Main analyses and addressing alternative accounts
- General Discussion
- Putting the “Perceived” in Understanding During Conflict
- Expanding the Role of Perceived Understanding in Close Relationships
- Limitations and Future Directions
- Concluding Comments
Figures and Tables
Abstract
Conflict can have damaging effects on relationship health. But is all conflict detrimental? Across 7 studies, we tested the overarching hypothesis that conflict in close relationships is only detrimental when people do not feel their thoughts, feelings, and point of view are understood by their relationship partners. Supporting this, conflict was negatively associated with relationship satisfaction among participants who perceived their romantic partner as less understanding, but not among those who felt more understood by their partners. This was true cross-sectionally (Study 1), experimentally (Studies 2, 3, 6a, and 6b), in daily life (Study 4), and for both members of couples pre- to postconflict conversation in the laboratory (Study 5). The buffering effects of feeling understood could not be explained by people who felt more understood being more understanding themselves, having more general positive perceptions of their partners, fighting about less important...