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5 - Observational “Windows” to Intimacy Processes in Marriage

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 July 2009

By
Linda J. Roberts  and
Danielle R. Greenberg
Edited by
Patricia Noller  and
Judith A. Feeney
Linda J. Roberts
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Danielle R. Greenberg
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Patricia Noller
Affiliation:
University of Queensland
Judith A. Feeney
Affiliation:
University of Queensland
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Summary

Wife (W): There's lots of things I love about you … the way you laugh.

Husband (H): The whole package.

W: You look at me and you know what I'm thinking. The way you smile. The way your clothes are all over the house.

H: You don't love that. Don't lie.

W: No, but that's you, and I love you.

In the past two decades, researchers using behavioral observation methods to study marital functioning have focused almost exclusively on interaction processes related to conflict. As Fincham and Beach (1999) have noted, conflict processes have enjoyed a “privileged status” in marital interaction research. Negative affect and negative affect reciprocity have been established as robust correlates of marital discord (Gottman, 1998; Karney & Bradbury, 1995; Weiss & Heyman, 1990; for reviews). Distressed husbands and wives are more likely than their happily married counterparts to engage in hostile, blaming, and attacking behaviors, and further, they are more likely to reciprocate their partner's negative behavior. Although early behavioral theories of marital discord (for example, Birchler, Weiss, & Vincent, 1975; Jacobson & Margolin, 1979) explicitly acknowledged the functional role of positive behavioral transactions in successful marriages, the emphasis in recent years has been on the corrosive role of conflictual interactions in the development of marital dysfunction.

One reason for the current emphasis on negativity and conflict behavior may be the tremendous success of the problem-solving or “conflict” discussion task as a “window” to marital behavior.

Type
Chapter
Information
Understanding Marriage
Developments in the Study of Couple Interaction
 , pp. 118 - 149
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2002

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