Ch. 8: Managing Differences Flashcards
The Mystery of Conflict in Couples
Consider what everyone wants from their intimate relationships
consider what everyone knows about how we should treat our intimate partners
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
- divorce in the 40s and 50s was low so it was thought the reason for divorce was something about THEM
- when divorce rates climbed in the 1960s, couples therapy became more acceptable (no longer thought that it was something about a disorder in the individuals anymore)
- the big complaint? conflict (interaction are aversive, they are punishing - we mold our partners)
- social learning theorists assumed that mismanaged conflict was a primary cause of relationship distress (clinicians as a driving force)
- they studied conflict and developed treatments based on this assumption
What IS Conflict?
Kurt Lewin (1890-1947) - well-known social psychologist proposed that a definition of conflict begins with the recognition that participants in social interaction have goals These goals need not be conscious, they may be specific or general, and they may be short-term or long-term in nature "conflict arises when one person pursues his or her goals and in doing so interferes with the other person's goals....Responses this interference can vary in many ways."
so:
- in every intimate relationship, some conflict is inevitable - there are 2 people that want different things - “conflicts of interest”—are inevitable, and are particularly likely when the two people are highly interdependent and in frequent contact
- what matters is how we respond to conflict situations - this is where problems can arise - as intimate partners we have some control over how to respond when our partner interferes with our goals—and when our partner claims we are doing the same
- it is how couples disagree, more than whether they disagree or what they disagree about, that is most consequential for their relationship
- social learning theory focuses on this question - focus not on individual personalities and family backgrounds but on the unproductive ways partners talked about their differences of opinion
The Research Agenda: the cross-sectional question
what exactly is it that unhappy couples are doing wrong?
between couples - one couple acts like this and another couple acts like this - look at the differences between the two couples
The Research Agenda: the longitudinal question
what behaviors predict the future outcome of the relationship?
within couples - looking at what happens between the two people in a relationship over time
Methods: How to study conflict?
self-reports proved inadequate quickly
learning to observe couples was key
the typical observational conflict paradigm
self-reports proved inadequate quickly
not representing what’s actually happening, their memory and what’s actually happening could be very different, they aren’t reporting their faults - partners tend to blame one another
learning to observe couples was key
you can directly observe the couples
used to sit couples across from each other and couldn’t see how they were interacting or if they were making eye contact
now : sit couples at 90 degree angle so you can see how they are also interacting physically with one another, also place cameras in their homes to see them interacting a bit more naturally
the typical observational conflict paradigm
locate happy and unhappy couples
ask each spouse to identify a topic (something that actually needs to be resolved not something easily resolved)
record their discussion for a few minutes
compare observations of happy and unhappy couples
observational coding
deciding what to code
microanalytic vs global coding
behaviors as choices from a menu
getting reliability is hard
deciding what to code
affect vs verbal content
non-verbal behavior
sequences
affect vs verbal content
what they say vs how they say it
usually look at both
“shut up” can literally mean that or it could be an expression of excitement
non-verbal behavior
touching someone to provide support, making eye contact
sequences
when someone does this particular thing what does the other person do? what’s happening back and forth
microanalytic
take a small chunk and say “what were they like during that chunk” or what was said in that “speaking turn”
-if they interrupt, etc.
global coding
they just talked for 8-10 mins
-how negative or positive?
-what was their body language like in the whole segment?
much easier to get reliability - attributable to the couple and not the coder
behaviors as choices from a menu
list of codes
-coder codes specific behaviors from a list of behaviors
Partner says “I wish you would put your dishes in the dishwasher” and coder codes that as request or problem-solving
So what are unhappy couples doing wrong?
unhappy couples are more negative with each other than happy couples (no big surprise)
some subtleties (kinds of behaviors):
- kitchen-sinking
- self-summarizing
- presumptive attributions
- cross-complaining
- prescription
kitchen-sinking
unhappy couples: someone throws one complaint out there and then adds on more and more problems (everything but the kitchen sink)
-throw every problem in the relationship all at once
happy couples: focus on one problem at a time
self-summarizing
Unhappy couples: summarizing yourself/restating the problem no matter what your partner says
-they do it because they feel like they’re not being heard
happy couples: the partner would summarize what the other partner has said is a problem (not summarize themselves)
presumptive attributions
ie mindreading
unhappy couples: assuming you know why they did something
happy couples: ask the person (“why do you do that”)
cross-complaining
unhappy couples: responding to a complaint with another complaint
happy couples: acknowledge their concern/focus on the complaint
prescription
unhappy couples: telling your partner what to do (you need to get a job, you need to fix the kitchen sink)
happy couples: ask “what can I do to support you” “what can I do to help fix this?” - can still have an opinion but bring it in a different way
Negative Patterns and Sequences
unhappy couples are more rigid and predictable
cognitive editing (happy vs unhappy couples)
free advice: follow a neutral behavior with what kind of behavior?
unhappy couples are more rigid and predictable
- Negative reciprocity (if one person is negative the other partner is much more likely to respond negatively)
- unhappy couples take longer to exit negative exchanges
cognitive editing
happy wives, in particular, follow partner negatives with neutral behaviors
(Gottman 1979) happy spouses were assumed to engage in cognitive editing, whereby they would hear something negative but respond back in a neutral or even a positive way
negative behaviors in unhappy relationships would spark ever-escalating cycles of hostility
disagreements arise in our relationships not simply be-
cause of differing goals and agendas, as Lewin suggested, but because we and our partners are operating on the basis of remarkably different perceptions
and experiences of our relationships.
free advice: follow a neutral behavior with what kind of behavior?
don’t be the one to follow a neutral behavior with a negative behavior!!!
the best thing to do would be to show the soft disclosure rather than the hard disclosure if you neither can be positive, take a pause
Hard Disclosure
negativity and anger are the emotions that are being shown
Soft Disclosure
the secondary emotion (underlying emotion), something softer that is making the situation uncomfortable (anxiety, fear)
Escape conditioning
do we ever reinforce each other’s negative behaviors?
- it’s hard to make yourself vulnerable
- social learning theory: we reinforce our partner’s negative behaviors
a case study:
-the demand/withdraw pattern
demand withdraw pattern
social learning in action!
demand: a request
withdraw: putting it off
when this continues to happen, it escalates continuously until it finally gets to the point where you’re yelling about it and the other person gives in - this reinforces the nagging, escalated demand
The self-perpetuating quality in this pattern of interaction is obvious:
Partner A’s requests for change in the relationship might cause Partner B to become more defensive and disengaged, reactions that might, in turn, cause Partner A to become more demanding and insistent, thereby causing Partner B to pull back still further—or to dig in their heels and explode
In cases like this the couple is polarized, in the sense that they have adopted different viewpoints, or opposing positions, in the conflict they have created
-becomes apparent only when the women’s desires for change are under discussion, presumably because they
have more to gain from pursuing change, whereas men have more to gain by avoiding it
-this pattern will be more extreme in relationships where people want a lot of change—unhappy couples
Paradoxically, Partner A might be able to get more closeness by demanding less of it from Partner B, and Partner B might get more solace by not insisting on it so much (Frank and Debra example)
Predicting the Future of a couple
negative behaviors should predict negative outcomes, right? our behaviors should shape how we’re feeling
some weird results: (social learning assumption doesn’t pan out)
- Gottman & Krokoff (1989)
- Karney & Bradbury (1997)
Gottman & Krokoff (1989)
longitudinal study and found some couples had wives were communicating negatively, those couples were doing better over time
not finding what they thought they should find
their decline not as steep as other couples (not becoming unhappy as fast)
Karney & Bradbury (1997)
if you’re looking at couples that have been married for 20-30 years then most of the unhappy couples would have already divorced.
If you want to look at happy vs unhappy couples look at them right from the beginning.
they did this and they found the same thing!
couples with wives negativity were doing better over time
Problem with Gottman & Krokoff (1989) and Karney & Bradbury (1997) : Is it ever productive to get angry? do the results of these studies mean it’s good to get angry?
they just broke it down into positive and negative, they didn’t break it down to affect and content
Bradbury study: Content & Affect & Slopes
172 newlywed couples, first marriages
DV: slope, or rate of change in satisfaction over 4 years (satisfaction trajectory)
IV: Positive (light and fun) vs. negative affect (blaming and angry), Positive vs. negative content
Results:
low positive affect and high negative content have the steepest decline
high positive affect BUFFERS the high negative content (look the same as those in the low negative content)
low negative content: whether the affect is positive or negative doesn’t really matter
So, what predicts the future?
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?
-conflicts are going to happen but by doing this you are showing that you care
Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) Pertinent Facts
- 1 to 4 million women are assaulted by a male partner each year (not everyone agrees on what IPV is - there is ambiguity making it hard to get accurate counts; they are ashamed - they don’t want to report it because they don’t want to admit that they are willing to stay with a partner than hits them)
- in general, women are much less likely than men to be victims of crime. However, women are 5 to 8 times more likely to be victims of relationship violence (men can/are victims of relationship violence but the vast majority of time it is women who are the victims - perpetrated by men)
- Violence by an intimate partner accounts for 21% of all violence against women, but only 2% of violence against men (21% of the time the violence against women is not done by a stranger or a relative that you have a fight with - it is with the person who is supposed to love you the MOST; 98% of the time violence against men is by a stranger)
- According to the US Department of Justice, 33% of all murdered women are killed by an intimate partner (if you come across a murdered woman you have a 1 in 3 chance that it was the husband or boyfriend!!!)
Myth #1 (Intimate Partner Violence)
IPV is Rare
1960s and 1970s was when they finally started studying this - before then it was considered an unsuitable topics for studies; until recent decades, IPV was ignored as a rare extreme behavior
(it was generally thought that people who love each other wouldn’t hit each other or kill each other - that just doesn’t make any sense, unless you’re a psychopath! UNTIL Straus)
Straus et al. 1980
- random, representative sample of over 2100 adults (telephone survey)
- 12.1% of husbands admit to physical violence against spouse (if this is a representative sample, that is OVER 10% of the entire US)
- this has to be an underestimate (this is only those WILLING to admit it over the telephone - this means that even more people are engaging in this act of violence against their spouse)
if the phenomenon is this widespread then it has to be studied!
Myth #2 (Intimate Partner Violence)
IPV = Unhappy
some think that IPV is what happens after relationships get bad
newlywed data: 50% of newlyweds in our studies report some physical aggression
O’Leary et al. 1992 : high rates of violence in premarital (engaged) couples, who then went on to get married (found nearly 50% who said yes they engaged in physical violence and most still went on to get married)
-the presence of violence doesn’t allow you to predict which couples will go on to get married and which won’t
Prevalence of Aggressive Acts (Lawrence 2001)
give newlywed subjects a questionnaire (aggression in the past year) that BUILDS to the physical aggression questions - “How do you deal with conflict in marriage?” constructive problem solving to psychological violence to physical violence - self reports of their own behavior
half of the subjects admit to at least one of the aggressive acts on the list:
- threw something
- push, grab, shove
- slapped
- kick, bite, hit
- hit or tried to hit
- beat up spouse (very small amount admit to this)
- threaten knife/gun (very small amount admit to this)
- use knife/gun (no one admitted to this)
the data shows that WOMEN tend to be more violent (self-report) than men
-could be that women are more likely to report that they commit violent acts than men
Myth #3 (Intimate Partner Violence)
IPV=Male
straus et al 1980 (again)
-11.6% of wives admit to physical violence against spouse
wives USUALLY score higher on self-report scales of IPV
-O’Leary et al 1992 : Men 31%, Women 44%
-Lawrence 2007 : Men 29%, Women 46%
-Schumacher & Leonard : Men 37%, Women 48%
much more women admitting to violence than men - does this mean that MEN are truly the victims of violence?
the question of impact:
-men may be more likely not to admit it - women hitting a man has less of a stigma
-people hate the straus measure because it doesn’t account for the impact of the violence
“did you go to the hospital, did you need a doctor, were you bruised?”
-there is a culture difference - seinfeld example - Elaine is more likely to be the one to slap or push the men and they are unphased by it because she’s a woman (there is less impact)
-there is inequity there - just because women report more doesn’t mean that women are doing more damage - men are doing much more damage to the women with their violence
Myth #4 (Intimate Partner Violence)
IPV=Married
-the only people who would stick around would be the people who are incapable of leaving (married, have children) but if you’re not stuck, you would leave - this is not the case
IPV is highest in cohabiting couples, then married couples, then dating couples - something that happens when people aren’t totally trapped…but a little bit trapped
IPV is as common in college student couples and adolescent couples
-they don’t live together or share a mortgage - so there is not reason to stay together if there is violence, yet they do!
either there are a lot of terrible people out there or violence doesn’t mean what we think it means
Controversy: IPV
the picture that emerges from this research is that IPV is:
- relatively common
- mutual
- unrelated to relationship satisfaction
advocacy groups for battered women are NOT buying this story
Resolving the Controversy : IPV
Michael Johnson - sociologist from Penn State who helped to facilitate this
there are two different types of IPV
- Common Couple Violence
- Intimate Terrorism
source of violence for these two types are VERY different
Common Couple Violence
(aka Situational couple violence) social scientists studying this type of violence -measured on surveys -motivated by frustration -involves arguing -mutual -reactive and emotional -can still be fatal to women! (it is not ok and still not safe - these fights can still get out of hand)
this is what happens when fights get out of hand - alcohol is often involved
-heated violence - tense or heated exchange escalates to the point at which one or both members of a couple engage in some form of assault
Intimate Terrorism
battered women shelters take care of this type
- measured by police and crime records
- motivated by desire to control partner
- involves physical and emotional abuse
- proactive and strategic (the batterer knows what they’re doing)
aggression is one of several means used by one member of the couple (almost always the man, in different-sex
relationships) to dominate and subjugate the partner
used to control the partner and hence comes to be a defining feature of the relationship
cold and emotionless violence
was initially “Patriarchal Terrorism” (because most of the time this is done by males) but not exclusively a phenomenon of men against women - but it is primarily a phenomenon of men against women but changed the name to be inclusive
a systematic and sustained effort to control and dominate a partner through physical violence, verbal and psychological abuse, sexual coercion and abuse, economic and social control, and threats
understanding CCV
many distressed partners do not view their aggression as a major problem (good predictor of bad things down the way)
when wives seeking marital therapy list their most important problems:
- just 6% list IPV
- but 56% of the couples report IPV in interviews
- this means that 50% of people say they are violent but don’t report it as their most important problem!!! (for these couples, the fighting is a symptom of another problem it is not the problem itself)
Consequences of CCV
Lawrence 2001: took three groups: -nonaggressive -moderately aggressive -'severely' aggressive and followed them over time
only severely aggressive couples were most likely to get divorced
-severely aggressive couples: if you’re the victim of severe aggression the wounds are a bit deeper and are harder to heal - even after the aggression goes away (end up divorcing)
couples that are violent early on, if they last, generally become less violent as time goes on
-moderately aggressive couples : the aggression goes away when the problem goes away
Consequences of Intimate Terrorism
physical injury psychological problems PTSD isolation economic difficulties trauma to children death
physical injury (abuse)
pushing shoving hitting slapping choking pulling hair grabbing kicking punching tripping twisting arms knocking down beating biting using a weapon
results in:
broken bones, bruises - end up lying about how they happen because it’s embarrasing
psychological problems (abuse)
put downs or making others feel bad about themselves, name calling, making the person think they are crazy, mind games
results in:
depression, anxiety
PTSD
show symptoms similar to those coming back from Afghanistan
isolation
controlling what the partner does, who the partner sees and talks to, where the partner goes
- take away cell phone
- have the phone bill go to them so they can see who they’ve been talking to
results:
don’t know where to turn because of their isolation - they don’t know who to turn to
-where is the battered women shelter? IDK because I’m not allowed to go anywhere, or have access to the internet, or have a cell phone to call or look it up, I don’t have a car
economic difficulties (abuse)
trying to keep the partner from getting or keeping a job, making the partner ask for money, giving an allowance, taking the partner’s money
results:
can’t usually make it on their own if they do get out because they don’t have the financial means
trauma to children
battered children
children who witness domestic partner violence
walker’s (1979) cycle of violence
Tension-building
acute battering
contrition phase
a temporary calm is restored, but the promises are soon forgotten and the man’s desire to re-exert control soon reappear as the tension-building stage of the cycle begins again
Tension-building
male’s hostility escalates in the form of angry outbursts
often in response to his feelings of jealousy
-dinner isn’t on the table when I ask you to have it
-you came home later than you were supposed to
-who were you talking to
acute battering
tension is unleashed in the form of uncontrollable rage and aggression by the man
- after the sixth mistake he says, I can’t take it anymore and he takes out the belt or hits her
- the women report that they know that it’s coming so they “trigger” it to get it over with
contrition phase
the man apologizes, promises to change, and tries to convince the woman and anyone else involved that the severe abuse will never happen again
- I’m so sorry that you made me do this
- I’m so sorry that it took this to teach you a lesson
this keeps the cycle of violence alive
-the woman believes he will change and doesn’t tell anyone about what happened, maybe this time it’ll last
Why do women stay?
the idea used to be that women were sadistic, liked the violence, or had such low self-esteem that they thought they deserved it
reasons: fear financial dependence social isolation insufficient resources and info passivity and 'learned helplessness' self-blame norms of gender and culture love
Why do women stay?: fear
they are afraid to be tracked down and killed
Why do women stay?: financial dependence
they don’t have supportive families to turn to financial help
can’t go live with a friend or family member because they don’t have any or it’s been so long that they can’t reach out to them or don’t know where to find them
Why do women stay?: social isolation
they don’t know where to go and don’t have the ability to find out where they can go because their partner has isolated them so much
Why do women stay?: insufficient resources and info
don’t know where to go - I don’t have a computer to look up - so isolated that they don’t know that they have the option to leave or where to go
Why do women stay?: passivity and ‘learned helplessness’
if you’ve been beaten down enough it will affect your psychology - if you’ve been abused for long enough
Why do women stay?: self-blame
maybe I brought this on myself
maybe I really wasn’t a good enough spouse
if only I’d have done better, I wouldn’t have brought this on myself
Why do women stay?: norms of gender and culture
“stand by your man” - movies that show women who stay with violent husbands because that’s the job of a woman
discourse makes it very difficult to leave
Why do women stay?: love
the women may genuinely love their husband and just cannot leave because she loves him so much
Why do men batter?
early childhood experiences desire to regain control traditional gender roles powerlessness Personality disorders jealousy
early childhood experiences
not all were battered as kids and not all kids that were battered grow up to do it themselves
the relationship is not perfect
desire to regain control
there is something psychological going on where they are insecure about control so they are trying to gain control in a world that feels very out of control
traditional gender roles
trying to reinforce gender roles
powerlessness
they feel powerless in the rest of their lives so they try to exert power inside their role as a husband
Personality disorders
antisocial
dysphoric borderline
jealousy
EXTREMES of jealousy
men treated in anger management courses given an (hypothetical) ambiguous scenario and asked to report their thoughts - battering guys, given ambiguity, are more likely to interpret it as a threat to masculinity
Helping Violent Couples
one size DOES NOT fit all - VERY different advice for CCV and IT
advice for CCV
they need to talk together about their problems because it is a mutual thing:
anger management
communication skills
couple therapy
advice fo IT
HELP THE VICTIM TO ESCAPE - this is the ONLY advice that needs to be given
if you give them any other advice, it could get them killed
violent resistance
some abused women fight back, even to the point at which they kill the man who committed the abuse. This form of aggression occurs in a small number of cases
John Gottman (1979)
the problem-solving conversations of unhappy couples do indeed differ from those of happy couples in three specific ways:
- Less positive behavior and more negative behavior
- Greater predictability of behaviors between partners
- Longer cycles of reciprocal negative behavior
used the talk table procedure
Less positive behavior and more negative behavior
how couples communicate about disagreements is a good predictor of whether they are happy or unhappy.
Unhappy couples are 10 times more likely to use a negative tone of voice as are happy couples in these situations
Greater predictability of behaviors between partners
Unhappy couples, generally, show more predictable patterns and structure in their conversations than do
happy couples
This probably parallels the feeling of being stuck in a rut when it comes to relationship disagreements, so that no matter how disagreements start, they seem to unfold the same way and end in the same place
Longer cycles of reciprocal negative behavior
Unhappy partners are more likely to reciprocate negative behaviors and remain mired in longer cycles of this
negative reciprocity than happy couples
reactivity hypothesis
unhappy spouses are more sensitive to the tone of immediate events in their relationship—they might be “on guard” and ready to find meaning in the things their partner said and did, good and bad, as a way of gauging how the relationship was going
talk table
pinpoints the source o a couple’s miscommunication by structuring a problem-solving discussion
-Partner A begins the conversation and then pushes a button that rates the intended impact of his or her message, ranging from “super negative” to “neutral” to “super positive.”
-On the receiving end of this message, partner B rates the actual impact of the message as he or she experiences it, using the same scale. Partner B then generates a response, rates its intended impact, and then delivers it to partner A.
-Partner A is now on the receiving end and rates the actual impact of the message partner B just delivered, generates his or her own response, and rates its intended impact.
-This pattern continues for an entire 10- or 15-minute conversation.
Partners can see each other at all times, but they cannot see each others’ ratings.
Results from this classic study show that happy and unhappy couples are similar in that they both send messages that they intended to be positive in their impact. However, only happy couples rate the actual impact o these messages as positive; unhappy couples, in contrast, rate the actual impact of the partner’s messages as relatively negative (Gottman 1979)
Mutual violent control
(aka bilateral violence)
rare type of intimate partner violence occurring when both partners act in a violent manner, battling for control
-the reciprocation of aggression appears to be especially important in determining the severity of any resulting injuries
Johnson et al (2004)
study on the association btwn the positive and negative skills and emotions displayed by newlyweds
When newlywed spouses display high levels of positive emotion, poor communication skills appear to have little effect on how much the marriage changes in the next 4 years.
But when levels of positive emotion are low, then
negative skills emerge as potent predictors of rapid declines in relationship happiness
negative reinforcement
if a negative statement by one partner was followed by the other partner giving in, then the person making that negative statement would be rewarded by way of negative reinforcement
% of women that leave battering relationships
In a longitudinal study of women and their severely abusive husbands, 39 percent of couples had separated or divorced over a 2-year period (Gortner et al., 1997)
This is a much higher rate of relationship dissolution than among couples in the general population
Attachment theory And Couple Conflict
children develop various working models of attachment, the two basic dimensions of anxiety (reflecting positive versus negative views of one’s self) and avoidance (reflecting positive versus negative views of others)
- Secure individuals, condent in the knowledge that they are worthwhile and that others are generally trustworthy and well- intentioned, are skilled problem solvers
- Individuals relatively high in attachment-related anxiety, with a negative view of themselves in relationships, are threatened by conflict because it can get in the way of the high level of approval and support they need from a close partner
- Individuals relatively high in attachment-related avoidance see others as unreliable, unavailable, and uncaring
compared to secure individuals, insecure people tend to be poorer problem solvers, and they display less positive emotion and more negative emotion.
Whereas secure people are good at fostering security in their closest relationships, insecure individuals seem to create friction in a variety of ways, such as by expressing less empathy and affection, escalating conflicts, neglecting to compromise, or disengaging
sociocultural perspective on aggression
violence in relationships must be understood with reference to the aggressiveness found in many realms of human behavior, such as warfare instigated in the name of religious or political agendas; violence depicted in movies,
television shows, and video games; or aggression sanctioned in such sports as mixed martial arts, wrestling, and ice hockey
limitation o this approach: If most people are exposed to violent images in the media, for example, why is it that only some relationships are marked by aggressive behavior?
interpersonal perspective on aggression
acknowledges the role of these broad cultural and subcultural influences, and goes further.
The association between sociocultural forces and aggression must be moderated by other potent forces; that is, interpersonal factors, such as the private and passionate nature of intimate relationships, the high degree of partner interdependence, the inevitable presence of disagreements and differing perceptions, and variations in the behavioral and cognitive capacities partners express in their interactions
focuses on the moment-by-moment details of dyadic exchanges
intraindividual perspective on aggression
focuses on the fact that partners differ in ways that might cause them to contribute differently to the aggression that occurs between them
the strongest models trace the roots of aggression back to the family of origin
Early exposure to aggression (and lack of exposure to relatively calm, productive discussions of differences of opinion) provides developing children and adolescents with models of hostile and harsh behaviors that shape how they respond when difficult situations arise in their own relationships later in life
Many individuals exposed to aggression as they are growing up will not be aggressive later, and many who are aggressive later were not exposed to aggression while they were growing up
Keicolt-Glaser Study
Newlywed couples checked into a special hospital wing for a 24-hour stay
-blood samples were taken at regular intervals.
The samples were analyzed for the presence of hormones—epinephrine (or adrenaline), norepinephrine, cortisol, and adrenocorticotropic hormone—that indicate stress levels and how the body responds
-Following a 90-minute baseline observation period, the couples began a 30-minute discussion with instructions to work toward resolving two or three important relationship
problems
-Their stress hormone levels were then monitored for several hours
-The epinephrine levels of the newlyweds in this study were compared across couples, who 10 years later were either divorced, unhappily married, or happily married. Epinephrine levels were higher in couples who went on to divorce or have unhappy marriages, compared to those who went on to have happy marriages
-higher levels of the stress hormones are far more useful in predicting which newlywed couples will divorce and which marriages will become distressed than behavior
the divorced spouses are becoming physiologically aroused and the maritally satisfied spouses aren’t having as much of a physiological reaction
-discussions that stir up couples biologically may be quite
potent in taking their toll on the well-being of intimate relationships, despite evidence that these biological responses are largely outside of conscious awareness most of the time
Strategies of Power and Control (IT)
Physical Abuse Emotional Abuse Economic Abuse Sexual Abuse Using Children Threats Need to Control Intimidation Isolation
this is a multifaceted strategy with the end goal of “you are MINE”
-all of these strategies are surrounded by the threat of physical abuse
If I let you know that I CAN do something to you then I don’t have to do it all the time, I can do it once or twice (don’t have to do it all the time) and just threaten to do it to control you
sexual abuse
making the partner do sexual things against his or her will
physically attacking the sexual parts of the body
treating the partner like a sex object
Using Children
making the partner feel guilty about the children
using the children to give messages
using visitation as a way to harass the partner
Threats
making and/or carrying out threats to do something to hurt the partner emotionally
threaten to take the children, commit suicide, report the partner to welfare
Need to Control
treating the partner like a servant
making all the “big” decisions
acting like the “master of the castle”
Intimidation
putting the partner in fear by: using looks actions gestures loud voice smashing things destroying property
