On the topic of Marital and Couple Relationships, a study was done, “Rebound from Marital Conflict and Divorce Prediction.” The article published on this study begins by discussing how in previous studies only marital interaction has been studied in the context of conflict resolution. This study goes further in depth by exploring the predictive ability of couples to rebound from marital conflict followed up by a positive conversation. The study also explored the ability of affective interaction to predict divorce over a 4-year period.
The participants were seen twice in the 4-year period, first in the beginning and second at the end of the 4 years. The first examination of the couples was staged in order so that it would resemble a naturalistic conversation. The couples were separated for 8 hours which resembles the traditional 8 hour work day. They were then united and told to have a 15 minute conversation discussing “the events of the day.” They were then told to have another 15 minute conversation discussing a problem area of continuing disagreement. Following the marital conflict conversation, the couple was asked to have conversation discussing a pleasant topic.
The interactions between the couples were videotaped and analyzed extensively by trained observers; the observers used the Gestalt approach to recognize the specific emotions in all channels combined. They came up with five negative affects (anger, contempt/disgust, sadness, fear, whining) and four positive affects (affection/caring, humor, interest/curiosity, and joy/enthusiasm).
Since only the conflict and pleasant topic conversations are noted in this article, a comparison was able to be produced between the two extremes. Their results showed that the majority of couples were able to rebound from the negative conflict conversation. Their results for the divorce or marital stability prediction suggest that resilience is the deciding factor. If a couple has the marital stability to rebound from a marital conflict the prediction is low while if the couple cannot rebound from a marital conflict, the prediction for divorce is high.
The sample of participants for this study was chosen after advertisements had been posted in the newspaper. Although not all of the 200 individuals who responded were chosen for this study, a question as to how randomized this sample is arises.
What are the pros and cons of having recruited the participants through newspaper advertisements? How does this affect the sample and the study?
Alexendria Diamond Torres
