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
In Australia, you must meet up with a marriage counsellor before you are able to get married. Given the highly predictive nature of looking at just two conversations do you think that having highly trained professionals to look at couple interaction before marriage could have a positive effect on divorce rates in the future?
ReplyDeleteIf you had the opportunity for you and your partner to be analyzed in this way, would you? Or would you rather not know?
Analyzing couples conversation to indicate whether they will eventually end up in divorce seems like a good idea. Could it be the case that some people are just more controversial than others but their commitment to each other is just as strong? Therefore, they don’t appear to have great problem solving skills but they love unconditionally. What would be other indicators that could be studied in a lab that can predict a couple’s outcome?
ReplyDeleteA pro of having recruited participants through the newspaper is that it selects people who are motivated to participate in a research study. However, this could also be a con as the advertisement singles out only the people who actually reads the newspaper. This affects the study as it can only be generalized to people who read the advertisement section of the newspaper.
ReplyDeleteLongitudinal designs such as the one presented here might contain several variables that the researcher cannot control. Maybe some life events during the participants' 4 year period happened leading to a closer relationship with their spouses. Many influences could have an effect on the cohorts presented in this study. Other questions arise on the validity of this study.
How would being separated for 8 hours have an effect on the participants if they do not work an 8 hour work shift or do not usually get separated from each other for 8 hours? If different marriages handle different problems differently, how does the specific 15 minute conversation discussing a problem area of continuing disagreement generalize to the population being studied?
I agree with Wei completely. The sample of couples used in this study are not randomized because it is there perogative to join the study or not and as Wei said, this means that only those that read that specific newspaper and actually move forward with participating in the study are the couples that are studied. With this information they are more biased because these couples could perhaps be more motivated to "work on their marriage" or get feedback on their interactions and thus be the couples who are less likely to get divorced in the long run. The results did say that the majority of couples who had resilience or who were able to bounce back were less likely to get divorced. Also, there are plenty of other variables that could potentially confound this study. For example, how long each couple has been married already before this study, what particular life events have occured between that couple before and during the study, how each couple handles conflict resolution, what the couple's religious views are toward divorce, what their interactions are on a regular basis and not in the lab during a study, what each person's individual traits/characteristics are that contribute to resilience/happiness/conflict, the geographical location of where the study is done, how serious the topic is that the couple is discussing in relation to their marriage, etc.
ReplyDeleteDo you think that the results of this study accurately reflect the population of married people? If not, how could the researchers create a more random sample of individuals to participate? What other variables could they measure to try to control for the possible interfering confounds mentioned above?
Great post!
ReplyDeleteSuch an interesting article! Thanks for sharing it with us! Did you know that scientists identify specific negative communication patterns that predict divorce, they are: criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. What do you think on this topic? In case you are already starting your divorce path, I highly recommend you to check this link right here to find out the average divorce cost in various US states.
ReplyDelete