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End of Relationships

+Duck (1992) meta-analysis of longitudinal findings of factors predicting the end of a marriage. People who had divorced parents.

Teenage marriages.

Marriage between people of different backgrounds (e.g. socioeconomic, cultural, etc).

Marriage between people from a lower socioeconomic background.

Marriage between people who have had many sexual partners before the marriage.

+Flora & Segrin (2003)-What keeps couples together?

Sample: 66 young couples who had dated for at least 6 months and 65 young couples who had been married for around 4 years.

Questionnaires and interviews were used to gather information about the couples’ relationships.

After one year the couples were contacted again (all the married couples stayed together but ¼ of the dating couples had broken up) and those who were still together were asked to fill out a new questionnaire.

+Findings For males, common interests, activities, and desire to

spend time together was the most important factors.

For females, the most important factor was the quantity of their own negative feelings (ie. disappointment). Shared interests and spending time together was the 2nd most important factor.

+Fletcher et al. (1987)- Attributions in dating couples

Sample: 100 female and 31 male undergraduate students in a heterosexual dating relationship not living together in the US.

Participants completed questionnaires and two months later (95 participants were still in their relationships) they were asked to write a free-response description of the relationship and fill out another questionnaire.

Findings: Happy couples attributed positive events to partner’s disposition and negative events to the situation. Unhappy couples did the opposite (attributing negative events to partner’s disposition and positive events to the situation).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nn3I6-DBLJM

+Gottman’s theory of the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse

Criticism: Making dispositional attributions.

“That’s all you do. All you do is nag me!”

Contempt: Intentional attack on partner’s self-esteem.

“Dress like a pig”.

Defensiveness: Seeing yourself as a victim.

“I’m supposed to take that to mean that you do like flowers?”

Stonewalling: Withdrawing from the relationship (e.g. silent treatment, one word answers, changing the subject).

+Simpson (1996)- Attachment style and romantic relationships Remember Ainsworth’s (1970) Strange Situation study

with the mother and child (avoidant, securely attached, & ambivalent attachment).

Questionnaires were administered to identify an individual’s attachment style.

Then the dating couples discussed a major problem in their relationship.

Findings: Insecurely attached individuals tended to be anxious and use negative strategies during the discussion.

+Gottman and Krokoff (1989) Comparison of 2 couples

Data from 2 longitudinal observations of couples were taken. The couples were observed in their home and in a lab discussing either a low-conflict or a high-conflict issue.

Findings:

Expressions of anger and disagreement were not necessarily associated with marital dissatisfaction over time. Couples who solved their conflict with mutual satisfaction showed more satisfaction than couples who avoided conflict.

+Sprecher (1999)-Do people simply fall out of love?

101 volunteering heterosexual student couples in the US were surveyed five times over 4 years.

Each time they completed questionnaires to measure love, commitment, and satisfaction.

Only 41% of the couples were together by the end of the study.

Findings: The intact couples said they felt an increase in love, commitment, and satisfaction but this was not supported by the data (it was a positive illusion).

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Satisfaction decreased the most in broken relationships prior to the break up suggesting that relationships end due to dissatisfaction rather than the disappearance of love.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQJRDIXCcRs