Love's a dance you learn as you go: Evidence for interpersonal complementarity during romantic conflict and its association with relationship outcomes

Abstract

AbstractHigh‐quality romantic bonds benefit people. Extant literature has explored many individual and relational factors that contribute to high‐quality relationships, yet research on how moment‐to‐moment behaviours predict quality is still in the nascent stages. The current study explored interpersonal complementarity on warmth and dominance as one index of moment‐to‐moment interaction dynamics in romantic relationships. The sample included 180 couples (360 individuals), examined at 10‐s intervals, over the course of an 8‐min conflict discussion. Analysis confirmed the predicted pattern of complementarity such that people adjusted their behaviours in response to their partner's behaviour, engaging in similar levels of warmth and opposite levels of dominance (Hypothesis 1). Additionally, results revealed that relationship length was logarithmically related to dominance complementarity, whereas it was not significantly related to warmth complementarity (Hypothesis 2). Finally, dominance and warmth complementarity were differentially associated with numerous relational constructs (Hypothesis 3a/3b).