Cognition During Marital Conflict: The Relationship of Thought and Talk

Abstract

This article describes and analyzes the stream of thought occurring concurrently with overt communication about marital conflict. The research considers how marital conflicts may be affected by selective attention to different elements of conflict (different emotions, issues, interactional behaviors, and background events) and by spontaneous attributions about communicative intentions and outcomes. One hundred eighteen couples discussed a current conflict issue, then individually watched a videotape of the discussion and reported thoughts and feelings experienced during the discussion. Descriptively, the thoughts revealed limited complexity, infrequent perspective taking, a predominant concern for implicit relationship issues over content issues, and frequent direct analysis of the communication process. Spouses viewed their own communication in more favorable terms than their partner's communication. Husbands and wives also viewed the interactions differently, with wives appearing, in certain respects, more other-directed, relationship-sensitive, and objective. Interaction-based thoughts were especially subjective in the most severe conflicts, as suggested by a lack of correspondence between attributions about communication and observer coding of the interactions. Furthermore, in severe conflicts and dissatisfied relationships, the individuals had more angry, blaming, and pessimistic thoughts and less focus on content issues.