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Article Excerpt
Central romantic relationships are important to people's emotional well-being throughout the life cycle (Basic Behavioral Science Task Force of the National Advisory Mental Health Council, 1996). Love relationships are a central component of late adolescent, young adult development (Chickering, 1969; Erikson, 1968); furthermore, individuals in this age group, like older adults, are often very concerned with their romantic relationships and may see them as a sustaining force in their lives (Murray, 1996; cf. Wallerstein & Blakeslee, 1995). Although romantic love continues to be a cherished, couple-based ideal (Guerin, Fogarty, Fay, & Kautto, 1996), American society also values individuality and independence, qualities that develop within a context of relatedness (Guisinger & Blatt, 1994; Jordan, Kaplan, Miller, Stiver, & Surrey, 1991). Because relationships involve two separate people, conflict is inevitable. Indeed "conflict occupies a great deal of people's relational activity" (Cupach, 2000, p. 697). Moreover, unresolved marital conflict can "undermine children's feelings of emotional security [and lead] to adjustment problems in children and marital dysfunction" (Davies & Cummings, 1994, p. 405). Therefore, better understanding of conflict within important emotional relationships is warranted.
A person's pattern of establishing and experiencing relatedness to significant others can be conceptualized as an attachment process. Attachment refers to the emotional bonding with a partner who is experienced as both a safe haven and a secure base (Bowlby, 1988; Shaver & Hazan, 1993). When the individual is feeling some form of distress, the partner is seen as someone who can provide comfort and support, while, at other times, it is the felt security of the relationship and the guidance of the partner that allows the individual to explore the environment more confidently and more fully. If there is a breach in the sense of felt security through an unexpected separation or through perceiving the partner as inaccessible when needed, then attachment-related separation anxiety is experienced. Attachment processing becomes primary, inhibiting the exploratory system, and the person attempts to restore a comfortable range of proximity with the partner, along with the sense of felt security.
Behavior in attachment relationships is presumably mediated by a cognitive-affective schema or working model (Bowlby, 1988) that includes beliefs about the self and the partner as well as systematic means for managing attachment-related information and behavior (Fuendeling, 1998). In relation to adult love as an attachment process, Bartholomew and Horowitz (1991) derived four prototypes, conceptually, by crossing positive or negative beliefs about the sews lovability with positive or negative beliefs regarding the partner's accessibility when needed. Secure attachment is characterized by a positive self-image and a positive view of the partner, as well as by comfort in the relationship. Research and theory suggest that securely attached adults appropriately rely on the partner as both a safe haven and as a base for exploration. Secure attachment, in turn, is associated with more satisfying and successful relationships (Hazan & Shaver, 1994a, 1994b). Dismissing attachment also suggests a positive self-image, but a somewhat tenuous, defensive one that requires distance from the partner who is not seen positively and whose needs are often minimized. Adults who are preoccupied with attachment tend to be clinging as well as hypervigilant and overly concerned with information about the relationship. They view their partner positively but themselves as unworthy, and so hypersensitively interpret information from their partner as indicating separation or its threat. They usually direct attention toward distress and manifest heightened distress (Kemp & Neimeyer, 1999). Fearful attachment implies negative views of both the self and the partner, fear of rejection, and a lack of confidence in the partner's availability. Although both the dismissing and fearful prototypes are subtypes of avoidant attachment, fearful attachment is associated with higher levels of distress than is dismissing attachment. In general, adults with dismissing, preoccupied, and fearful attachments, having difficulty with trust and intimacy, experience impediments to forming satisfying relationships. Broadly speaking, adults with dismissing attachment may be described as disdainful of the importance of close relationships and so are not likely to establish nurturing, stable connections with others; those with preoccupied or fearful attachment are acutely susceptible to feelings of abandonment and rejection.
The prototype attachment organizations reflect predictably different working models and so different emotional experience and closeness strategies (Fuendeling, 1998; Searle & Meara, 1999). Although attachment organization can change, insecure attachment represents a vicious cycle. The affect management strategies typical of insecurely attached persons usually interfere with processing the information needed to establish more satisfying relationships. It is the very lack of sustaining relationships that keeps people from experiencing the security and confidence necessary to revise the attachment organization. Therefore, understanding of prototypical differences can be useful to counselors in conceptualizing and finding leverage for change. This research examined prototype differences in feelings and behavior associated with conflict.
CONFLICT
Conflict is an inevitable, natural process in important romantic relationships (Peterson, 1983; Wood & Duck, 1995) and can contribute positively to the relationship's creation and stability (Duck, 1988). However, particularly when unresolved, conflict contributes to frustration, disaffection, and dissolution (Bray & Jouriles, 1995; Kayser, 1993). The inability to manage conflict effectively (e.g., to reach satisfactory resolution) harms the relationship (Gottman, 1994a; Gottman & Levenson, 1992). The process of conflict damage to relationships has been described: First, negative affect, specifically complaining and criticizing, (a) leads to contempt, (b) which leads to defensiveness, and (c) which leads to listener withdrawal from interaction or stonewalling. Second, distress-maintaining cognitions (e.g., hurt and righteous indignation or hurt and perceived attack) become stable negative attributions or interpretations of the partners' behavior. The combination generalizes to a "global negative view of the entire relationship: its history, meaning, and philosophy" (Gottman, 1993, p. 65) and cascades the relationship to thoughts of separation and dissolution.
In reviewing research, Jacobson and Addis (1993) concluded that conflict engagement versus conflict avoidance is essential to resolving differences and increasing relationship satisfaction. Various models (Canary, Cunningham, & Cody, 1988; Markman, Stanley, & Blumberg, 1996; Rahim & Magner, 1995) have suggested that conflict resolution involves identifying a problem, discussing it, and coordinating opposing goals, although there may be situational contingencies such that avoiding confrontation, obliging the partner, or delaying discussion may be appropriate. Problem-solving involves modulating affect sufficiently to pay attention to information, hear and express negative feelings, listen accurately to meaning, speak clearly about one's own position, and create a safe environment for communication about both persons' thoughts and feelings (Markman et al., 1996). Ineffective regulation of affect during disagreements (e.g., nonproductive expression of negative affect, negative affect escalation) is related to relationship problems and dissolution (Markman, Floyd, Stanley, & Storaasli, 1988; Markman & Hahlweg, 1993; Markman, Renick, Floyd, Stanley, & Clements, 1993).
ATTACHMENT AND CONFLICT
Research examining attachment and conflict has yet to use the four-category model or focus directly on conflict as an attachment-related threat. Confronting partners with their differences is often felt as a risk to the continuation of the relationship (Baxter & Wilmot, 1985), the possibility of conflict in close relationship can create a perceived threat to self (Altman & Taylor, 1973), and opposing goal positions can be perceived as a threat to the relationship (Peterson, 1983). Each of these threats could breach felt security and activate attachment processing by being experienced as an unexpected separation, a threat to the attachment bond, or the partner's being too distant and inaccessible emotionally. Moreover, conflict is often experienced as stressful, and the attachment system is more salient when the person is stressed.
If attachment processing is triggered by conflict, then the working model would be relevant to partners' responses to conflict, because, with the exploratory system inhibited, behavior will be directed by the affect management strategies, rather than being a thoughtful response to the particular person and situation. For persons with secure attachment, the positive beliefs about self and other, the higher level of trust (Pistole, Clark, & Tubbs, 1995), and the less emotionally reactive appraisal of threat (Gaines et al., 1997) may anchor a solid enough sense of felt security that no, or relatively little, attachment threat is felt during most...
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