Does context matter Patterns of conflict and connection in adolescent romantic relationships

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Does context matter? Patterns of conflict and
connection in adolescent romantic relationships

• Sharon C. Risch Deborah P. Welsh,
• University of Tennessee

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• I would like to acknowledge my collaborators
• Joe Dickson
• Rebecca Furr
• Cathy Grello
• Melinda Harper
• Peter Haugen
• Katie Little
• Karen Wetzel
• Laura Widman

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Background

• Separation-individuation is a major developmental
  task of adolescence. Most work has been done
  through examining parent-adolescent and
  adolescent-peer interactions.
• Adolescents who are able to successfully
  negotiate separation/connection are better
  adjusted individually and relationally.

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Background

• Past research has found conflict to predict
  negative relational outcomes and connection to
  predict positive relational outcomes
• Not much known about how conflict and connection
  work together

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Aims

• Examine the role of conflict and connection in
  the quality of adolescent romantic relationships
• Examine whether connection moderates the
  influence of conflict on these relational
  outcomes

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Sample

• The data for this project comes from The Study of
  Tennessee Adolescent Romantic Relationships
  (STARR), funded by NICHD
• 203 adolescent dating couples
• 98 couples between 14-17 yrs old
• 105 couples between 17-21 yrs old
• Couples dating a minimum of 4 weeks
• (range 1 month 5 years median 11 months)

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Interaction Procedure

• Record couple having 2 interaction tasks
• First Task Conflictual Issue (as selected by one
  couple member) (8 min 40 sec)
• Second Task Conflictual Issue (as selected by
  the other couple member) (8 min 40 sec)
• Coders
• Conflict-presence of disagreement or challenging
  partner
• Connection-presence of encouragement, engagement,
  affirmation
• 0 Not at all, 4Very much

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Measures

• Relationship Satisfaction (Levesque, 1993)
  5-item scale to assess satisfaction in
  adolescents romantic relationships (alpha .85)
• Self-Reported Physical AggressionModified CTS
• 0 none, 1 moderate (pushed, grabbed, or
  shoved), 2 severe (hit with a fist)
• Observed Physical AggressionPresence of hitting,
  kicking, or slapping

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Descriptives

• Connection
• mean1.3, range from 0 3.4
• Conflict
• mean1.4, range 0 3.7
• Relationship Satisfaction
• mean24, range 8-28

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Descriptives

• Self-Reported Aggression
• 77- no aggression
• 9- moderate aggression
• 14- severe aggression
• Observed Aggression
• 15 of individuals hit partner
• 7 of males and 24 of females

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Results

• Connection x Conflict interaction was not
  significant
• Perhaps did not capture meaningful moments?
• Perhaps conflict is more important?

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Results

• Better communication (higher connection and lower
  conflict) is associated with greater relationship
  satisfaction

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Results

• More conflictmore physical aggression
• Females are more likely to use physical
  aggression as measured by couples self-reports
  and by observational data