Overcoming the instinct of reacting immediately: A two-study examination of reflective vs. reactive communication in couple’s conversational arguing

Relational distress is found to be closely related to the way couples act during argumentative episodes. Are people aware of how dysfunctional their communication practices are? Can relationship partners overcome the impulse of instantly responding to each other? Based on a cognitive-response analysis, this paper proposes a two-study design that aims to address the above-mentioned questions. It seeks to identify common thinking patterns that couples adopt when they argue in conflict situations (Study 1, n = 25) and to test how cognitive responses and self-corrective effort explain and predict reflective communication (Study 2, n = 78). While reactive communication is based on simple cause-and-effect decision rules, reflective communication focuses more on context-specific cues, deliberating upon how one’s response will affect the other and how it will bounce back and affect me and us. Video-taped data of 39 couples’ conversations are collected. Its preliminary analysis is reported in this proposal. Complete analyses and report are expected to be done by July of 2018. Findings of the current research will shed light on the process underlying reflective communication and conflict management.