Communicating Interpersonal Conflict in Close Relationships

Contexts, Challenges, and Opportunities

Jennifer A. Samp

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317683803
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Langues et linguistique
• Subtopic: Études sur la communication

Communicating Interpersonal Conflict in Close Relationships: Contexts, Challenges, and Opportunities provides a state-of-the-art review of research on conflict in close personal relationships. This volume brings together both seasoned and new voices in communication research to address the challenges in evaluating conflict. Contributors review the current state of research on themes related to power, serial arguments, interpersonal and family dynamics, physiological processes, and mechanisms of forgiveness by presenting theoretical reviews, original unpublished data-driven research, and discussions about the methodological challenges and opportunities in studying interpersonal conflict.

An essential resource for graduate students and faculty interested in interpersonal conflict in close relationships between romantic partners, families, or friends, this volume is intended for advanced coursework and individual study in communication, social psychology, and close relationship scholarship.

Section 1

Influences on Conflict Processes in Close Relationships

1

Cognitive and Physiological Systems Linking childhood Exposure to Family Verbal Aggression and Reactions to Conflict in Adulthood

Lindsey Susan Aloia and Denise Haunani Solomon

Verbal aggression is defined as a communication behavior in which a person purposefully uses language to attack the self-concept of another person (Infante, 1987; Renfrew, 1997; Straus, 1979). Verbally aggressive communication is destructive and consequential for recipients of any age (Stemmler & Meinhardt, 1990); however, exposure to verbal aggression, including witnessing or receiving aggressive messages, is especially harmful during formative childhood years. For example, researchers have found that prolonged exposure to interparental conflict during childhood creates a predisposition toward psychological and marital difficulties in later life (Adam et al, 1982; Amato & Keith, 1991). In addition, adult impairments, such as a limited capacity for empathy, the inability to make accurate attributions for thoughts and feelings, and poor social judgment, appear to be adult symptoms of witnessing and/or receiving verbally aggressive messages during childhood (Ornduff et al, 2001). These findings suggest that efforts to understand the effects of childhood exposure to family verbal aggression can shed light on how people experience and manage conflict within adult romantic relationships.

Perhaps not surprisingly, theory and research linking experiences of verbal aggression in childhood to experiences in adulthood have focused primarily on factors that promote a tendency to communicate aggressively. For example, social learning theory proposes that children develop models of interpersonal relationships by learning from and imitating the behaviors of influential individuals (Bandura, 1977). In other words, children’s exposure to family conflict provides them with scripts that specify when, why, and how to use verbal aggression within situations they may encounter as adults (Zimet & Jacob, 2001). Similarly, the argumentative skills deficiency model highlights how verbal aggression results when children fail to learn verbal skills that can diffuse negatively escalating interactions (Infante et al, 1989). This theory suggests that when children witness escalating exchanges characterized by aggressive communication, rather than reasoned argument, they learn inappropriate responses to disagreement that they use throughout their lives (Infante et al, 1990).

Whereas the link between childhood experiences and the tendency to enact verbal aggression is well established, theory and research explaining people’s reactions to verbally aggressive communication is in a more formative stage. In a sense, social learning and skills deficit accounts for being aggressive can also explain people’s reactions as targets of verbal aggression: scripts for conflict and a person’s repertoire of communication skills inform the meanings that an individual attaches to aggression, the threats associated with verbal assault, and reactions to conflict. Whereas these perspectives highlight cognitions in the form of knowledge and skills, we see benefits in considering somewhat more automatic cognitive and physiological processes that are attuned to aggressive behavior. In this chapter, therefore, we turn our attention to cognitive and physiological processes through which childhood experiences influence people’s responses in the face of a romantic partner’s verbal aggression.

Our thinking highlights how experiences in early life calibrate adult reactions to the occurrence of aggression in interpersonal interactions. In general, we suggest that individuals who experienced frequent and severe verbal aggression during childhood have decreased responsivity to episodes of conflict in adulthood compared to people who do not report recurrent conflict exposure in childhood. Through the calibration of cognitive processes, people’s childhood experiences of conflict influence how they attend to, make sense of, and respond to aggression in adulthood (Crick & Dodge, 1994). Through the calibration of physiological processes, people who were exposed to persistent aggression during formative years may exhibit attenuated arousal in response to conflict stimuli. In the sections that follow, we begin with an explication of verbal aggression. We then define desensitization and clarify how it encompasses the cognitive and physiological recalibration that occurs as a result of childhood exposure to family verbal aggression. Next, we report data from two studies that illustrate how childhood exposure to family conflict interfaces with cognitive and physiological systems to shape adults’ reactions to verbal aggression from a romantic partner. We conclude this chapter by identifying directions for future research.

Explicating Verbal Aggression

Verbal aggression is defined as a communication behavior in which an individual explicitly uses language to attack the self-concept of another individual (Infante, 1987; Renfrew, 1997; Straus, 1979). As made clear by this definition, verbal aggression is considered a type of verbal communication. This is not to say that nonverbal behavior is irrelevant; rather, nonverbal aggressive behavior is considered to be an intensifier of the verbal behavior, which is the primary channel for conveying aggressive content. Nonverbal behavior, such as posture, touching, facial expression, eye contact, and vocal cues, can exacerbate the effects of the verbal communication. More specifically, expressive displays of emotion in the face or voice can intensify the meaning assigned to the symbols exchanged. Language is, however, at the core of verbal aggression because it encompasses the symbols that stimulate meaning.

Verbal aggression is also classified as a behavior. A behavior refers to an observable action of an individual in relation to a stimulus. The stimulus may be internal or external, conscious or subconscious, overt or covert, voluntary or involuntary. A behavior can be observed by others and, with an appropriate definition, two or more observers can agree as to whether the behavior did or did not occur. Behavior is, as such, classified as an objective piece of information. By restricting verbal aggression to an observable behavior, internal conditions such as aggressive feelings, attitudes, or thoughts are de-emphasized.

Verbal aggression is also considered to be directed. Directed behavior is oriented toward an end goal that is intended to be accomplished. Directed behavior can also be considered deliberate or intentional. For a person’s behavior to be considered verbally aggressive, the behavior must be perceived as being carried out with the intention to inflict negative consequences on the targeted individual. This specification excludes behaviors that result in unintended harm or damage by accident, through negligence, or as a result of incompetence.

Lastly, this definition of verbal aggression stipulates that the individual directly attacks another individual’s self-concept. In very broad terms, an individual’s self-concept refers to the person’s perception of himself or herself. These perceptions are formed through personal experience with the environment. In addition, people’s self-concept is important and useful in explaining and predicting actions. Self-perception is thought to influence the way an individual behaves, and this behavior in turn influences the way the individual perceives himself or herself.

In sum, verbal aggression is defined as the use of the language symbol system in ways that are perceived to be aimed at negatively influencing an individual’s self-concept. This definition is parsimonious, but it embraces the inherent complexity of the communication phenomena. In addition, this definition does not specify a particular victim or perpetrator. As a result, verbal aggression can be detrimental to the receiver in a variety of contexts. The following sections discuss desensitization to conflict due to childhood exposure to verbal aggression.

Desensitization to Conflict

Desensitization is defined as the attenuation or elimination of cognitive, emotional, physiological, and, ultimately, behavioral responses to a stimulus (Rule & Ferguson, 1986). Desensitization can be manipulated directly and purposefully. For example, desensitization is a technique used in behavioral therapy to decrease or eliminate certain emotional responses through exposure to anxiety-inducing stimuli (Wolpe, 1973). This process has documented effectiveness in changing children psychologically and behaviorally (Weersing & Weisz, 2002). In addition, desensitization has been described as an influential process in understanding the psychological impact of witnessing chronic violence. In particular, children who have experienced severe and chronic physical aggression have described violence as a way of life, and they report that they no longer feel overwhelmed or upset by violence (Guterman & Cameron, 1997).

Cognitive processes that link childhood experiences of verbal aggression to reactions to conflict in adulthood include the operation of more or less conscious schemas that attune people to the occurrence and meaning of aggressive interactions. Schemas are mental structures that frame an individual’s perception of stimuli. Schemas define expected features of a phenomenon, which are developed over time from past experiences with similar phenomena. Schemas also prime attention and information processing in ways that exert a nonconscious effect on experiences with a phenomenon. Hence, schemas enable people to encode cues efficiently and accurately, and the heuristic rules that people cultivate influence the meanings that they derive from those cues. We suggest that witnessing or receiving sustained verbal aggression during formative years causes individuals to create biased mental frames about the experience of conflict, such that the conflict is perceived as typical or expected. In other words, schemas are recalibrated to normalize the experience of verbal aggression and, in turn, reactions to aggression are dampened.

Physiological aspects of desensitization are embodied by the body’s stress response and the production of adrenal steroids and stress hormones that promote defense against stressful stimuli. Under normal, non-stressful conditions, the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, one of the body’s primary stress response systems, produces the stress hormone cortisol in a diurnal pattern of activation, releasing the greatest concentration of cortisol during the morning, dramatically reducing the production during the afternoon, and slowly decreasing the production of cortisol during the evening. During times of stress, however, the HPA system is taxed to release additional cortisol to mobilize energy against the stimulus. In cases of regular and repeated exposure to family conflict, the demands on the HPA axis are sustained. Unfortunately, the HPA axis cannot operate effectively under constant stress. As a result, children who continue to tax the HPA axis due to high levels of family conflict are forced to recalibrate their stress response systems, such that the normal physiological responses to conflict cues are attenuated.

Two Spotlight Studies on Exposure to Aggression

Cognitive and physiological recalibrations, in the form of desensitization to conflict cues, are adaptive responses to frequent and severe experiences of childhood verbal aggression. In effect, the recalibration of cognitive and physiological processes spares individuals from the immediate distress of a conflict interaction by numbing their responses. Hence, desensitization should be manifest in both automatic aspects of cognitive and physiological functions and in people’s subjective experience of conflict. To test this reasoning, we report data from two studies. The first study examines associations between childhood exposure to family aggression and evaluations of verbally aggressive acts in romantic relationships, and it features motivational systems as a cognitive process relevant to this association. The second study we report investigates the physiological stress response as both a manifestation of desensitization and a process that affects subjective experiences of conflict with a romantic partner.

Study 1: Childhood Exposure to Aggression and the Behavioral Inhibition System

Thus far, our description of cognitive processes that link childhood experiences of verbal aggression to reactions to conflict in adulthood has rested generally on the notion of schemas. In this study, we considered a more specific cognitive process likely to reflect desensitization. In particular, we suggest that exposure to family aggression in childhood may influence the extent to which children come to attend to and be influenced by the threat of punishment. In the paragraphs that follow, we define motivational systems and explain how they may contribute to an association between childhood exposure to aggression and adult experiences of conflict. We then report results from a study that tested our thinking.

Gray (1987) postulated two motivational systems that predict an individual’s response to social cues in an environment: the behavioral inhibition system (BIS), which attends to signals of punishment and non-reward; and the behavioral activation system (BAS), which emphasizes cues of reward, non-punishment, and escape from punishment. Gray (1987) argued that the BIS controls the experience of anxiety in response to anxiety-relevant cues and inhibits behavior that may lead to negative or painful outcomes. Accordingly, measures of the BIS have been found to correlate highly with indicators of trait anxiety, negative reactivity, negative temperament, ne...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Editor Biography
• Contributors
• Introduction
• SECTION 1: Influences on Conflict Processes in Close Relationships
• SECTION 2: Power and Conflict in Close Relationships
• SECTION 3: Conflict as an Ongoing Process
• SECTION 4: Conflict in Families
• SECTION 5: Forgiveness as Part of Interpersonal Conflict
• Index