Recovering From Conflict in Romantic Relationships: A Developmental Perspective
Open accessAbstract
This study adopted a developmental perspective on recovery from conflict in romantic relationships. Participants were 73 young adults (target participants), studied since birth, and their romantic partners. A novel observational coding scheme was used to evaluate each participant’s degree of conflict recovery, operationalized as the extent to which the participant disengaged from conflict during a 4-min “cool-down” task immediately following a 10-min conflict discussion. Conflict recovery was systematically associated with developmental and dyadic processes. Targets who were rated as securely attached more times in infancy recovered from conflict better, as did their romantic partners. Concurrently, having a romantic partner who displayed better recovery predicted more positive relationship emotions and greater relationship satisfaction. Prospectively, target participants’ early attachment security and their partners’ degree of conflict recovery interacted to predict relationship stability 2 years later, such that having a partner who recovered from conflict better buffered targets with insecure histories.
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Securely attached individuals experience more satisfactory and successful relationships.
“Securely attached individuals experience more satisfactory and successful relationships.”
From The Predictive Role of Self-Esteem, Attachment Styles, and Family of Origin Functions in Explaining Conflict Resolution in Romantic Relationships (2022) · cites this paper as Salvatore et al., 2011
The Results (Developmental analyses; page not provided) link greater infant attachment security to better conflict recovery by young adults and their partners. The paper does not show that securely attached individuals generally have more satisfying or more stable relationships: satisfaction is examined in relation to partner conflict recovery, and the Results (Relationship stability; page not provided) report no significant stability effect of partner recovery among the more secure participants. (LLM, conf=0.85)
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References 35 · Cited by 115
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- Authors
- Salvatore, J. E., Kuo, S. I.-C., Steele, R. D., Simpson, J. A., & Collins, W. A.
- Affiliations
- University of Minnesota (US)
- Institute of Child Development
- Corresponding author
- Salvatore, Jessica E.
- Venue
- Psychological Science
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2011-01-18
- Volume
- 22
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 376-383
- ISSN
- 0956-7976 (ISSN-L)
- 1467-9280
- PMC
- PMC3060296
- OpenAlex
- W2142418155
- Cited by
- 115
- References
- 35
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 11 · 2021: 9 · 2020: 11 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 9 · 2017: 8 · 2016: 11 · 2015: 9 · 2014: 6 · 2013: 9 · 2012: 3
- FWCI
- 8.73
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Psychological Science (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health
- National Institute of Mental Health (R01-MH40864, R01MH040864, T32MH015755)
- National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R01HD054850)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Attachment and Relationship Dynamics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Forgiveness and Related Behaviors
- Social Sciences › Demography › Family Dynamics and Relationships
- Keywords
- conflict recovery, romantic relationships, attachment security, early attachment, dyadic processes, relationship stability, relationship satisfaction, young adults, developmental perspective
- MeSH terms
- Adaptation, Psychological, Emotions, Female, Follow-Up Studies, Humans, Individuality, Infant, Love, Male, Object Attachment, Parent-Child Relations, Personal Satisfaction, Personality Development, Social Support, Transfer, Psychology, Negotiating, Young Adult
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