How a Couple Fights Can Predict a Divorce
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All couples fight and argue, but it is how they communicate during their conflict that can determine whether they will stay together or not.
Dr. Keith Sanford, a clinical psychologist and an associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at Baylor University, and his research team, studied dozens of couples as they communicated through a fight. He focused on what influences whether a person will use negative or positive communication during an argument.
The most interesting finding is that negative emotions can in fact be a good thing. Sanford described two types of negative emotion, “hard” and “soft”. Hard emotion is associated with asserting power. On the other hand, soft emotion is associated with expressing vulnerability. Sanford and his team found that hard emotion escalated fights, and that soft emotion is beneficial for relationships. Soft emotion increases a couple’s motivation to address a conflict and often leads to productive approaches toward resolving the conflict.
People think that all negative emotion is bad but Dr.Sanford found that that simply isn’t the case: “As humans, we are very sensitive to ‘is this person going to fight against me or cooperate with me.’ If you say more things that signal that you willing to cooperate, that can make all the difference”, Sanford said.
