| Abstract: | The purpose of the present study was to examine the relation between a couple's perceptions of each other while engaged in a conflict situation, and their management of the conflict itself. One-hundred-eighty couples undergoing family therapy interacted in a mixed-motive game that served as the standard conflict situation. Each couple's interactions were classified into one of four categories, depending upon how they managed this conflict. The interpersonal perceptions of each group were then examined, and several differences were found. Couples who resolved the conflict in a cooperative manner perceived each other as cooperative and themselves expressed more appeasing intentions than any other group. Couples who managed the conflict in a mutually destructive manner perceived each other as competitive and themselves expressed the highest level of exploitative and defensive intentions. Couples who developed either a dominant-submissive relationship, or those who waivered between cooperating and competing and failed to attain any stable solution to the conflict, also differed from each of the other groups. |
