Highlights•How couples communicate determines conflict resolution and relationship
quality.•Communication can involve opposition versus cooperation and be direct or …

The quality of romantic relationships influences physical and mental health. However,
maintaining happy and healthy relationships is challenging; relationship satisfaction …

Guided by theory emphasizing that partner responsiveness underlies well-functioning
romantic relationships, we examined whether partners' responsive behavior buffered the …

This chapter highlights the contextual nature of intimate relationships. The first two sections
review evidence that the implications of four key processes for relationship functioning …

Based on growing evidence that negative-direct behavior that addresses important
contextual and situational demands is less harmful than negative-direct behavior that occurs …

Abstract Utilizing the Emotional Security Theory (EST; Davies & Cummings, 1994) the
current study examined links between parent depression, interparental conflict, parenting …

Three studies examined the links between attachment insecurity and the use and
effectiveness of inducing guilt to produce change in romantic partners (negative‐indirect …

Negative and positive conflict communication predicts long-term relationship satisfaction.
However, some studies show harmful effects and others show beneficial effects of negative …

Growing evidence indicates that whether critical and hostile behavior harms relationships
depends on how partners respond. The current studies test a key behavioral indicator of …

In this article, we synthesize existing literatures across numerous domains to introduce a
novel model—the Relationship Problem Solving (RePS) model—for understanding the …