Direct communication of conflict in close relationships and intention to change behavior: A within-person experiment

When people experience conflicts between their ideal standards and their partner’s actual state, they often attempt to directly regulate their partner (e.g., by requesting their partner to change behavior). Numerous observational studies suggest that direct regulation attempts are positively associated with partner behavior change. However, previous research using between-person and correlational designs has provided limited evidence. In this study, we employed a within-person experimental paradigm in which we systematically manipulated requests from one (requester) to the other (actor) and tested whether direct regulation attempts change partners’ intentions and behaviors in romantic relationships (N = 78 couples). We asked an actor to rate the actual frequency of 40–80 important actions and a requester to rate the ideal frequency of the actor's actions. These actions were then randomly assigned to either the discrepancy feedback or no-feedback condition. Results showed that discrepancies were positively associated with actors’ intentions to improve their behavior (but not with behavioral changes). These findings suggest that although people can facilitate their partner's intention to change important actions by simply directly communicating the discrepancies, they need to make additional efforts (e.g., suggesting a solution, promoting prospective memory) to get the partner to execute the intention. Using the within-person experiment, this study provides direct evidence supporting the psychological process of partner regulation.