La gestión del conflicto en las relaciones de pareja y consecuencias para el bienestar

Abstract

Romantic relationships are one of the most important sources of people’s wellbeing, happiness, and health (e.g., Holt-Lunstad et al., 2010; Robles et al., 2014). The interdependence between the members of a relationship can strongly motivate people to maintain and invest in the relationship, but it can also become a source of conflicts and discrepancies when there are incompatible interests (Clark & Mills, 2012; Rusbult & Van Lange, 2003). The truth is that people in relationships do not always experience a correspondence of interests; that is, what is good for one person is also good for the other. Rather, sometimes, couples face situations in which the preferences of both diverge, creating conflicts (Overall & McNulty, 2017). The way couples navigate these conflicting interests may be key to the proper functioning and satisfaction of the relationship and to individuals’ health and well-being (Cameron & Overall, 2018; Joel et al., 2020). Therefore, this doctoral thesis aims to deepen the understanding of the processes involved in the management of conflicts that arise in couple relationships, which have been largely unexplored. Specifically, we focused on analyzing: (a) what factors inherent to the relationship influence how people manage conflicts with their partners, that is, the responses they use to cope with the divergence of interests that appear between them in their daily lives; and (b) how the way each member of the relationship manages these conflicts can affect their wellbeing, satisfaction, and perceived health in the short and long terms. We addressed these general questions by taking an individual and a dyadic approach to evaluating the experiences and behaviors of both members of the relationship.