Date of Award

Fall 2023

Project Type

Dissertation

Program or Major

Psychology

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

First Advisor

John D Mayer

Second Advisor

Michelle D Leichtman

Third Advisor

Laura K Allen

Abstract

People bring to their relationships a variety of personality traits that guide their interactions with others. However, an individual’s unique set of needs, preferences and skills can make conflict a near-inevitable part of most relationships. Personal intelligence is a promising new construct with implications for how couples communicate during conflict. Named in parallel with spatial, social, and similar intelligences, personal intelligence involves the ability to reason about the personality of oneself and others. People high in personal intelligence show an increased capacity to recognize the motives that guide other’s behavior, which they use to adjust how they approach their interpersonal interactions. The purpose of the current series of studies was to explore the influence of ability-based personal intelligence on romantic conflict communication and relationship outcomes. In Studies 1 and 2, I drew on people’s narrative recollections of a past conflict to determine how those more skilled at personality reasoning consider conflict differently compared to their less-skilled counterparts, and postulated as to how such reasoning could inform people’s choice of conflict communication strategies. Participants also reported on their past interpersonal communication behavior. In Study 3, I turned to examining real-time reasoning by investigating the communication patterns of romantic couples as they discussed an unresolved relationship conflict. The effects of these patterns were similarly explored in relation to relationship quality and conflict outcomes. Results across all three studies indicate that romantic partners with a greater understanding of personality consider their partner’s motives and feelings related to the conflict more deeply relative to those less-skilled partners. This reasoning may allow highly skilled people to view their conflict experiences more objectively. Further findings suggest that a greater capacity to reason about personality predicts positive day-to-day behaviors that may stave off romantic conflict, but also the use of more constructive communication patterns when conflict does arise

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