We can work it out: Age differences in relational pronouns, physiology, and behavior in marital conflict.

Abstract

This study examined the relationship that personal pronouns spoken during a marital conversation have with the emotional qualities of those interactions and with marital satisfaction. Middle-aged and older couples (N=154) engaged in a 15-minute conflict conversation during which physiology and emotional behavior were continuously monitored. Verbatim transcripts of the conversations were coded into two lexical categories: (a) We-ness (we-words): pronouns that focus on the couple; (b) Separateness (Me/You words): pronouns that focus on the individual spouses. Analyses revealed that greater We-ness was associated with a number of desirable qualities of the interaction (lower cardiovascular arousal, more positive and less negative emotional behavior), whereas, greater Separateness was associated with a less desirable profile (more negative emotional behavior, lower marital satisfaction). In terms of age differences, older couples used more We-ness than middle-aged couples. Further, the associations between Separateness and marital satisfaction were strongest for older wives. These findings indicate that the emotional aspects of marital quality are expressed in the natural language of couples engaged in conversation. KeywordsAging; Marital Quality; Personal pronouns; We-ness vs. Separateness; Emotion Husband: When "we" think about those things, the work on the house, intimate vacation time… Wife: It's a "we" thing.Husband: They are "we" things. These comments were made by a couple in this study during a discussion of an area of disagreement in their marriage. Notably, they associated salient aspects of marital life with a collective entity, using We-words. Other couples might have focused more on the individual

Monitoring Pronouns in Conflicts

“…"We"-talk has been studied in conflict situations and found to be related to less negative emotion in middle-aged and old couples (Seider, Hirschberger, Nelson, & Levenson, 2009) and it was related to high relationship satisfaction in couples (Sillars et al, 1997). However, in the study of Seider et al, (2009) "we"-talk of the spouses was not related to the relationship satisfaction of couples.…”

“…Pennebaker and Lay (2002) have discussed that "we" can variously be a marker of communal perspective and occasionally used as a "royal we" signaling power differences ("We have to clean this mess up"). Although the empirical evidence that "we"-talk has been replicated several times in different labs (Seider et al, 2009;Sillars et al, 1997;Simmons et al, 2005), the limitations of the LIWC-based counting approach is that the linguistic context cannot be taken into account and needs to be investigated with other language analysis methods. Accordingly, on one hand higher use of "we"-talk by male participants might mirror the de-escalation behavior of male partners in previous findings by applying a communal perspective over the discussion (Carstensen, 1995).…”

“…Lifespan literature suggests age differences in intimate relationships (Carstensen et al, 1995;Lang & Carstensen, 1994;Levenson et al, 1993) and use of personal pronouns (Pennebaker & Stone, 2003;Seider et al, 2009). Accordingly, age group differences were tested and it was analyzed whether the observed patterns of change in use of "I", "you" and "we"-talk during conflict would differ between age groups.…”

“…More specifically, in couple conflict conversations, so far no gender differences have been observed (Sillars et al, 1997;Williams-Baucom et al, 2010), except more use of "you" in women in one study (Seider et al, 2009). …”

“…"We"-talk in couples was related to higher commitment (Agnew, Van Lange, Rusbult, & Langston, 1998), positive changes of symptoms in patients with heart failure (Rohrbaugh, Mehl, Shoham, Reilly, & Ewy, 2008), better health related behavior in patients with problematic alcohol use (Rentscher et al, 2015) and in smokers with lung problems (Rohrbaugh, Shoham, Skoyen, Jensen, & Mehl, 2012), better dyadic adjustment in couples (Robbins, Mehl, Smith, & Weihs 2013), and more positive solutions when discussing the top issue facing their relationship (Simmons et al, 2005). "We"-talk has been studied in conflict situations and found to be related to less negative emotion in middle-aged and old couples (Seider, Hirschberger, Nelson, & Levenson, 2009) and it was related to high relationship satisfaction in couples (Sillars et al, 1997). However, in the study of Seider et al, (2009) "we"-talk of the spouses was not related to the relationship satisfaction of couples.…”