Faculty Collaboration Database

Asymmetric partner pronoun use and demand-withdraw interaction in couples coping with health problems. J Fam Psychol 2013 Oct;27(5):691-701

Date

10/09/2013

Pubmed ID

24098961

Pubmed Central ID

PMC4017621

DOI

10.1037/a0034184

Scopus ID

2-s2.0-84887523133 (requires institutional sign-in at Scopus site)   27 Citations

Abstract

Recent research links first-person plural pronoun use (we-talk) by individual romantic partners to adaptive relationship functioning and individual health outcomes. To examine a possible boundary condition of adaptive we-talk in couples coping with health problems, we correlated asymmetric couple-level we/I-ratios (more we-talk relative to I-talk by the spouse than the patient) with a concurrent pattern of directional demand-withdraw (D-W) interaction in which the spouse demands change while the patient withdraws. Couples in which a partner who abused alcohol (n = 65), smoked cigarettes despite having heart or lung disease (n = 24), or had congestive heart failure (n = 58) discussed a health-related disagreement during a video-recorded interaction task. Transcripts of these conversations provided measures of pronoun use for each partner, and trained observers coded D-W patterns from the recordings. As expected, partner asymmetry in we/I-ratio scores predicted directional demand-withdraw, such that spouses who used more we-talk (relative to I-talk) than patients tended to assume the demand role in concurrent D-W interaction. Asymmetric I-talk rather than we-talk accounted for this association, and asymmetric you-talk contributed independently as well. In contrast to previous studies of we-talk by individual partners, the present results identify dyad-level pronoun patterns that clearly do not mark beneficent processes: asymmetric partner we/I-ratios and you-talk reflect problematic demand-withdraw interaction.

Author List

Rentscher KE, Rohrbaugh MJ, Shoham V, Mehl MR

Author

Kelly E. Rentscher PhD Assistant Professor in the Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine department at Medical College of Wisconsin

MESH terms used to index this publication - Major topics in bold

Adaptation, Psychological
Adult
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
Alcoholism
Female
Health Status
Heart Failure
Humans
Interpersonal Relations
Male
Middle Aged
Psycholinguistics
Smoking
Spouses
Verbal Behavior
Young Adult