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| The Role of Defensive Pessimism and Thinking Style in Marital Conflict Resolution |
| SONG Li-li, LI Hao, HOU Yu-bo |
| School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, Peking University |
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Abstract Defensive pessimism refers to the tendency of setting low expectations and think over all the possible consequences regardless past successful experience. Prior research on defensive pessimism is limited within the area of achievements such as learning, nevertheless, its role in marital conflict resolution has been rarely investigated. In current research, we investigated whether defensive pessimism, a useful cognitive strategy in the achievement area, can be applied to marital conflict resolution. We recruited 319 pairs of couples across China and left 203 effective responses. Results show：（1） husband and wife’s defensive pessimism negatively predicted marital conflict resolution. Specially, negative thinking and anxiety negatively predicted their own conflict resolution while reflectivity was unrelated to conflict resolution. （2）Holistic thinking style mediated the relationship between defensive pessimism and conflict resolution. Specifically, the couple’s anxiety negatively predicted their own conflict resolution via contradiction thinking. In addition, wife’s negative thinking predicted her own conflict resolution through contradiction and connection thinking. Our study contributes to the literature of defensive pessimism by examining its role in marital conflict resolution. Meanwhile, the critical role of thinking style is emphasized. Our study also has practical implications for couples to better solve marital conflict, thus leading to sound marital quality.
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Published: 10 February 2020
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| [1] |
. [J]. 应用心理学, 2016, 22(3): 227-234. |
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