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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2022 Jun 1.
Published in final edited form as: J Fam Psychol. 2020 Sep 28;35(4):534–545. doi: 10.1037/fam0000802

A replication and extension of the interpersonal process model of demand/withdraw behavior: Incorporating subjective emotional experience

Karena Leo 1, Alexander O Crenshaw 1, Jasara N Hogan 1, Stacia V Bourne 1, Katherine J W Baucom 1, Brian R W Baucom 1
PMCID: PMC8004543  NIHMSID: NIHMS1668796  PMID: 32986456

Abstract

The demand/withdraw (D/W) interaction pattern is a maladaptive cycle of behavior that is associated with a wide range of deleterious individual and relational outcomes. Partners’ emotional responding during couple conflict has long been theorized to play a central role in the occurrence of D/W. The interpersonal process model of D/W behavior suggests that each partner’s emotional responses are associated with their own as well as the other partner’s behavior in the D/W cycle and that the nature of these associations varies across partners. A prior test of the interpersonal process model provided support for sex and role specific associations between vocal emotional expression and demanding and withdrawing behaviors. The current study expands the conceptual frame of the interpersonal process model by incorporating subjective emotional experience. Hypothesized associations between subjective emotional experience, emotional expression, and role-specific demanding and withdrawing behaviors are tested in a sample of 59 couples using an Actor-Partner Interdependence Model. Results reveal that spouses experience and express non-significantly different levels of negative affect but strongly differ in how the experience and expression of those emotions are related to demanding and withdrawing behaviors. High levels of women’s demanding behavior were associated with the combination of experiencing and expressing high levels of negative affect, while high levels of men’s withdrawing behavior were associated with experiencing high levels of negative affect but expressing low levels of negative affect. Implications of results for understanding emotional processes in maladaptive cycles and for clinical practice are discussed.

Keywords: Couples, demand/withdraw, affective expression, affective experience, conflict

Introduction

The demand/withdraw (D/W) interaction pattern is a commonly occurring pattern of coercive behavior in distressed relationships that is associated with a wide range of negative outcomes, including higher rates of relationship dissolution and intimate partner violence as well as poorer physical and mental health well-being (e.g., Eldridge & Christensen, 2002; Eldridge et al., 2007; Patterson, 1982; Schrodt, Witt, & Shimkowski, 2013). Conceptual models theorize that emotional responding plays a central role in the occurrence of demanding and withdrawing behaviors during couple conflict. However, results of existing studies are inconsistent, and the role of emotional responding in the D/W interaction pattern remains unclear. The current study expands on the interpersonal process model of D/W behavior (Baucom et al., 2015) by incorporating subjective emotional experience in testing partner-specific associations between emotional responding and demanding and withdrawing behaviors in a sample of 59 community couples.

Emotional responding and the D/W interaction pattern

The D/W interaction pattern is one of the most destructive forms of coercive communication behavior that occurs during couple conflict. It is defined as an asymmetric cycle of behavior in which one person nags, criticizes, and places blame (demands) in order to obtain a change in the relationship while the other person tries to avoid the topic, distracts from the conversation, or ends the conversation to maintain the status quo (withdraws; Baucom & Atkins, 2012)1. The D/W interaction pattern is common and pervasive in both heterosexual and same-sex couples (Baucom, McFarland, & Christensen, 2010), as well as across different cultures and multiple countries (Christensen, Eldridge, Catta-Preta, Lim, & Santagata, 2006).

Owing to the widespread prevalence and maladaptive nature of the D/W interaction pattern, particularly amongst treatment seeking couples (Wile, 2013), numerous and sustained efforts have been made to identify factors associated with heightened levels of demanding and withdrawing behaviors (see Eldridge & Baucom, 2012 for a review). One enduring line of thought and inquiry focuses on the role of partners’ emotional responses during couple conflict. Early studies examining emotional responding and demanding and withdrawing behaviors were largely rooted in Gottman and Levenson’s (1988) escape-conditioning model. The escape-conditioning model theorizes that, in heterosexual relationships, D/W is driven by men experiencing higher levels of aversive arousal during couple conflict than women and men therefore withdrawing to reduce their aversive arousal. The hypothesis that individuals who withdraw at higher levels than their partners will have emotional responses consistent with greater negative emotional activation than their partners has been tested using several components of emotional responding, including peripheral physiology, subjective report of negative affect, and expression of negative affect. One study found that partners who withdraw have higher systolic blood pressure than partners who demand (Denton et al., 2001), but this finding was not replicated in other studies examining blood pressure indices as well as several other measures of stress-related physiological activity (e.g., skin conductance and endocrine functioning, including stress and other related hormones; Kiecolt-Glaser et al., 1996; Vogel et al., 2008). Additionally, other studies have found evidence of the opposite pattern, with partners who demand having greater activity in several physiological systems (e.g., wives whose husbands are more likely to show increased withdrawing behaviors in response to higher levels of demanding behaviors show increased elevation in cortisol and norepinephrine levels; Kiecolt-Glaser et al., 1996) or expressing higher levels of arousal in their voice (e.g., Baucom et al., 2011) than partners who withdraw.

The interpersonal process model of D/W behavior

The inconsistent pattern of findings may be explained using the interpersonal process model of D/W behavior, which theorizes that couple conflict is highly distressing for both partners and that partners often have different and incompatible needs associated with their distress (Baucom et al., 2015). Specifically, the interpersonal model suggests that links between emotional responses and demanding and withdrawing behaviors may be better conceptualized as being associated with competing emotional needs of the two partners rather than as individual differences in the overall strength of the two partners’ responses (Baucom et al., 2015). Partners who are pursuing change in a conflict conversation are likely to express high levels of negative affect themselves and to enact even higher levels of demanding behavior when the other partner does not also express high levels of negative affect. The reason this pattern is thought to emerge is that low levels of expressed negative affect on the part of a withdrawing partner are likely to be perceived as a lack of engagement in the conversation and/or an indication that the withdrawing partner is not taking the conversation seriously. In contrast, the partners who are avoiding change in that conversation are likely to express low levels of negative affect and to enact even higher levels of withdrawing behaviors when demanding partners express high levels of negative emotion. It is possible that this pattern may reflect an attempt to lower the emotional intensity of the conversation on the part of the withdrawing partner.

An initial test of this model found support for the theorized circular pattern of associations between emotional expression and demanding and withdrawing behaviors within and across partners (Baucom et al., 2015). Higher levels of women’s demanding behavior were significantly associated with higher levels of women’s vocally encoded emotional arousal and with lower levels of men’s vocally encoded emotional arousal. Additionally, higher levels of men’s withdrawing behavior were significantly associated with higher levels of women’s vocally encoded arousal.

These findings provide initial support for the interpersonal process model of D/W behavior as it was originally advanced. However, these findings are also limited in several regards and suggest a need for replication as well as incorporation of additional specificity in the interpersonal process model itself. First, vocally encoded emotional arousal, the measure of emotional expression used in Baucom and colleagues’ (2015) initial test of the interpersonal process model, is widely accepted to be a measure of emotional intensity but not to convey information about emotional valence (i.e., emotional positivity versus negativity) or specific emotional states (e.g., Russell, Bachorowski, & Fernandez-Dols, 2003). Baucom and colleagues (2015) suggest that it is likely that the vocally encoded emotional arousal in their study co-occurred with other indicators of negative emotional expression (e.g., facial expressions, verbal content, etc.) but did not test this possibility. Second, a measure of subjective emotional experience was not included in Baucom and colleagues (2015). Though higher levels of vocally encoded emotional arousal are moderately correlated with higher levels of subjective negative experience during couple conflict (e.g., Weusthoff, Baucom, & Hahlweg, 2013), it is unknown whether similar patterns of association exist between vocally encoded emotional arousal and demanding and withdrawing behaviors and subjective emotional experiences and demanding and withdrawing behaviors.

Baucom and colleagues (2015) did not include a measure of emotional experience in their test of the interpersonal process model because, as originally proposed, the interpersonal process model of D/W behavior did not explicitly describe how each partner’s emotional experience and emotional expression are linked to their own and the other partner’s demanding and withdrawing behaviors. Rather, the focus of the original model tested aspects of emotional responding that were visible to both partners – their emotional expressions. However, the conclusions that Baucom and colleagues (2015) drew from their findings suggested a complex interplay between emotional expression, emotional experience, and D/W that would require future testing. First, they suggested that demanding partners perceive low levels of expressed negative affect by the withdrawing partner as a lack of engagement, which in turn is associated with higher levels of their own demanding behavior. Second, they suggested that, when partners who demand express higher negative affect, withdrawing partners withdraw even more to lower the emotional intensity of the conversation. These interpretations imply a number of additional associations between these variables. They suggest that the strongest levels of demanding and withdrawing behaviors are most likely to occur within the context of emotional polarization between the two partners. Emotional polarization occurs when both partners experience similar levels of negative affect internally but express different levels of outwardly observable negative affect. Individuals who demand are likely to engage in higher levels of demanding behavior when their partners express lower levels of negative affect within the context of experiencing high levels of negative affect. Likewise, individuals who withdraw are likely to withdraw at higher levels when their partners express high levels of negative affect within the context of experiencing high levels of negative affect. These patterns likely reflect the competing emotional needs of the two partners and contribute to misunderstanding between partners and exacerbation of the D/W cycle.

Current study

The current study addresses this expanded version of the interpersonal process model of D/W using a path model that incorporates elements of the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model (Kenny, Kashy, & Cook, 2007) estimated using cluster adjusted structural equation modeling.

First, regarding between-spouse associations in emotional experience, we hypothesize that subjective emotional experience will not significantly differ between spouses, and that spouses’ subjective emotional experiences will be positively associated. Next, regarding between-spouse associations in emotional expression, we hypothesize that spouses’ level of negative emotional expression will be positively associated. Third, regarding the within- and between- spouse associations in emotional experience and expression, we hypothesize that each spouse’s negative affective experience will be positively associated with their own level of negative affective expression as well as their spouse’s level of negative affective expression.

The next set of hypotheses focus on the interactive effects of emotional responding and D/W: we hypothesize that subjective emotional experience will interact with emotional expression to predict demanding and withdrawing behaviors, and that these associations will vary across the two spouses. Between spouses, higher levels of wives’ demanding behavior will be associated with lower levels of husbands’ expressed negative emotion combined with higher levels of husbands’ experienced negative emotion. Likewise, higher levels of husbands’ withdrawing behavior will be associated with higher levels of wives’ experienced and expressed negative emotion. Within spouses, higher levels of demanding behavior will be associated with higher levels of wives’ experienced negative affect combined with higher levels of wives’ expressed negative emotion. Higher levels of husbands’ withdrawing behavior will be associated with lower levels of husbands’ expressed negative emotion combined with higher levels of husbands’ experienced negative emotion.

Finally, we also include wives’ withdrawing behavior, husbands’ demanding behavior, and exploratory pathways between these behaviors and interactions between both spouses’ subjective emotional experiences and their own emotional expressions in our test of hypothesized pathways. We include these exploratory paths to fully partial hypothesized associations and to further explore the D/W cycle. Figure 1 provides a visual representation of all hypothesized and exploratory paths tested.

Figure 1.

Figure 1.

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Path model showing effects (with hypothesized directions) involved in tests of hypothesized models. Paths from affective experience to interactions and covariances between interactions excluded to ease visual presentation.

Method

Participants

Participants (n = 59 couples) are a subset of 60 couples (N = 120) from a larger study of behavior and emotion in romantic relationships. There was one same sex couple in the larger sample of 60 that was excluded from analysis because partners could not be distinguished on the basis of sex. Couples were eligible to participate if they had been married for at least 1 year in duration, spoke fluent English, and were generally physically healthy. Couples were excluded if they endorsed any of selected items from the physical assault scales of the Revised Conflict Tactics Scale (e.g., beaten up your partner, threatened to use a knife or gun against him/her, or actually used a knife or gun against him/her; slapped, kicked, bitten, or hit your partner; thrown something at your partner on 6 or more occasions in the past year; Has your partner done any of these things to you?; Straus, Hamby, Boney-McCoy, & Sugarman, 1996).

Couples were demographically representative of the greater Salt Lake City major metropolitan area. The average age of participants was 29.6 years old (SD = 7.65 years). Spouses identified as 70.8% Caucasian, 14.2% Asian, 1.7% African American, and 4.2% Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander; 8.3% of participants identified as Hispanic. 9.2% of the participants declined to report race or ethnicity. Couples had been married for an average of 6.77 years (SD = 8.13 years). The average relationship satisfaction was M = 133.5 (SD = 23.7) as measured by the CSI-32 (Funk & Rogge, 2007), with 91.5% of participants reporting relationship satisfaction above the clinical distress cutoff score of 104.5 (Funk & Rogge, 2007) while 8.5% of participants were below the clinical cutoff. The majority of participants were college educated: 60.8% completed college/university, 21.7% finished graduate/professional school, and 17.5% received a high school diploma or equivalent.

Procedure

The current study was approved by the University of Utah Internal Review Board. Eligible couples completed a 3- to 4-hour laboratory assessment, which included application of physiological recording equipment, physiological and acoustic baseline assessments, a battery of self-report questionnaires, and four video-taped interactions including two 10-minute conflict discussions. The topics for the conflict discussions were chosen based on the partners’ answers on the Problem Area Questionnaire (PAQ; Heavey, Christensen, & Malamuth, 1995). Each spouse selected one topic for discussion from the items they had rated as being most highly distressing on the PAQ. Each spouse was encouraged to discuss the item that s/he had rated as being most highly distressing on her/his list; if spouses were not comfortable discussing that item, they were encouraged to discuss the next most highly rated item (and so on) until they were comfortable discussing that topic. The order of the conversations (i.e., husband topic or wife topic being discussed first) was randomized and counterbalanced. Immediately following each discussion, spouses completed a post-discussion form that included assessment of their emotional experience during the just completed conversation. All procedures were IRB approved. Analyses in the current study use data obtained for the two, ten-minute conflict discussions. Videos for three conflict conversations were lost due to technical problems; the final analytic sample included 115 conflict conversations had by 59 couples.

Measures

Subjective affective experience.

The Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM; Bradley & Lang, 1994) is a visual analogue scale used to measure three aspects of participants’ emotional experiences: valence, arousal, and dominance (Bradley & Lang, 1994). The SAM has a well-documented ability to reliably and specifically capture the internal experience of individuals (e.g., Bradley & Lang, 1994). Participants were given the SAM after they completed each discussion and asked to indicate their emotional experience using the visual anchors for each of the three domains of emotional experience (Bradley & Lang, 1994). Tests of hypotheses in the current study only analyze the valence scale of the SAM because that scale indexes the aspect of emotional experience (i.e., subjective negativity) thought to be most closely related to demand/withdraw behavior in the interpersonal process model of D/W (Baucom et al., 2015). Furthermore, empirical evidence demonstrates that subjective ratings of emotional experience during social contexts are based more strongly on valence than on arousal (e.g., Barrett, 1998). The valence scale was measured in inches from the far left side of the response line and ranges from 0 (very positive) to 3.25” (neutral) to 6.5” (very negative).

Affective expression.

The Relational Affective Topography System (RATS) was developed to measure couples’ affective expressions during the conflict interactions for this study. The RATS is an observational coding system developed to measure different types of affective expressions, namely positive, negative, and flat emotions (e.g., indifference). The positive emotions are further specified into positive joining (e.g., warmth) and positive individuating (e.g., happiness), while the negative emotions are separated into hard negative (e.g., anger) and soft negative (e.g., vulnerability). The RATS is conceptually rooted in Jacobson and Christensen’s (1996) description of affective responding during couple conflict and builds on the empirical work of Sanford (2007) in developing self-report and naïve observational measurements of these constructs. Additional discussion of the conceptual basis for the RATS is presented in (Leo, Leifker, Baucom, & Baucom, 2019).

A team of five undergraduate research assistants (RAs) watched all recorded conversations. During a given viewing, an RA would generate RATS code for one of the two spouses. All videos were eventually watched twice by all RATS coders, once to generate a rating for each spouse. The order of which spouse was rated first for a given recording was randomized and counterbalanced. Additionally, the order in which couples were coded was randomized using identification numbers generated for the study. When generating RATS codes, RAs first indicated whether there was positive, negative, and/or flat affect during the 10-minute conflict interaction and then rated the extent to which they observed specific emotions on a scale from 0 (no emotion present) to 7 (high levels of emotion present) from a list of specific emotions falling under each category (see the online supplemental material for additional information). Non-zero ratings of specific emotions within a superordinate category (i.e., positive, negative, and flat) were averaged to create a score for each spouse on each category during each conversation; if no emotions in a given category were observed, that category was assigned a value of 0. Coders went through at least 4 weeks of training before starting the project and attended weekly coding meetings for the duration of the project to reduce discrepancies among coders and increase the reliabilities of the ratings. Only negative expressed affect was used in study analyses because hypotheses did not extend to positive or flat affects. To measure interrater reliability for negative affect, Cronbach’s alpha was run on the six coders’ ratings for all recordings, which was found to be excellent (α = 0.90).

Demand/withdraw behavior.

The Asymmetric Behavior Coding System (ABCS) was developed for this study to measure demanding behaviors (blame, pressure for change, contempt, domineering, controlling the conversation, belligerence), withdrawing behaviors (withdraw, avoidance, stonewalling, submit), positive joining behaviors (e.g., validation, collaboration), and positive distancing behaviors (e.g., accommodation, tough love). The ABCS was developed in parallel with the RATS to maintain conceptual consistency across the two systems and to address psychometric limitations of existing observational coding systems that measure similar behavioral constructs, namely low reliability and a limited range of behaviors. Similar to the RATS, the ABCS measures communication behavior along two dimensions, valence (positive vs. negative) and communality (approach vs. avoidance). These dimensions were selected on theoretical grounds (see Leo et al., 2019 for additional discussion) as well as to allow for comparisons with previous studies that assessed similar constructs using observational coding methods (see Heyman, 2001 for caveats regarding comparability of scales in observational coding systems with similar labels).

The items selected and operational definitions included in the ABCS manual (presented in the online supplemental material) emphasized only the behavioral elements of partners’ communication and excluded affective elements of partners’ communication captured by the RATS. This decision was made to reduce spurious associations between the two systems driven by potential item-content overlap and to allow for greater specificity in testing behavioral and affective phenomenon during couple interactions. Items were largely taken from two existing observational coding systems, the Couples Interaction Rating System-Revised (CIRS-2; Heavey, Gill, & Christensen, 2002) and the Specific Affect Coding System (SPAFF; Coan & Gottman, 2007). We drew on these two systems because they have been frequently used in observational research on couples in general and with application to D/W in specific. Minor modifications were made to the original item definitions to remove affective cues included in both the CIRS-2 and SPAFF manuals.

Though the ABCS contains SPAFF items, coders were not SPAFF certified or trained using SPAFF materials. We made this decision to further reduce the possibility of spurious correlations between ABCS and RATS data because SPAFF training and certification involves heavy consideration of affective cues captured by the RATS in this study. Rather, coders were trained in the operational definitions of each behavior provided in the ABCS coding manual using recordings of couple conflicts collected from several existing studies of couples conducted by the last author that represent a wide range of couple functioning and topic selection. Finally, ABCS and RATS coders were trained on the same set of recordings by the first and final authors during separate project meetings. This training approach allowed the coding team leaders to specify to each team which cues could and could not be considered in each coding system thereby further reducing the possibility of spurious associations across coding systems.

ABCS codes were generated for each item, spouse, and conversation by each ABCS coder using the same procedure described for generating RATS data. A team of four undergraduate RAs underwent at least 4 weeks of training before starting the project. Coders rated the behavior on a scale from 1 to 7, with 1 signifying the absence of the behavior and 7 indicating the extreme form of the behavior. As with RATS coders, weekly coding meetings were held throughout the project to increase interrater reliability and reduce rating discrepancies among coders.

Negative ABCS items were specifically selected to index demanding behaviors (7 items: blame, pressure for change, threats, domineering, controlling the conversation, belligerence, and contempt) and withdrawing behaviors (7 items: emotional protests, withdraws, avoidance, discussion [reverse scored], defensiveness, stonewalling and submit). Because the ABCS was created for the current study, we conducted an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to determine the system’s factor structure using principal axis factoring with an oblique rotation (direct oblimin with delta = 0). The number of factors was determined by visual inspection of the scree plot, consideration of the magnitude of the Eigenvalues, and conceptual consistency with the intent of the coding system. A clear elbow in the scree plot emerged at three factors, and all three factors had Eigenvalues greater than 1. The first factor that emerged was demanding (5 items: blame, pressures for change, domineering, belligerence, and contempt), the second was withdrawing (4 items: withdraws, avoidance, stonewalling, and submit), and the third was a general negative factor that we term argumentativeness (2 items: emotional protests and defensiveness). All of the items that loaded onto the demanding and withdrawing factors had been selected a priori to index those respective factors. The consistency between the design of the ABCS system and the results of the EFA combine to lend increased confidence that the coding system measured what is was designed to measure. Two items, threats and discussion, did not load onto any of the factor. The threats item had very little variance, likely due to this study recruiting couples from the community rather than from more severe populations. Discussion also did not load onto any of the three factors, likely due to the addition of more items to assess withdrawing behavior. Using this factor structure, inter-rater reliabilities for demanding behaviors were α = 0.87 and withdrawing behaviors were α = 0.89; internal reliabilities of the scales were α = 0.89 for demanding behaviors and α = 0.77 for withdrawing behaviors.

Statistical Analyses

A path model incorporating features of the APIM (APIM; Kenny, Kashy, & Cook, 2007) was used to test the model presented in Figure 1. This single cluster adjusted structural equation model was estimated using data from both conflict conversations using the Type=Complex and robust maximum likelihood estimation options in MPlus (Múthen & Múthen, 1998–2011). This cluster adjusted model generates estimates that are conceptually equivalent to total effects in standard multilevel models. These estimates reflect the overall fixed effect association between predictors while adjusting the standard error of estimates for non-independence of observations (i.e., conversations nested within couples).

Results

Descriptive statistics

Table 1 presents correlations and descriptive statistics for all study variables. Consistent with expectations, significant positive correlations emerged between spouses’ self-reports of experienced negative affect (r = 0.47) and spouses’ expressions of negative affect (r = 0.44). Significant positive correlations also emerged between each spouse’s self-report of experienced negative affect and their own expressed negative affect: r = 0.35 for husbands’ experienced and expressed negative affect, and r = 0.18 for wives’ experienced and expressed negative affect. In addition, significant positive correlations also emerged between each spouse’s self-report of experienced negative affect and the other spouse’s expressed negative affect (r = 0.29 for husbands’ experienced negative affect and wives’ expressed negative affect, r = 0.42 for wives’ experienced negative affect and husbands’ expressed negative affect). Finally, significant positive correlations emerged between wife demand and husband withdraw (r = 0.26) and husband demand and wife withdraw (r = 0.29). Contrary to expectations, significant positive correlations emerged between wife demanding and withdrawing behaviors (r = 0.27) and wife and husband demanding behaviors (r = 0.41).

Table 1.

Means, standards deviations, and correlations for demand/withdraw, emotional experience, and emotional expression.

Variables M (SD) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1. Husband Demand 1.72 (0.43) -
2. Husband Withdraw 1.41 (0.25) 0.10 -
3. Husband Valence 1.90 (1.32) 0.16 −0.02 -
4. Husband Negative Affect 3.14 (3.10) 0.53*** 0.14 0.39*** -
5. Wife Demand 1.81 (0.52) 0.41*** 0.26** 0.22* 0.46*** -
6. Wife Withdraw 1.34 (0.23) 0.29** −0.05 0.21* 0.21* 0.27** -
7. Wife Valence 2.02 (1.39) 0.17 0.13 0.47*** 0.38*** 0.39*** 0.31** -
8. Wife Negative Affect 4.01 (3.64) 0.44*** 0.11 0.30** 0.41*** 0.33*** 0.14 0.18
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Note.

N = 118.

*

p < .05.

**

p < .01.

***

p < .001.

A value of 3.25 corresponds to neutral on the SAM; values greater than that indicate negative affect and values less than that indicate positive affect. Cross-partner associations are in cells that are shaded in light gray

Associations between husband and wife emotional responding and husband and wife demanding and withdrawing behavior

Table 2 presents full results for all paths of the APIM while Figure 2 presents only significant paths to ease visual presentation. We present results for associations between each component of the model moving from left to right in Figure 1 (i.e., emotional experience, emotional expression, and interaction terms for emotional experience and expression) in sequence based on simultaneous estimation of these effects.

Table 2.

Full APIM results.

Variables B SE B B SE B
Husband’s negative expressions Wife’s negative expressions
Husband’s neg. affective experience 0.13 0.07 0.21* 0.08
Wife’s neg. affective experience 0.20** 0.07 0.05 0.07
Husband’s demanding Wife’s withdrawing
Husband’s neg. expressions 0.27*** 0.06 0.07* 0.03
Wife’s neg. expressions 0.08* 0.04 0.01 0.02
H neg. affective experience × express. 0.01 0.04 −0.02 0.02
W neg. affective experience × express. −0.01 0.03 0.02 0.01
Wife’s demanding Husband’s withdrawing
Husband’s neg. expressions 0.33*** 0.07 0.06 0.03
Wife’s neg. expressions 0.04 0.04 0.01 0.02
H neg. affective experience × express. −0.10** 0.04 −0.04** 0.01
W neg. affective experience × express. 0.07* 0.03 0.02* 0.01
Covariances
Husband’s demanding Wife’s demanding
Wife’s demanding behaviors 0.02 0.02 --- ---
Husband’s withdrawing behaviors −0.00 0.01 0.02 0.01
Wife’s withdrawing behaviors 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01
Husband’s withdrawing
Wife’s withdrawing behaviors −0.01 0.01
Husband’s negative affective experience
Wife’s neg. affective experience 0.87*** 0.19
Husband’s negative expressions
Wife’s neg. expressions 0.29** 0.08
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Note. χ2(12) = 16.13, p = 0.19, RMSEA = 0.054, CFI = 0.98, TFI = 0.92, SRMR = 0.04;

*

p < .05,

**

p < .01,

***

p < .001

Figure 2.

Figure 2.

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APIM results with only significant pathways included.

Note. Dashed lines indicate significant conditional main effects that are qualified by significant interactions.

Between-spouse associations in emotional experience.

Consistent with hypotheses, a significant, positive correlation emerged between husband and wife negative emotional experience (cov = 0.87, p < .001). Additionally, results of a separately estimated multilevel model revealed non-significant differences in spouses’ level of subjective negative affect (B = −0.80, p = 0.761).

Between-spouse associations in emotional expression.

Consistent with hypotheses, a significant, positive correlation also emerged between husband and wife expression of negative affect (cov = 0.29, p < 0.001).

Within- and between-spouse associations in emotional experience and expression.

Contrary to hypotheses, paths from each spouse’s experienced negative affect to their own expressed negative affect emerged as non-significant for both husbands and wives (ps = 0.06, 0.44 respectively). Exploratory paths between each spouse’s experienced negative affect and the other spouse’s expression of negative affect emerged as positive and significant for both spouses (B = 0.20, p = 0.003, B = 0.21, p = 0.012, for husbands and wives respectively).

Interactive effects of emotional responding and D/W.

Beginning with wife demanding behavior, significant interactions emerged in the hypothesized directions for interactions between wives’ experienced and expressed affect and between husbands’ experienced and expressed affect. Wives demanded at significantly higher levels when they expressed high levels of negative affect in combination with experiencing high levels of negative affect and when husbands expressed low levels of negative affect in combination with experiencing high levels of negative affect.

Turning to husband withdrawing behavior, significant interactions also emerged in the hypothesized directions for interactions between husbands’ experienced and expressed affect and between wives’ experienced and expressed affect. As hypothesized, both of these effects were in the same direction of the association involving the same interaction term and wife demanding behavior. Husbands withdrew at significantly higher levels when wives expressed high levels of negative affect in combination with high levels of experienced negative affect and when husbands expressed lower levels of negative affect in combination with experiencing high levels of negative affect. Considered jointly, this set of paths suggests that high levels of wife demand/husband withdraw occur when wives express high levels of negative affect within the context of experiencing high levels of negative affect and when husbands express low levels of negative affect within the context of experiencing high levels of negative affect. No other significant paths emerged for these behaviors that were not qualified by these significant interactions.

A consistent pattern of associations also emerged for the exploratory paths between each spouse’s expression of negative affect, husband demand, and wife withdraw. Higher levels of both spouses’ behaviors were associated with the other spouse expressing higher levels of negative affect. Higher levels of husbands’ demanding behavior were significantly associated with higher levels of negative affect expressed by wives; likewise, higher levels of wives’ withdrawing behavior were positively and significantly associated with higher levels of negative affect expressed by husbands. Non-significant associations emerged for the interactive effects of husband experience and expression of negative affect and wife experience and expression of negative affect on husband demand or wife withdraw.

Discussion

The current study proposed an expansion of the interpersonal process model of the demand/withdraw (D/W) interaction pattern (Baucom et al., 2015) by incorporating spouses’ subjective emotional experience and tested the hypothesized model using a more holistic measurement of emotional expression than in previous work. Results for wife demanding behavior and husband withdrawing behavior were consistent with hypotheses, providing support for the expansion of the interpersonal process model of D/W. Significant associations also emerged for exploratory paths involving husband demanding behavior and wife withdrawing behavior. The nature of these effects was different than those that emerged for wife demanding behavior and husband withdrawing behavior (i.e., main effects and interactive effects, respectively). Below we consider the implications of these findings for understanding the D/W interaction cycle and for clinical practice.

Wife demand/husband withdraw

The significant associations that emerged for wife demanding behavior and husband withdrawing behavior are consistent with the proposed expansion of the interpersonal process model of D/W. Women demanded at higher levels and men withdrew at higher levels when women experienced and expressed high levels of negative affect and men experienced high but expressed low levels of negative affect. It is particularly informative to consider these findings in combination with the effects that emerged within- and between-spouses affect experiences and levels of expression. There were non-significant differences in spouses’ experiences of negative affect, spouses’ experience of negative affect were positively correlated with one another, and spouses’ expressions of negative affect were positively correlated with one another. Furthermore, each spouse’s experience of negative affect was positively and significantly associated with the other spouse’s level of expressed negative affect but not with their own expression of negative affect.

Considering these findings jointly suggests that though spouses have similar emotional experiences, there is a disconnect between what they feel and what they express. Spouses are sensitive to what their partner expresses, and their own expression of negative affect is more strongly tied to their partner’s emotional expression than to their own emotional experience. These disconnects between each spouse’s emotional expression and emotional experience are additionally associated with stronger engagement in wife demanding and husband withdrawing behavior. This process is the embodiment of the concept of emotional polarization. Despite feeling similarly, spouses do not convey their experiences but rather appear to respond to the emotional expressions of their partners, which are themselves not consistent with how the other partner is feeling. This process does not give spouses an opportunity to understand how the other person is actually feeling and likely contributes to inaccurate perceptions of the other’s experience. Though this possibility is consistent with the empathic accuracy literature in general (e.g., Crenshaw et al., 2019), the current study did not include a test of spouses’ perceptions of one another’s emotional experiences during these conversations, so the role of interpersonal affective perception is speculative at present; it would be valuable for future research to directly test this question.

Wife withdraw/husband demand

In contrast to the within- and between-partner associations that emerged for interactions between each spouse’s emotional experience and expression, wife demand, and husband withdraw, wife withdrawing behavior and husband demanding behavior were both associated with the other spouse’s emotional expression but not with each spouse’s own emotional expression. For both wife withdrawing behavior and husband demanding behavior, higher levels of each behavior were significantly associated with higher levels of negative affect expressed by the other spouse. These associations were not hypothesized a priori and were included in the model in an exploratory manner.

The bivariate correlations between both spouses’ demanding and withdrawing behaviors presented in Table 1 provide important context for interpreting these exploratory findings. Though one spouse tends to assume a demanding role and the other tends to assume a withdrawing role when a couple engages in the D/W pattern, it is not the case that a demanding spouse does not also engage in some level of withdrawing behavior nor vice versa for a withdrawing spouse. Rather, the unexpected, positive correlations that emerged between wife demand and wife withdraw and husband demand and wife demand suggest that more contentious couple conflict involves higher levels of demand and withdraw behaviors by both spouses relative to that observed in less contentious conversations. It is possible that when spouses who tend to assume the withdrawer role engage in demanding behavior, doing so may reflect assertive forms of redirecting blame and assigning responsibility for creating change to the spouse who was engaging in demanding behavior. Likewise, withdrawing behavior exhibited by spouses who are more likely to demand may reflect attempts to resist taking responsibility for creating change and accepting responsibility for the topic being discussed. If true, it may be that these back and forth exchanges also include strong negative affective responses to the other spouse’s behavior.

Two limitations of the current study prevent examination of these possibilities. First, though consistent with the current gold standard, the methods used in the current study prevented confident determination of spouses’ role in the D/W cycle (i.e., whether they are more likely to demand vs. withdraw). Elicitation of being in a demanding vs. withdrawing role is well accepted to be closely linked to which spouse selected the topic of the conversation being discussed (e.g., Baucom et al., 2010; Christensen & Heavey, 1990). The current gold standard method for determining each spouse’s topic is to rank order the responses on a questionnaire assessing areas with which they are concerned/discontent in the relationship. The current study used this method. Very recent methodological work (Crenshaw et al., in press) identifies a flaw in this method that results in it not being able to guarantee that the “husband’s topic” is necessarily of greater concern to husbands than it is to wives and vice versa for the “wife’s topic.” Post-hoc examination of this possibility in the current sample found that 24% (28/118) of conversations were rated as more concerning by the spouse not determining the topic than by the spouse selecting it in an equal number of husband (14) and wife (14) selected topics. An alternative method for determining demanding vs. withdrawing roles for spouses has been to compare the level of wife demand/husband withdraw to that of husband demand/wife withdraw. Wife demand/husband withdraw occurred at a higher level than husband demand/wife withdraw in 63% (74/118) of conversations, and results of a repeated measures ANOVA revealed that, on average, wife demand/husband withdraw occurred at significantly higher levels than husband demand/wife withdraw (p = 0.013). However, the two dyadic behavioral patterns differed by .33 ABCS points or fewer in 40% (47/118) of conversations. This collection of results suggests that even though the predominant pattern of behavior in these data was one of wife demand/husband withdraw, many conversations did not have a clear demanding spouse or withdrawing spouse. Future research on the interpersonal process model of D/W, and D/W more broadly, would benefit from using recently devised methods for ensuring that each spouse’s topic is more of concern to him/her than the other spouse (Crenshaw et al., in press).

A second element of the current study that prevents examination of these possibilities is that demanding and withdrawing behaviors were measured in the aggregate for the full duration of the conflict conversations. It is unlikely, though not impossible, for spouses to engage in demanding and withdrawing behaviors at the same time. It is more likely that spouses shift back and forth between exhibiting demanding and withdrawing behaviors over time even when exhibiting one type of behavior more than the other on average. It would be valuable for future research to explore this possibility using demanding and withdrawing behaviors measured over shorter segments of a conflict conversation, which would provide the opportunity to test temporal precedence of communication behavior and emotional responding within and between partners.

Gender differences, role differences, or a combination of the two?

Despite these complications, the pattern of findings in the current study is highly similar to that reported in Baucom et al. (2015). In both studies, the only within-spouse associations that emerged between emotional expression and demanding and withdrawing behaviors involved wife demand and husband withdraw. Furthermore, in both studies, husband and wife affective expression were significantly associated with wife demand in opposite directions and wife affective expression was significantly associated with wife demand and husband withdraw in the same direction. Considered jointly, this similar set of results add further support to concluding that D/W is aversive for both spouses and that behavioral manifestation is strongly linked to competing emotional needs of and emotional polarization between spouses.

One unresolved question from both studies is whether the observed associations are indicative of gender differences in heterosexual couples, differences in demanding versus withdrawing roles, or a combination of the two. The results of the current study and Baucom et al. (2015) appear to provide support for interpreting these findings as being indicative of a gender difference in heterosexual couples. It is possible that when couple conflict is most strongly characterized by wife demand/husband withdraw behavior regardless of whose topic is being discussed, spouses also engage in strong emotional polarization. This tendency could be related to well documented gender differences in women desiring more change in heterosexual romantic relationships than men (e.g., Heyman, Hunt-Martorano, Malik, & Slep, 2009), and women doing significantly more emotional work than men in heterosexual romantic relationships (e.g., Umberson, Thomeer, & Lodge, 2015). However, it would be important to directly test the possibility that these findings could also be influenced by other moderators including behavioral role (i.e., whether an individual assumes the demanding vs. withdrawing role) as well as the interaction of gender and behavioral role before this conclusion can be confidently accepted. Doing so would be a valuable direction for future research.

Clinical implications

This collection of findings has strong relevance for clinical intervention in highlighting the importance of conceptualizing the D/W interaction pattern as being strongly linked to emotional responding and as being dyadic, rather than primarily intrapersonal, in nature. The finding that the bivariate correlations between spouses’ demanding and withdrawing behaviors presented in Table 1 are accounted for by the addition of emotional responding variables to the model (p’s > .06 for behavioral covariances in the APIM) suggests that interventions targeting affective expression rather than engagement in conflict are likely to be successful in interrupting and correcting the D/W cycle. For example, interventions may help individuals who withdraw to more directly express the emotions they are experiencing during conflict, which may further increase their engagement and also affect their spouse’s behaviors during conflict. Additionally, since individuals who demand express high levels of negative affect to communicate distress and elicit change, clinicians could work with demanding partners to soften their expressed negativity during conflict to prevent inducing high levels of experienced negativity and withdrawing behaviors from their partners (e.g., Jacobson &Christensen, 1996). Though more recent models of therapy have shifted to focus more on emotions as opposed to behavior, the evidence for the superiority of this approach is not definitive and the results of this study add empirical support for this notion. Furthermore, behavior modification continues to be a major focus for many practitioners of couple-based interventions, and this study provides empirical evidence that attending to emotional responding may be more fruitful for changing and disrupting the D/W interaction pattern. Our findings also suggest that it would be valuable for clinicians to monitor spouses’ behaviors as they work with them to alter their emotional expression. The findings of the current study provide initial evidence that individuals may shift back and forth between demanding and withdrawing behavior in more contentious conversations; for example, for spouses who engage in primarily demanding behaviors, this switch is associated with the other spouse expressing more negative affect. Polarization theory (e.g., Baucom & Atkins, 2012) suggests that demanding and withdrawing behaviors become increasingly entrenched in highly distressed couples over time. As this occurs, their behavioral repertoire narrows and spouses have greater difficulty productively engaging with one another. An important goal of intervening with couples at this stage of polarization is to help couples avoid and disrupt the behavioral shifts (i.e., from demanding to withdrawing or vice versa) during conflict. Perhaps, one way to do this is to help couples become mindful of the behavioral shifts that occur and find a way to stay engaged with one another in conflict resolution without shifting into more polarized behaviors. Clinicians should also be aware that there may be a difference in function for demanding behavior exhibited by individuals who tend to withdraw and for withdrawing behavior shown by partners who primarily assume the demanding role, though more research on this issue is currently needed.

Limitations and future directions

The findings and conclusions of the current study should be considered in light of several limitations in addition to those mentioned above. First, at a conceptual level, clarifying the nature of the associations between emotional experience, emotional expression, and D/W raises the question of whether other aspects of emotional responding, such as peripheral physiology, should be incorporated into the interpersonal process model of D/W behavior. We chose to focus on emotional experience in this manuscript because it has the most direct utility for clinicians at present; however, we do think it would be valuable for future research and theoretical work to incorporate peripheral physiology into the model. The increasing availability of inexpensive, unobtrusive wearables for reliably measuring physiology during couple therapy sessions makes physiology an increasingly realistic source of process-related data for researchers and clinicians (e.g., Deits-Lebehn et al., in press). The availability of theoretical models that incorporate physiology in their conceptualizations of behavioral patterns commonly addressed in couple therapy is an important step in demonstrating the potential clinical utility of physiological devices. Second, the sample size of the current study is relatively small, limiting our tested model’s ability to detect small effects. While power analyses indicate that our sample size is able to detect moderate to large effects (i.e., r ≥ .29, partial η2 ≥ .09), it is not powered to detect small effects. Third, the sample was largely White and highly educated. Replication of the current study’s findings in diverse couples (e.g., same-sex couples, racial minority couples, low SES couples [e.g., Williamson, Altman, Hsueh, & Bradbury, 2016]) will also be necessary to examine whether the findings are generalizable across diverse groups of couples or whether there are unique processes at play with regards to demographics. However, despite these limitations, the current study provides insight into and adds empirical support for the affective processes involved in the D/W interaction that clarify the dyadic nature of the behavioral and emotional cycles involved.

Supplementary Material

supplement

Acknowledgments

The findings of the manuscript were presented in brief orally at the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT) and available in ProQuest as part of the first author’s master thesis. We would like to thank the research participants as well as the CLOSE Lab research team for their contributions to the study.

Footnotes

1

The degree to which partners take on demanding versus withdrawing roles varies across conversations and is fluid across interaction contexts (e.g., Eldridge, Sevier, Jones, Atkins, & Christensen, 2007).

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