TY - JOUR
T1 - Does Gottman’s Marital Communication Conceptualization Inform Teen Dating Violence? Communication Skill Deficits Analyzed Across Three Samples of Diverse Adolescents
AU - Rueda, Heidi Adams
AU - Yndo, Monica
AU - Williams, Lela
AU - Shorey, Ryan C.
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors would like to thank the College of Public Policy at the University of Texas at San Antonio for the funding provided to collect survey data in the residential foster care and after-school settings, as well as our collaborators across each of the study sites. They would also like to thank Michelle Toews, Associate Dean for Research and Scholarship at Kansas State University, for sharing valuable insights concerning our foster care sample, and Kaitlin Grytza for her help as a Graduate Research Assistant while studying at the University of Texas at San Antonio. The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2018.
PY - 2021/6
Y1 - 2021/6
N2 - Communication skill deficits are thought to contribute to teen dating violence (TDV), parallel to the inclusion of these throughout prevention curricula. Communication research among adolescents is highly underdeveloped, although a preliminary study utilizing Gottman’s marital communication conceptualization found that a majority of negative communication behaviors predictive of marital distress were also associated with relationship aggression among primarily White college students. Our aim was to replicate this study with diverse samples of adolescents (50.3% Latino, 23.5% Black; Mage = 16.06). Urban high school youth, pregnant and parenting youth in residential foster care, and youth in urban after-school programs self-reported on their use of maladaptive and adaptive communication behaviors, relationship quality (i.e., satisfaction, commitment), and emotional, physical, sexual, relational, and threatening dating violence. Across samples, maladaptive communication and particularly flooding (i.e., the tendency to become overwhelmed, leave the argument) and the four horsemen (i.e., a cascading and negative communication sequence) were associated with higher likelihood of multiple types of TDV. Relationship quality was associated with decreased likelihood for TDV among high school and after-school youth samples, but with increased likelihood among youth in foster care. Results indicate that youth utilize a wide range of both adaptive and maladaptive communication behaviors, and that similar maladaptive patterns predictive of relationship distress in young adulthood and in marriage are also associated with distress in adolescents’ dating relationships. Equipping youth with adaptive communication skills as part of a comprehensive approach to reducing TDV and enhancing healthy relationships is meaningful for diverse adolescents. Further research is warranted concerning youth’s perceptions of relationship quality and risk of TDV.
AB - Communication skill deficits are thought to contribute to teen dating violence (TDV), parallel to the inclusion of these throughout prevention curricula. Communication research among adolescents is highly underdeveloped, although a preliminary study utilizing Gottman’s marital communication conceptualization found that a majority of negative communication behaviors predictive of marital distress were also associated with relationship aggression among primarily White college students. Our aim was to replicate this study with diverse samples of adolescents (50.3% Latino, 23.5% Black; Mage = 16.06). Urban high school youth, pregnant and parenting youth in residential foster care, and youth in urban after-school programs self-reported on their use of maladaptive and adaptive communication behaviors, relationship quality (i.e., satisfaction, commitment), and emotional, physical, sexual, relational, and threatening dating violence. Across samples, maladaptive communication and particularly flooding (i.e., the tendency to become overwhelmed, leave the argument) and the four horsemen (i.e., a cascading and negative communication sequence) were associated with higher likelihood of multiple types of TDV. Relationship quality was associated with decreased likelihood for TDV among high school and after-school youth samples, but with increased likelihood among youth in foster care. Results indicate that youth utilize a wide range of both adaptive and maladaptive communication behaviors, and that similar maladaptive patterns predictive of relationship distress in young adulthood and in marriage are also associated with distress in adolescents’ dating relationships. Equipping youth with adaptive communication skills as part of a comprehensive approach to reducing TDV and enhancing healthy relationships is meaningful for diverse adolescents. Further research is warranted concerning youth’s perceptions of relationship quality and risk of TDV.
KW - Hispanic youth
KW - communication skills
KW - foster care
KW - partner abuse
KW - prevention education
KW - relationship quality
KW - situational factors
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U2 - 10.1177/0886260518814267
DO - 10.1177/0886260518814267
M3 - Article
C2 - 30486710
AN - SCOPUS:85059965411
SN - 0886-2605
VL - 36
SP - NP6411-NP6440
JO - Journal of interpersonal violence
JF - Journal of interpersonal violence
IS - 11-12
ER -