DEMAND-WITHDRAW COMMUNICATION IN MARITAL INTERACTION - TESTS OF INTERSPOUSAL CONTINGENCY AND GENDER-ROLE HYPOTHESES

This article examines the demand-withdraw communication dynamic during which one spouse requests change and the other disengages from the to pic. We evaluated two problem-solving discussions by each of 50 marrie d couples using both self-report questionnaires and microanalytic obse rvational coding. Working under the hypothesis that demand-withdraw re sults from a disparity in the motivation to change, we asked each coup le to discuss an issue about which the husband wanted the wife to chan ge and an issue about which the wife wanted the husband to change. Dat a showed that wives demanded and husbands withdrew during discussions of her issue, whereas husbands demanded and wives withdrew during disc ussions of his issue. Time-series analyses of observational data confi rmed that demand and withdraw behaviors are temporally associated duri ng the course of discussion. We classified couples as bidirectional, w ife-dominant, husband-dominant, and nondependent, based on the pattern of interdependency they exhibited.