The social context of couple conflict: Support and criticism from informalthird parties

This study investigates how informal third parties, such as friends and fam ily members, may play a role in couple conflict as perceived supporters or critics of partners' conflicting positions. We examine who partners perceiv e to be supporters and critics and how beliefs about supporters and critics are related to partners' views of the conflict. In a sample of 98 dating c ouples, parents and close friends were equally likely to be perceived as cr itics, but close friends were more likely than parents to be perceived as s upporters. In general, partners saw their primary supporters among their sa me-sex friends in their own, rather than the couple's joint, network. Think ing of one's own position as legitimate was correlated, for women, with the presence of supporters, and for men, with the absence of critics. finally, the extent to which partners had separate, as opposed to joint, networks o f significant others was systematically related to their preferred conflict management strategies.