An examination of the links between marital satisfaction, decoding accuracy and conflict

Abstract

Marital satisfaction plays an important role in maintaining a healthy marriage. One of the major factors affecting satisfaction is communication, thus it is also important to understand the factors involved in communication like non-verbal decoding accuracy and conflict engagement that can affect spouses’ satisfaction with their marriage. The associations between marital satisfaction, non-verbal behaviour decoding accuracy and conflict engagement develop a greater understanding of how these constructs work together to affect satisfaction. This will be examined using a sample of 50 heterosexual couples from the north-eastern states using a longitudinal within-subjects design. We expect dissatisfied couples would be less accurate decoders, leading to increased levels of conflict engagement, and thus lower satisfaction, while satisfied couples would be more accurate decoders, leading to stable levels of conflict engagement, and thus stable or increased satisfaction. The findings from this study will provide important and valuable information, which can be used to improve therapeutic services, like couples counselling.

Keywords: Communication, conflict, marital satisfaction;