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AbstractEmpathic accuracy research indicates that partners achieve only moderate success at reading each other's thoughts. The current study identifies specific patterns of online thought that contribute to empathic inaccuracy during conflict interactions. Married/cohabiting partners completed a conflict interaction and reported their own thoughts during video‐assisted recall of the interaction, also inferring the thoughts of the other partner. Content analysis of these online thoughts demonstrated a high degree of mindfulness about the process of communication, along with a perspective bias, in which partners tended to construe their own communication as constructive and the other partner's communication as avoidant and confrontational. Specific mind‐reading errors linked to both the thematic content and affective tone of online thought predicted lower overall empathic accuracy.

Despite existing theoretical and empirical grounds for a needs perspective on intimate relationship functioning, little is currently known about the role of relational need frustration, especially as compared to need satisfaction. Therefore, our aim in the present study was to investigate
the relative value of the satisfaction and frustration of an individual's relational needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness in predicting relationship satisfaction. Self-report measures were completed by 372 men and women, each of whom was involved in a committed heterosexual relationship.
Results indicated that (a) need satisfaction and need frustration both contributed to relationship satisfaction, with need satisfaction being the stronger predictor of greater satisfaction, and (b) the satisfaction or frustration of the need for relatedness was the only significant predictor
of relationship satisfaction. The results for both men and women were similar. In sum, these results imply that couple interventions should focus on reinforcing relatedness satisfaction as well as on reducing relatedness frustration in both male and female partners.

AbstractThe present study examined the similarities and differences in couples' interactive behavior and interaction‐based cognition that emerged in comparisons of conflict and support interactions in marriage. In a laboratory experiment, 53 couples were randomly assigned to the conditions of a 2 (type of interaction: conflict vs. support) × 2 (initiator of interaction: man vs. woman) factorial design. Partners provided questionnaire data and participated in a joint interaction and video review task. The data revealed substantial behavioral similarities (i.e., some classes of validation/facilitation behaviors and neutral problem‐solving behaviors) as well as behavioral differences (i.e., some classes of invalidation/oppositional behaviors) between conflict and support interactions, controlling for levels of marital satisfaction. Partners' interaction‐based cognition (e.g., feeling understood, satisfied) was especially affected by classes of validation/facilitation behaviors and was consistently related to marital satisfaction. In broad terms, the impact of a particular behavior on partners' ongoing cognition did not depend on the interaction domain (conflict vs. support) in which the behavior occurred.