The Correlation Among Relationship Belief, Sacrifice Motive And Conflict Resolution Behavior In College Couples

Intimate relationship is the important part of human life, we need to establish contact and maintain close relationship with others. But in a close relationship, we have to face all kinds of conflicts. To resolve conflicts, the individual has made an attempt to reduce or resolve the conflict, that is, the conflict resolution behavior, including two major categories,which is constructive and destructive. Existing researches indicate that people choose conflict resolution behavior based on relationship belief and sacrifice motive. Relationship belief is about relationship characteristics and how to run a romantic relationship with cognitive judgment, which can be divided into the growth belief and the destiny belief, affecting the establishment and maintenance of intimacy. According to different motivation orientation, Sacrifice motive includes approach motive and avoidance motive, which tend to influence the choice of different behaviors. Past research had explored the influence mechanism of conflict resolution behavior from the individual level, rather than focus on interaction between the couples. Therefore, this study investigated the correlation among relationship belief, sacrifice motive and conflict resolution behavior not only at the individual level, also on the spouse level.This study used questionnaire survey and laboratory observation, recruited 51 college couples. In the laboratory, couples were separated to complete the Relationship Issue Survey, Implicit Theories of Relationships and the adaption of Motivations for Caregiving Scale. According to the result of RIS, couples were asked to selected one conflict topic, and then engaged in a discussion of problem solving for 10 minutes. This discussion was videotaped and coded by Marital Interaction Coding System-Global, finally used SPSS19.0 with Actor-Partner Interdependence Models, using correlation analysis, ANOVA and hierarchical linear modeling.The results were as follows:At the individual level, female’s growth belief had a significant impact on her own constructive conflict resolution behavior(b=0.100,p=0.008); female’s destiny belief had a significant impact on her own destructive conflict resolution behavior(b=0.102,p=0.000); female’s approach motive had a significant impact on her own constructive conflict resolution behavior(b=0.165,p=0.001); female’s avoidance motive had a significant impact on her own destructive conflict resolution behavior(b=0.127,p=0.002); male’s avoidance motive had a significant impact on his own destructive conflict resolution behavior(b=0.100,p=0.031); female’s growth belief had a significant impact on her own approach motive(b=0.159,p=0.004); female’s destiny belief had a significant impact on her own avoidance motive(b=0.195,p=0.022).At the couple level, male partner’s growth belief had a significant impact on female’s destructive conflict resolution behavior(b=-0.053,p=0.032); female partner’s destiny belief had a significant impact on male’s destructive conflict resolution behavior(b=0.044,p=0.012); male partner’s approach motives had a significant impact on female’s constructive conflict resolution behavior(b=0.135,p=0.027); male partner’s avoidance motive had a significant impact on female’s destructive conflict resolution behavior(b=0.108,p=0.021); The result of mediating effect test was female’s approach motive fully mediated female’s growth belief and her own constructive conflict resolution behavior.The conclusions were:(1) Female’s destiny belief had a significant positive impact on both herself and her partner’s destructive conflict resolution behavior, female’s growth belief had a significant positive impact on his own constructive conflict resolution behavior, male’s growth belief had a significant negative impact on his own destructive conflict resolution behavior.(2) Both male and female’s approach motive had a significant positive impact on female’s constructive conflict resolution behavior; Both male and female’s avoidance motive had a significant positive impact on female’s destructive conflict resolution behavior.(3) Female’s growth belief had a significant positive impact on her own approach motive; female’s destiny belief had a significant positive impact on her own avoidance motive.(4) When female’s growth belief was high, her own approach motive was higher, then her own constructive conflict resolution behavior was more.