The Demand-Withdraw Pattern
Currently, the most widely studied pattern of conflict communication is the demand- withdraw pattern. This pattern has been connected to important conflict outcomes in several ways.
With the demand-withdraw pattern, one person demands change on the partner’s part, and the partner resists the requested change. Several demand and withdrawal communication tactics exist, and we briefly elaborate on these, paying attention to the specific tactics that compose demanding and withdrawing communication.The demand-withdraw pattern can be viewed as both a symmetrical and a complementary phenomenon. The first view holds that these behaviors are asymmetrical and complementary; that is, one person demands, and the second withdraws. Although the research shows that the person who wants change tends to engage in more demanding behavior, women still tend to want change more frequently. Consider the following passage that illustrates demand-withdraw complementarity.
| F1.1: | Cooking meals, let’s just start with cooking meals. |
| 1.2 M2: | Okay, I’ll make you a deal. I’ll make you a deal on cooking meals. [loudly] NO! I AM NOT GOING TO STOP WATCHING (brief pause, softer) baseball games just because... |
| F3.1: 3.2 M4: | [interrupting] No, I wasn’t go to say that. I wasn’t going to say that. It’s not like... Okay... |
| F5.1: 5.2 M6: | I mean, do you want to solve the cooking meal problem or do we just want to fight about it. No because... |
| F7.1: 7.2 7.3 7.4 M8.1: 8.2 8.3 F9.1: 9.2 9.3 9.4 | [interrupting] Would you like me to make the meals? Then I want something back, that’s all. I’ll make you a deal. No! I think you just do it, because it’s your responsibility if you had, you know, kids to feed and stuff. Why do you say that kids to feed thing? We have one kid; he’s a grown-up. He can cook for himself. |
A second way to understand the demand- withdraw pattern is as a reciprocal one; that is, partners take turns in mirroring each other’s demanding and withdrawing behavior (Caughlin & Vangelisti, 1999, 2000). Such symmetry in men’s and women’s behavior suggests that partners find the other person’s behavior wanting while defending their own behaviors. Consider the following segment that continues the dialogue from above. Note how the husband takes a demanding role in Turn 10 and then indicates that she should go to the store in Turn 12. However, he uses accusations as a form of demand (whereas she used negotiation in her demanding behavior):
| F9.4 | He can cook for himself. |
| M10.1: 10.2: F11.1: 11.2 M12: F13: M14: F15: M16.1: 16.2 F17.1: 17.2 17.3 17.4 M18: | He is 16! He’s cooking for himself all the time. He doesn’t all the time. Anyway, I mean, we are supposed to discuss our problem so I... [interrupting] At least you could, um, go grocery shopping. I buy lots of ready-to-eat things... yeah [sarcastically]. that people don’t eat. Like WHAT? [loudly] Like, like corn in a baaaag (in disgust). That’s not true! There is T.V. dinners in there. There’s pot pies. There’s... [interrupting] Burritos. |
Moreover, demand-withdrawal patterns often increase in their intensity. Continuing with the same interaction, notice how the wife becomes more negative in her responses
to his interruptions, especially in Turns 21 and 23, where she uses a combination of put-down and sarcasm.
| M18: | [interrupting] Burritos. |
| F19.1: | [acknowledging] Burritos. |
| 19.2 19.3 | There’s plenty of sandwich meat and, and stuff. There’s lot of things if people would take 10 minutes they can make their own meal. |
| 19.4 19.5 M20: | Nobody is starving here. I think you just need to see me cook for some reason. I just, it’s just that I grew up eating nice, full, healthy, well-balanced meals. |
| F21: | You don’t need full meals anymore, Mike—you need little bitty meals. |
| M22: | Don’t say my name. This is going to be broadcast on the Internet. |
| F23.1: | (laughing) You don’t need big meals—you need little meals. |
| 23.2 23.3 | You need to have salads for dinner. That’s it. I’ll make a salad. |
In our view, the demand-withdraw pattern is harmful because it reflects a more abstract underlying phenomenon that Morton, Alexander, and Altman (1976) referred to as a deficit of mutuality of control. Mutuality of control, or control mutuality, refers to the manner in which partners’ agreement on who has the right to influence the other manifests in communication behavior across close relationships. Morton et al. made a persuasive case that all crises in relationships stem from a lack of control mutuality, which, in the case of demand-withdrawal, suggests a lack of consensus about whether to engage or avoid conflict.
Interaction control refers to the extent that people learn how to become aware of the patterns of conflict and their role in perpetuating them. It is certainly understandable why people reciprocate negative behavior—when faced with hostility, people tend to act defensively, which then provides a warrant for the other person to continue using a competitive strategy.
Perhaps the most difficult challenge for communicators is not to perpetuate negative patterns of interaction. However, competent communicators generally do not rely on a strategic fallback position of simply reciprocating what the other person says. Instead, they consider their strategic options. They engage in mindful thinking and create new categories, gather new information, and develop more options than the behaviors that they would otherwise mindlessly enact. They then focus on the process rather than the outcome and develop greater sensitivity and flexibility (Langer, 1989a).In sum, people can exercise interaction control by not reacting in an impulsive manner. Rather, competent communicators edit their reactions, slow the communication process for greater control, and rely more on a variety of cooperative tactics. By doing so, they also increase the probability that they will behave ethically and with integrity. Mindful responses consider the various characteristics of the context and include a wider range of ideas and information.