Thinking

Individuals engage in thought during the process of making sense of something, which may influence the conclusions they reach. Conflict researchers have studied two inter­related types of thinking: (1) ruminating and (2) imagined interactions.

Nolen-Hoeksema, Wisco, and Lyubomirsky (2008) defined rumination as “a mode of responding to distress that involves repeti­tively and passively focusing on symptoms of distress and on the possible causes and conse­quences of these symptoms” (p. 400). Nolen- Hoeksema et al. (2008) noted that rumination causes individuals to become fixated on their problems, and rather than take action to address them, they become passive.

Because interpersonal conflict can be stress­ful, some researchers have studied the effects of ruminating after a conflict. Nolen-Hoeksema et al. (2008) asserted that rumination leads to passivity through which individuals give up trying to solve problems and/or engaging in self-aggression. Conflict researchers have noted that rumination may also lead to aggres­sive actions toward another. Bushman (2002) found that after being insulted, individuals who ruminated while hitting a punching bag were angrier and later were more aggressive toward the person who insulted them than were those who were distracted while hitting the bag or did nothing after being insulted.

Research also indicates that rumina­tion can aversely influence forgiveness for a transgression. Kachadourian, Fincham, and Davila (2005) looked at how rumination influences forgiveness among individuals who feel ambivalent about their relational part­ners. The results of their study indicated that ambivalence is negatively related to forgive­ness when individuals frequently ruminate about the transgression but not when they avoid rumination.

Although research indicates that rumina­tion has a negative influence on conflict, some research suggests that rumination may not be universally bad.

Although not directly studying rumination, Bevan et al. (2008) reported correlations that imply that rumination may have both positive and negative effects on interpersonal conflict. Their path analysis showed that self-reports of both integrative and distributive tactics were positively related to rumination. In addi­tion, they reported bivariate correlations that show positive relationships between holding a mutual understanding/resolution goal and positive expression goal and engaging in both integrative actions and ruminating. Moreover, wanting to achieve these two goals was nega­tively related to using distributive tactics. This implies that holding positive goals can increase the use of positive conflict tactics and rumination while decreasing the use of negative tactics. On the other hand, holding a negative expression goal was positively related to using distributive tactics and ruminating and negatively (but not significantly) to being integrative.

In part, the effect of rumination may depend on the type. Martin and Tesser (1996) offered a broad conceptualization of rumina­tion and noted that it involves ongoing self­focused thoughts concentrated on a single event or theme. They noted that rumination often results from blocked goals. Mikulincer (1996) noted three different types of rumina­tion. Action rumination is focused on the task that includes thinking about why the goal failed, how failure might be overcome, and how failure might be avoided in the future. State rumination is focused on how a person currently feels about the failure and its impli­cations for the future.

In addition to ruminating about a conflict, some individuals engage in imagined interac­tions in which they replay a disagreement or plan what they will say in a future encounter (see Honeycutt & Bryan, 2011). Honeycutt (2004) created imagined interaction conflict linkage theory that describes how imagined interactions influence interpersonal conflict. He argues that interpersonal relationships are maintained through imagined interactions with one’s partners and that some of these imagined interactions are focused on dis­agreements. Repeated conflicts, such as serial arguing, are maintained by individuals retro­spectively thinking about prior argumentative episodes and prospectively planning future encounters. Imagined interactions can portray positive or negative encounters depending on the mood of the person at the time he or she is imagining the conversation. Constructive conflict is facilitated through positive imag­ined interactions. However, negative imagined interactions are powerful and can sometimes overwhelm an individual’s ability to create positive ones. Moreover, imagined interac­tions may not reflect what actually transpires during a disagreement in part because people may imagine themselves being more bold or dominant than they typically are.

The theory provides insight into conflict escalation as it assumes that imagined interac­tions can sustain a conflict and perhaps esca­late it. Individuals who are prone to construct negative imagined interactions may become physically aggressive. Honeycutt and Bryan (2011) found that individuals who reported that they engaged in verbal aggression with their partners also admitted that they had also been physically aggressive and that this relationship resulted from their tendency to imagine negative conflict inter­actions with their partners. This research also indicates that imagined interactions may sometimes be a mediator of effects rather than a direct cause. Moreover, Honeycutt and Bryan (2011) discovered that engaging in imagined integrations prior to a marital disagreement influenced an individual’s physi­ological arousal after a subsequent interac­tion with the partner. Heartbeat increased when an individual’s imagined interaction was discrepant from the actual interaction and if the individual did not rehearse what he or she would say in the actual interac­tion. However, arterial blood pressure was greatest when individuals imagined negative interactions with their partners.