How good are married couples at recognizing each other’s emotions during conflicts? In general, pretty good, according to a study by a Baylor University researcher. But if your partner is angry, that might tell more about the overall climate of your marriage than about what your partner is feeling at the moment of the dispute.

What’s more, “if your partner is angry, you are likely to miss the fact that your partner might also be feeling sad,” said Keith Sanford, Ph.D., an associate professor of psychology and neuroscience in Baylor University’s College of Arts & Sciences. His study — “The Communication of Emotion During Conflict in Married Couples” —is published online in the American Psychological Association’s Journal of Family Psychology.

“I found that people were most likely to express anger, not in the moments where they felt most angry, but rather in the situations where both partners had been feeling angry over a period of time,” he said. “This means that if a couple falls into a climate of anger, they tend to continue expressing anger regardless of how they actually feel . . . It becomes a kind of a trap they cannot escape.”

Common spats that might fester deal with in-laws, chores, money, affection and time spent on the computer.

Sanford found that when people express anger, they often also feel sad. But while a partner will easily and immediately recognize expressions of anger, the spouse often will fail to notice the sadness.
“When it comes to perceiving emotion in a partner, anger trumps sadness,” he said. [continue reading…]