Interaction Patterns of Premarital Couples: Typological Assessment Over Time

The central purpose of this research was to study the interaction styles of premarital couples and to develop a typology of couple interaction at two points in time before marriage. The Inventory of Premarital Conflict was used to generate couple discussion, which was tape-recorded. These tapes were coded on dimensions of task leadership, conflict and affect. The stability of interaction dimensions and couple types was compared between pretest and posttest and the possibility of making predictions about the direction of change which might be expected was explored. The typologies developed in this study were compared objectively and by means of a descriptive couple-by-couple analysis. Only 7% of the couples had the same type of interaction at the two testings, which supports the hypothesis that premarital relationships are fluid with considerable change occurring.