Women who feel they have less power during a discussion with their husband are more likely to respond with submission compared to men who feel they have less power than their wife, according to new research published in Social Psychological and Personality Science.
The study also suggests that traditional gender role beliefs play an important role in this association, which could have important consequences for the quality of one’s marriage
“Past research has shown that when men have lower power, they often behave more aggressively toward their romantic partners as a way of restoring masculinity. I was interested in understanding what women do when they have lower power, given that societal expectations about women’s behavior differ from those for men,” said researcher Paula R. Pietromonaco, a professor emerita at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
“We wondered whether women with lower power in marital conflict discussions might show more submissive behavior, which would fit with prescribed gender role norms suggesting that women should submit, avoid conflict, and preserve harmonious relationships.”
The researchers examined data from a longitudinal study of 204 opposite-sex newlywed couples, who completed assessments of gender role beliefs and then discussed an important unresolved conflict three times over the course of about three years. Immediately after each discussion, the participants separately rated their perceived power and reported submissive behavior during the interaction.
The participants also completed measures of marital adjustment, which assessed overall happiness with the relationship, affectionate behavior, how often the couples agreed on major decisions such as finances and religious matters, and other factors.
As expected, wives and husbands who felt they had less power during a specific discussion tended to report engaging in more submissive behavior, but this association was stronger for women than men. Pietromonaco and her colleagues also found that gender role beliefs moderated the association between perceived power and submissive behavior for wives but not husbands.
“When wives believe they have lower power relative to their husband in the context of a discussion about a disagreement, they are more likely to respond with greater submission (holding back, giving in, disengaging), and this pattern is especially true for women who are more accepting of traditional gender role beliefs,” Pietromonaco told PsyPost.
Some of those traditional gender roles included the belief that women are better suited than men to childcare and that humans evolved so that men have authority over the family.
“Understanding when spouses are more likely to show submission is important because submissive behavior is associated with poorer marital quality. In line with this idea, we found that, for women and men who were more accepting of traditional gender role beliefs, submission in response to low power was associated with a greater decline over time in marital adjustment,” Pietromonaco said.
But the study — like all research — includes some limitations.
“Although our study was longitudinal, the correlational data limits causal conclusions. Also, spouses reported on their submissive behavior because it is difficult to observe internal, inexpressive behaviors, but it will be important to examine actual submissive behavior if a reliable observational coding scheme can be developed,” Pietromonaco explained.
“Our couples were opposite-sex, and primarily White and well-educated and held relatively egalitarian views, and therefore future work will need to test whether these findings generalize to more diverse samples and whether the observed effects may be even more pronounced in samples including individuals who strongly endorse traditional gender role beliefs.”
The study, “Is Low Power Associated With Submission During Marital Conflict? Moderating Roles of Gender and Traditional Gender Role Beliefs“, was authored by Paula R. Pietromonaco, Nickola C. Overall, Lindsey A. Beck, and Sally I. Powers.