Conflict and Decision Making in Close Relationships: Love, Money and Daily Routines

Love and money are important aspects of the everyday lives of couples. This book focuses on the daily routines of disagreement, conflict and joint decisions in the household. Central to the authors' research is a unique diary study of forty couples, who kept a daily record of their joint decisions over the course of a year. The diaries show how challenging varied and complex the conflicts and decision making of normal everyday life can be and reveal that goals frequently change during the decision-making process with the result that the final outcome often achieves a goal distinct from the original intention. Furthermore, the dynamics of decision making differ with the problem at stake, the decision-making history of the couple, and the quality of the partnership. The results of the diary study are discussed within the overall context of current research in the field as a whole, including discussion of joint decision-making case studies, close relationships, decision-making research in general and specialresearch methods. Numerous results of psychological, sociological, economic and consumer behavior studies are summarized and integrated into a model of household decision making.