Turning Points

Turning Points in Developing Romantic Relationships

Leslie A. Baxter & Connie Bullis

Human Communication Research, 12, 1986, pp. 469-493

Almost 25 years ago, Bolton (1961) argued the centrality of the "turning point" as a unit of analysis in understanding developmental processes in romantic relationships. However, to date only a handful of studies have examined relational turning points, and a basic descriptive profile is still lacking of what events are associated with relational change. As Hinde (1981) has observed, a descriptive base is crucially important if the study of relationships is to advance. The purpose of this study is to provide such a descriptive base for relational turning points.

The turning point is a unit of analysis that potentially affords a rich understanding of relationship processes. Conceptualized as any event or occurrence that is associated with change in a relationship, the turning point is central to a process view of relationships. Turning points are the substance of change. Yet despite an increased focus by relationship researchers on process issues of growth and decay (see Duck & Perlman, 1985), the field cannot yet answer such fundamental questions as "What events are related to positive or negative change in relationships?"

Other features of turning points also hold heuristic value. Do relationships progress in a series of small, incremental, and positive shifts in commitment, as the positively sloped line envisioned by Altman and Taylor (1973) would suggest? In contrast, perhaps relationships progress through a series of discrete events each of which results in a major escalation in commitment, as the staircase metaphor advanced by Knapp (1984) would suggest. As yet a third alternative conception of relationship progress, relationships may develop dialectically with both positive and negative changes occurring as the parties construct their joint history (Altman, Vinsel, & Brown, 1981). Examination of the intensity, valence, and sequencing of turning points offers the promise of insight into the basic nature of relationship dynamics.

Last, studying relationship dynamics through the turning point unit of analysis affords communications researchers a useful lens by which to examine communication and meaning in relationship development. Turning points, by definition, afford insight into events and actions that are steeped in metacommunicative or relational meaning. A description of what phenomena comprise turning points may shed important insight into people's implicit theories of relationships (Davis & Todd, 1982; Rands & Levinger,1979; Wilmot & Baxter, 1984).In addition to insights about implicit metacommunication, turning point analysis allows opportunity to examine instances when explicit metacommunication, or direct relationship talk, is enacted. In contrast to the common folk myth, which regards relationship talk as both pervasive and significant (Katriel & Philipsen, 1981), work in explicit metacommunication suggests that relationship talk is both infrequent (Wilmot, 1980) and unrelated to couple adjustment (Gottman, Markman. & Notarious. 1977). This apparent inconsistency between folk myth and research findings may be the result of a highly selective role performed by relationship talk. Relationship talk may be central to some turning points and not others.

The turning point unit of analysis potentially allows researchers to sort out occasions in which relationship talk is a salient feature of relationship development. In short, the turning point is a conceptually rich tool by which to understand relationship processes, a tool that has been underutilized to date by researchers. This study seeks to extend our understanding of relationship development through the examination of five research questions, detailed below. Although the turning point has not been frequently studied, a handful of investigations have been undertaken. However, these studies are collectively limited in several ways. Several studies have employed the turning point unit of analysis, but typically the use was directed toward acquisition of information other than the content of turning points per se. The studies summarized by Huston, Surra, Fitzgerald and Cate (1981), for example, have focused exclusively on the rates of change in relationship progress, typically producing multiple trajectories to reflect rapid versus slow progress. Although these studies make an important contribution in demonstrating the range in rates of progress they fail to examine the specific phenomena themselves that are related to these changes. Several studies have considered turning point phenomena but are overly reductionistic in their analyses. Two studies (Lloyd &Cate, 1984; Surra, 1984) categorized respondent reasons for turning points into four basic categories: (I) dyadic, that is, reasons rooted in the interaction between the parties; (2) individual, that is, reasons rooted in the parties' personal belief systems; (3) network that is, reasons attributed to interactions with third parties; and (4) circumstantial, that is, reasons that suggest that the parties had no control over the event. Reasons for turning points may not be equivalent to the turning point events themselves, but apart from this conceptual issue, the four-category coding scheme lacks sufficient richness. The "dyadic" category, for example, subsumes everything from "having a fight," to "having sex," to "getting engaged." A finer-grained analysis seems warranted. Some research has been overly reductionistic by concentrating on units of analysis larger than the turning point. Braiker and Kelley (1979), for example, focused on the relationship stage or period, identifying the themes of love, conflict, maintenance (i.e.. openness). and ambivalence. However. relationship stages or periods may consist of multiple turning point events that merit a finer-grained analysis. The theme of love, for example, may involve the turning point events of "first kiss," first sex, and "expression of 'I love you'" all embedded in the Serious Dating stage. If some studies have erred on the side of insufficient detail, often have erred on the side on noncomprebensiveness. Several studies have examined isolated types of events without embedding these types into a holistic view of turning points characteristic of romantic relationship histories. Planalp and Honeycutt (1985), for instance, have investigated the subject of events that increase uncertainty in relationships. To the extent that uncertainty is negatively regarded (Berger & Calabrese, 1975), these events are likely candidates to emerge as negative turning points in relationships Similarly, the work in expressed reasons for relationship disengagement (Butei, in press; Cody, 1982) poses likely candidates to emerge as negative turning points. Work on the single events of expressing 'I love you'" (Nydick & Cornelius, 1984) and "first physical affection"(Wilmot & Baxter, 1984) suggest these two events as likely candidates to emerge as positive turning points in relationship histories. All of these studies provide detailed looks at isolated event types, but none is comprehensive in determining how these events fit in the broader portrait of turning points in relationship progress. In sum, extant work is either too reductionist or lacking in comprehensiveness, resulting in the absence of a complete profile of the phenomena that comprise relationship turning points. Thus, our first research question:

RQ1: What phenomena comprise relationship turning points in the perceptions of romantic relationship partner?

The second research question examines the role that metacommunication or relationship talk plays in a relationship's turning points. The question has inherent appeal from a communications perspective, yet it has been investigated in only one of the studies that have dealt with turning points. Braiker and Kelley (1979) observed the theme of maintenance in their respondent accounts of courtship stages. Unfortunately, the operationalization of maintenance employed in the researchers' work was muddied; items referenced self-disclosure, relationship talk, and proactive behavior to make the relationship work, all of which may be conceptually distinct from one another. Thus, it is difficult to know bow to interpret the Braiker and Kelley (1979) finding that maintenance activity increases over the courtship stage. This finding may be the result of increased personal self-disclosure alone, increased relationship talk alone, increased proactive work and effort alone, or any combination of the above. Extant work in relationship talk suggests that relationship parties are cautious in its use. Although Baxter and Wilmot (1984) found direct talk about the relationship in people's repertoire of strategies by which to discern the state of the relationship, the strategy was far outweighed by many more indirect "secret tests." The prevalence of indirectness may be accounted for by people's beliefs about the consequences of direct relationship talk. Baxter, and Wilmot (1985) found that direct talk about the state of the relationship was the most frequently reported "taboo topic" among developing romantic couples, which the partner attributed to the ability of developing relationships and the resultant risk entailed in going "on record" with relationship talk. Given its apparent risk, relationship talk may be used quite selectively in relationship development, occurring only for certain types of turning points. The role of direct relationship talk in developing relationships is examined in the study's second research question: RQ2 Do turning point types differ, in their likelihood of involving relationship talk between the partners?

Although a relationship is a jointly realized social entity, each relationship party bolds his or her own perceptions of that construction process. Indeed, a substantial research history supports the claim that the two parties in a relationship occupy separate phenomenological worlds (see Sillars & Scott, 1983) Although substantial research has examined the issue of perceptual congruence between relationship partner in a variety of attitude domains (see Sillars & Scott, 1983), additional work is needed on the basic building block of a relationship, that is, the turning point. On the one hand, one might argue that turning points constitute the relationship's history, thereby suggesting a high correlation in partner perceptions. Extant work on turning points has found a remarkably high correlation (.80) between partner' month-by-month relationship commitment levels (Huston aI.,1981). However, partner could agree about their basic levels of affective involvement and still disagree about the events associated with those changes. The research on spouse monitoring of day-to-day events in their marriage suggests substantial discrepancy in the perceptions of the marital partner (Christensen & Niles, 1980: Jacobson & Moore, 1981). The third research question examines partner agreement about turning points:

RQ3: To what extent do ,relationship partners agree in their, identification of turning point types?

Despite Bolton's (1961) suggestion that turning points may range from trivial to dramatic in their effects on relationships, extant work has not examined the issue of differential turning point intensities. The studies summarized by Huston et al. (1981) have come closest to this question by examining differential rates of change in the likelihood of marriage. However, rate of change as a measure confounds the intensity of change in relationship commitment with change in time. Further, as mentioned above, turning point types were not systematically analyzed in the Huston et al. (1981) research. The issue of intensity is important, for it will shed insight into whether relationship dynamics proceed by modest increments or larger bursts. Thus, the fourth question under investigation in this study is:

RQ4: Do turning point types vary in their perceived intensity?

In addition to the consideration of perceived intensity of turning points, it seems useful to consider the possibility of delayed, cumulative, or long-term effects of turning points through assessment of the current relationship status. Relationship satisfaction, and its companions of dyadic relationship quality, adjustment, and success, are without doubt the single most frequently studied aspect of close relationships (Lewis& Spanier, 1979) Despite the plethora of variables that researchers have correlated with relationship satisfaction (see Spanier & Lewis, 1980), no comprehensive study exists that considers the association of current satisfaction with a relationship's turning point history. The effects of isolated events (e.g., the birth of a first child) have been considered, but it is useful to embed the effects of isolated turning point phenomena within the larger framework of the relationship's total history of change. Given the centrality of the turning point as a unit of change in relationships, it seems only reasonable to expect that some association might be present with current relationship satisfaction. Several features about a relationship's turning point history merit particular attention with regard to current relationship satisfaction. First, it seems useful to investigate the overall relationship between satisfaction and the proportion of negative turning points. Despite the common folk myth that crisis brings a couple closer, it seems reasonable to expect satisfaction to correlate negatively with the proportion of relationship turning points that are negative. The degree to which the partners agree on their relationship's turning points also merits examination with regard to satisfaction. Sillars and Scott (1983) have advanced the guarded conclusion that some association between perceptual congruence and adjustment (satisfaction) appears evident in the research literature but that there are many exceptions, particularly when perceptual congruence is unnecessary for compatible interaction between the partners. Sillars and Scott (1983) urge researchers to begin sorting out the instances when congruence is and is not likely to correlate with adjustment. This study examines the association between current relationship satisfaction and the proportion of a partner's identified turning points that were present in the other's account. As mentioned above, openness in communication is often viewed as the sine quo non of relationship quality or satisfaction. However, recent thinking has challenged this commonly held belief (Bochner, 1982; Parks, 1982). Similar to the mixed findings on perceptual congruence and satisfaction, it strikes us as important to sort out what kinds of communication are and are not related to satisfaction. This study examines the possible relationship between satisfaction and the proportion of turning points that involve relationship talk. The final facet of a relationship's turning point history relevant to satisfaction is whether the presence or absence of a given turning point type is related to current satisfaction. There may be certain events from which parties find it difficult to recover. For example, events such as physical separation that are often devastating to relationships (Wilmot, Carbaugh, & Baxter, 1985) may negatively correlate with current relational satisfaction. Similarly, there may be turning points whose function is so important to the bonding of the couple that their absence per se is linked with reduced satisfaction. The discussion in terms of current relationship satisfaction can be summarized in this final research question:

RQ5: To what extent does turning point type, partner agreement on the identification of turning points, relationship talk surrounding turning points, and the proportion of negative turning points correlate with current relationship satisfaction?