Doctor of Philosophy / School of Family Studies and Human Services / Amber Vennum / The literature suggests that aggressive behaviors occur in response to provocation (i.e., reactive aggression) or to achieve a goal (i.e., instrumental aggression). Relational aggression –when an individual harms another’s interpersonal relationships – has been studied from the reactive and instrumental framework in peer-directed contexts, usually with children. However, relational aggression in romantic relationships is yet to be studied from this framework. This dissertation includes a series of studies investigating whether two specific relationally aggressive behaviors found in romantic relationships (i.e., social sabotage and love withdrawal) are 1) motivated by instrumental and reactive aggression, 2) associated with differential characteristics, and 3) predictive of negative outcomes. The Romantic Relational Aggression Motivation (RRAM) scale, which included social sabotage and love withdrawal items with both instrumental and reactive motivations, was created to explore the above research questions. During Study 1a, an exploratory factor analysis using a sample of 170 emerging adults tested the factor structure of the RRAM. This resulted in love withdrawal, but not social sabotage, factoring into instrumental and reactive subscales. Using the same sample at a later wave, Study 1b refined the RRAM from Study 1a; the findings confirmed the results of Study 1a. In Study 2, using a sample of 118 emerging adults, the factor structure found in Study 1b was corroborated using a confirmatory factor analysis. Study 2 found that social sabotage was more closely related to instrumental than reactive love withdrawal. Reactive and instrumental love withdrawal were clearly differentiated based on their associations with constructs that were emotionally driven (e.g. neuroticism and hostile attribution bias) but not by their associations with constructs that dealt with power (e.g. self-relationship power and trait dominance). None of the romantic relational aggression scales were predictive of the negative outcomes in the study, possibly due to the small sample size (85 emerging adults) in the longitudinal portion of Study 2. As instrumental and reactive love withdrawal were associated with different constructs and combining the two together may cause substantial differences to be lost, the RRAM may be a useful tool for researchers of romantic relational aggression.

This longitudinal study examined the relationship between husband and wife shame and husband and wife sexual satisfaction one year later with husband and wife relational aggression as mediating variables. The sample included 353 heterosexual married couples who participated in the Flourishing Families Research Project, a longitudinal study of daily family life. Results showed that husband and wife shame was negatively related with husband and wife sexual satisfaction, respectively. Husband love withdrawal was negatively related with both husband and wife sexual satisfaction, while wife love withdrawal was negatively related with only husband sexual satisfaction. Each partner's use of social sabotage was negatively related with their partner's sexual satisfaction. Research and clinical implications were discussed.

Using a two-wave APIM Structural Equation Model, this study investigated how husband and wife attachment styles predict husband and wife covert relational aggression one year later with husband and wife shame as potential moderating variables. Data was taken from 308 married couples in waves three and four of the Flourishing Families project using self-report and partner report of spouse questionnaires. Findings showed that an individual's attachment insecurity predicts their use of relational aggression. Wives' relational aggression is predicted by an increase in husbands' relational aggression. An increase in wives' insecure attachment had less of an impact on husbands' relationally aggressive behavior. Shame predicts the use of relational aggression. Shame moderates some of the actor and partner relationships, showing that in certain cases, as shame increases the relationship between attachment strategy and relational aggression also increases. Clinicians are advised to assess and treat partners as a couple as one partner's attachment and shame may affect the other's behavior, and those high in shame and insecure attachment are more likely to use covert relational aggression.