Research Report on the Importance of Dyadic Power in Relationships

This report analyzes a research paper by Worley and Samp (2019) exploring the influence of dyadic power, marital status, and face concerns on politeness strategies within romantic relationships. The study, conducted on 261 couples, examined how power dynamics affect the expression of complaints. The research found that dyadic power, marital status, and facial expressions interdependently shape complaint communication. The report also discusses the implications of the findings, including the relationship between politeness strategies and face concerns, and the impact of marital status on power manifestations. The paper's limitations, such as the cross-sectional data and single-partner perspective, are also considered. Overall, the report provides insights into how couples navigate conflicts and manage their relationships based on power and communication styles.

Running head: IMPORTANCE OF DYADIC POWER
IMPORTANCE OF DYADIC POWER
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Body of report............................................................................................................................2
Implications................................................................................................................................3
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................4
References..................................................................................................................................5

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Introduction
Timothy R. Worley of the Pennsylvania University of USA and Jennifer A. Samp of
University of Georgia conducted the survey on 261 emotionally attached couples in order to
perform their research efficiently. Nowadays, issues of politeness strategies are important as
dyadic power plays an important role in shaping different socio-psychological strategies
among romantically involved partners. In this paper, the authors were looking for the
association between the power, face concerns and marital status for expressing different
politeness strategies.
Body of report
The research conducted through this paper described about the different politeness
strategies among dating and married couple. The overall aim of this paper was to evaluate the
significance of dyadic power, nuptial status, and facial expressions in determining different
politeness strategies among married and dating couples.Different politeness strategies play
different role in the development of different types of complaints among romantically
attached couples. The dyadic power theory depicts power as an integral component of any
social relationship. By evaluating the significance of the dyadic power theory this paper
assumed the perceptions of authentic authority to take decisions and increased the possibility
of using dominance as a mechanism to regulate the interaction between romantically involved
couples. Additionally, the relation between power and complaint politeness strategies depend
upon the expression of partner’s face also. The authors conducted a survey on 261
romantically involved individuals. These individuals were enlisted to participate using
Amazon Mechanical Turk. The participants were enlisted through a declaration of online
survey on Qualtrics.com. These participants completed the online survey within seventeen
minutes and for that they received a monetary compensation. Through this research the main

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research question they tried to understand was why and how romantically involved couples
account for variation in power and relational type. The authors stratified their research
question into three strata in order to explore their research question. At first, they discussed
about varieties of different politeness methods. After that they interpreted the association
between power and politeness on the basis of dyadic power theory and Brown-Levinson
politeness theory. The authors found that power, facial expressions, marital status exert their
functions interdependently to form a significant complaint communication in romantic
attachment. This study provided a structured schematic of interplay of relationship qualities
with power and facial concerns respectively. From the above mentioned survey, researchers
developed a curvilinear association between the power and politeness strategy. A linear
association had been seen in between power and politeness strategies. Although there are
some limitations present in the above mentioned association study, the findings of the
research were in line with their hypothesis. Due to the presence of well-structured survey and
proper statistical data analysis there were no such unexpected findings.
Implications
According to this research paper when partners are engaged in a face threatening act
(FTA), five potential politeness strategies can be performed by the concerned partners. These
five politeness strategies range from bald-on-record (least polite) to off record (most polite)
strategy. For the first time researchers discussed about the statistical association between the
face concerns and politeness strategies. Previously there were no such papers describing
about the relationship between politeness strategies and facial expressions of the partners.
They included face concerns as an integral component of the dyadic power theory.
Researchers also found a significant linear association between politeness strategies and face
concerns. Researchers also discussed about the fact that marital status facilitates the desired
manifestations of power. Partners’ facial expression also acts as a mediator between dyadic

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power and complaint strategies. Researchers also concluded that politeness strategies are also
inversely related to the complaint strategies. This paper had shown some serious limitations
in relation to power, marital status, politeness strategies and face concerns among
romantically involved couples. Firstly, the data shown in this research article reflected a
single partner’s perspective. For this reason all the data presented in this article sometimes
may appear as statistically non-significant. Secondly, the data collected during the research
were cross-sectional. For this reason the researchers were unable to evaluate the bidirectional
links of power with facial expressions and politeness strategies over time.Longitudinal
research approach was not taken by the researchers. Although the researchers developed a
linear association between dyadic power and politeness strategies as well as a curvilinear
association between face concerns and complaint strategies, some socio-economic factors are
not present in the research work. Investment-related variables and cross-sectional data
collection approach should be taken into consideration for making the data more statistically
significant.
Conclusion
Through this paper I have a brief overview of using variety of politeness strategies to
manage different complaints. I also come to know about the different politeness strategies
used by the romantically involved couples to adapt in different social situations and among
themselves individually. From this paper, I learn that the married couple will follow more
open and direct complaint strategies. On the other hand, the dating couple will follow indirect
complaint strategies.

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References
Worley, T.R. and Samp, J.A., 2019. Dyadic power, marital status, face concerns, and
politeness in the context of relational complaining. Journal of Social and Personal
Relationships, 36(4), pp.1367-1391