Arguing With Friends vs. Romantic Partners: Do Emerging Adults’ Gender-Typed Conflict Management Strategies Vary by Sexual Orientation?

We experimentally investigated the influence of sexual orientation, gender, relationship type, and partner gender on emerging adults’ gender-typed conflict management strategies. Our 2 Participant Gender (between-subjects) x 2 Sexual Orientation (between-subjects) x 3 Relationship Context (within-subjects) mixed factorial design addressed whether findings of prior research (Keener & Strough, 2017) with heterosexual emerging adults generalized to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Queer/Questioning (LGBQ) men and women. Participants (N = 227; LBQ women = 49; GBQ men = 33; heterosexual women = 70; heterosexual men = 75) were emerging adults from the United States. They read hypothetical conflict scenarios and rated their likelihood of using communal/other-focused or agentic/self-focused strategies. Endorsement of agentic strategies varied depending on sexual orientation, participant gender, and relationship type. However, endorsement of communal strategies only varied by participant gender and relationship type. Our findings support social contextual developmental approaches emphasizing that individual and contextual factors interact to influence gender-typed behavior.