Personality Characteristics, Self-esteem and Attachment Styles As Predictors for Demand/Withdraw Marital Communicational Cycle

ABSTRACT Demand/withdraw is a marital communicational pattern in which one spouse requests lovely behaviors, nags or complains while the other spouse avoids or withdraws. Given the fact that demand/withdraw has been repeatedly linked to marital discord, it is important to understand why couples engage in such a seemingly dissatisfying conflict pattern. The purpose of this research was to determine the predicting factors of demand/withdraw. The research method was regression and the variables were attachment styles, five factor personality characteristics and selfesteem. The group members consisted 175 couples (350 people). The results showed that among all variables, neuroticism, anxious attachment style and agreeableness were significant predictors for demand/withdraw pattern. It showed that the increasing in anxious attachment style and neuroticism, and decreasing in agreeableness can lead to increasing the probability of demand/withdraw occurrence