Generally, the partner who values a relationship the least has the most power and people who have relational alternatives also have more power. It is estimated that 50 percent of today's marriages will end in divorce. Thus, practicing conflict resolution is a necessary skill. Unhappy partners exchange negative non-verbal behaviors. When conflict emerges in marriage, women tend to become highly emotional and men tend to become excessively practical.
Attributions also play a role in the management of conflict.
Happy couples attribute a partner's positive behavior to internal, stable, and global causes such as personality and temperament, and attribute the causation of negative behavior to external, unstable, and specific causes such as a bad day at work. A stable difference in personality is associated with loneliness . Individuals who feel they lack close interpersonal relationships are likely to feel depressed, anxious, and self-conscious in social situations, and to experience shyness. Although this feeling begins in childhood, it is intensified during adolescence. As adults, lonely people are likely to exhibit cynical and pessimistic social expectations.