Introduction to the Special Issue on 30 Years of Research on Serial Argument in Interpersonal Relationships

In 1985, this journal, then called the Journal of the American Forensics Association, published what would become a seminal research study by Robert Trapp and Nancy Hoff. Entitled "A Model of Serial Arguments in Interpersonal Relationships," Trapp and Hoff's study was initially broadly intended to explore argument processes via interviews with 12 close relationship partners. Indeed, they stated that their purpose was to determine how these individuals "make sense of the relational aspects of their arguments" (p. 1). What they additionally found-and rightfully called "serendipitous"-was that these partners continuously grappled with ongoing arguments throughout the course of their relationships. Trapp and Hoff noted that these serial arguments were in direct contrast to the prevailing belief at the time that interpersonal conflict was a communication event that was contained in a single episode. Where Have We Been? With the exception of a handful of interpersonal argument pieces (e.g., Benoit & Benoit, 1988; Brossman & Canary, 1990), scholarly interest in serial arguments remained fairly dormant until 1998, when Kristen Johnson and Michael Roloff (1998, 2000a, 2000b) ignited renewed interest in the topic by publishing the first of a series of research studies about romantic serial arguments. These studies, emanating from Johnson's dissertation, advanced the study of serial arguments by approaching them from a quantitative perspective and identifying the central serial argument concept of perceived resolvability. Roloff has continued to contribute meaningful, significant knowledge to the study of serial argumentation, collaborating most frequently with Rachel (Malis) Reznik and Courtney Waite Miller. Offering just one example, their research program has successfully extended the study of demand-withdraw patterns and the multi-faceted experiences of stress and well-being to the serial argument context (e.g., Malis & Roloff, 2006; Reznik, Roloff, & Miller, 2012). Their Communication Yearbook chapter (Miller, Roloff, & Malis, 2007) has also provided the most comprehensive review of intractable conflict-including serial arguments-to date. Other interpersonal argument scholars, including Dale Hample, Ioana Cionea, Amy Janan Johnson, and their students and colleagues, have recently also shifted their research programs to encompass the study of serial arguments. Hample's many contributions include broadening the scope of serial argument research to include organizational (Hample & Allen, 2013) and educational (Hample & Krueger, 2011) contexts, considering climate as a serial argument outcome, and successfully applying elements of conflict linkage theory and imagined interactions (Hample, Richards, & Na, 2012). Hample and Cionea (2012) have further expanded serial argument research to interethnic relationships. Johnson and her colleagues (including Cionea) have demonstrated that her distinction between public and personal issue arguments can also apply to multiple serial argument elements(e.g., Johnson, Averbeck, Kelley, & Liu, 2011) and the role of interdependence in serial arguments (Johnson & Cionea, in press). How did I come to study serial arguments? Throughout my academic career, I have experienced a series of what I call "ping" moments, where I encounter a novel concept or idea that is, to me, at once logical and groundbreaking. When my doctoral advisor at the University of Georgia, Jerry Hale, handed me Johnson and Roloff's (1998) piece on serial arguments in 2000, I read it and heard that "ping." The notion that interpersonal arguments could be serial in nature made so much sense to me that I was astounded that it was not already the prevailing method of studying interpersonal conflicts and arguments. I was immediately flooded with an overwhelming number of research ideas to better understand serial arguments. First up: what were the most important goals for romantic partners in serial arguments (Bevan, Hale, & Williams, 2004)? …