Jarvis's, contradict Gottman's (1999) assertion that the three regulated types are equally

constructive in marriage. The validating couple conflict type was the only type

significantly related to positive outcomes such as lower levels of role dissatisfaction and

marital disaffection in the correlation matrix; it was also associated with these variables

and individual well-being in the canonical correlation. The stepwise regression analyses

identified the volatile couple conflict type as a significant predictor of more violated

expectations for husbands (in the direction of the wives' doing more than expected) but

lower marital disaffection, though it was not significantly associated with these variables

in the correlation matrix.

 These findings contradict Gottman's hypothesis that validating couples might be

particularly vulnerable during the transition to parenthood, perhaps growing more distant.

Since the study was not longitudinal, it cannot be determined how the transition impacted

validating couples, or whether they experienced declines in satisfaction compared to their

previous functioning. The only finding suggesting a change in their functioning was the

canonical correlation's result indicating couples with younger babies had higher scores

on the validating conflict type scale than couples with older babies. The lack of

significant associations between the study's couple-level variables and the volatile and

conflict-avoiding type scores suggests these two regulated types, while functional, may

not be as highly functional as the validating type. It may also indicate that volatile and

conflict-avoiding types may be more negatively impacted by the transition to parenthood,

perhaps having more difficulty maintaining the 5-to-1 positive-to-negative interaction

ratio Gottman describes as critical.