Communication Patterns Questionnaire – Short Form (CPQ-SF)

About the CPQ-SF

The Communication Patterns Questionnaire (CPQ), developed by Christensen & Sullaway (1984) and refined by Christensen & Heavey (1990), assesses how couples communicate during conflict. The Short Form (CPQ-SF) uses 11 key items validated by Futris et al. (2010).

The Four Scoring Subscales

CPQ-SF has four scoring subscales. Female Demand/Male Withdraw (items 3, 8, 10) and Male Demand/Female Withdraw (items 4, 9, 11) capture gender-specific demand-withdraw patterns. Total Demand/Withdraw combines all six items. Positive Interaction (items 2, 5, 7) captures constructive communication. Items 1 and 6 are not scored.

Interpreting Your Results

Higher Positive Interaction scores suggest healthy communication and predict relationship satisfaction. Higher Demand/Withdraw scores indicate a pattern often linked to relationship distress.

The demand-withdraw pattern is robust across cultures and is one of the most studied phenomena in couples research. If you notice high demand-withdraw scores, consider exploring why one partner pursues while the other distances, and whether mutual constructive communication could be strengthened.

What Is the Demand-Withdraw Pattern?

Demand-withdraw is the most common shape that conflict takes in couples: one partner raises an issue, asks for change or pushes for a conversation, while the other goes quiet, changes the subject, agrees without meaning it, or leaves the room.

The loop is self-reinforcing rather than a personality flaw. The partner who raises the issue is usually trying to reduce tension by resolving it now; the partner who withdraws is usually regulating by reducing stimulation. Each response confirms the other's fear: the more one pursues, the more the other pulls back, and the more the other pulls back, the harder the first one pursues.

Research on this pattern has found that it predicts lower relationship satisfaction over time, and that it appears across very different cultures. The old reading of it as simply "women demand, men withdraw" has been refined: the stronger predictor is who wants change in the relationship and who benefits from keeping things as they are, so the roles can reverse with the topic.

What tends to help is separating the topic from the timing. Agreeing on a specific time to talk about a difficult subject, keeping that conversation short and specific, and having the withdrawing partner say when they will come back to it — rather than disappearing into silence — all interrupt the loop. If the pattern is long-established and every attempt ends the same way, couple therapy is the setting in which it is usually worked on.

The CPQ-SF above scores exactly this pattern: two demand-withdraw subscales (items 3, 8, 10 and 4, 9, 11) and a combined total, so you can see how often it shows up in your relationship next to your positive-interaction score.

References

• Christensen, A., & Sullaway, M. (1984). Communication patterns questionnaire. Unpublished manuscript, University of California, Los Angeles.
• Christensen, A., & Heavey, C. L. (1990). Gender and social structure in the demand-withdraw pattern of marital conflict. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59(1), 73–81.
• Futris, T. G., Campbell, K., Nielsen, R. B., & Burwell, S. R. (2010). The Communication Patterns Questionnaire–Short Form: A review and assessment. The Family Journal, 18(3), 275–287.
• CPQ-SF Review Paper (Futris et al., 2010): https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1010&context=psychology-publications