Suchergebnisse

Complaint avoidance is a common response to relational conflict; yet, it can cause adverse personal and relational consequences. This study examined cultural (i.e., U.S. versus China) and relational (i.e., relational power, communication efficacy) factors predicting complaint avoidance. Hypothesizing that Americans engage in less complaint avoidance than Chinese (H1), relational power negatively predicts complaint avoidance via communication efficacy across cultures (H2), and culture moderates how power and efficacy predict avoidance (H3), we surveyed 392 college-aged dating individuals (194 Americans, 198 Chinese). Results confirmed H1 and H2. H3 was partially supported: after controlling for relational and conflict characteristics, as communication efficacy increased, there were greater decreases in complaint avoidance in Americans than in Chinese. Implications for cross-cultural studies on relational conflict are discussed.

This study examines the links among rejection sensitivity (RS), communication about complaints, and relational satisfaction in intimate relationships. A total of 260 individuals completed an online survey through Amazon Mechanical Turk. RS was positively associated with complaint avoidance and negatively associated with positive politeness and negative politeness when voicing complaints. Furthermore, RS had indirect associations with relational satisfaction, partially mediated through complaint avoidance and positive politeness. The results of this study suggest that communicating complaints openly to one's partner, in concert with positive politeness (i.e., affirming the partner while voicing complaints), may help serve as a buffer against relational dissatisfaction associated with RS.

This study examines dyadic patterns of goal pursuit during a serial argument interaction and their associations with perceived argument resolvability. The authors utilize a growth curve framework to highlight how both initial importance and trajectories (i.e., over‐time increases/decreases) of goal importance predicted perceived resolvability. Seventy‐six heterosexual couples discussed a current serial argument and reported their goals at 1‐min increments, using a video‐assisted recall method. Both initial importance and increases in actors' partner‐focused goals were positively associated with perceived resolvability, and increases in a partners' self‐focused goal importance across the course of the interaction were negatively associated with actors' postinteraction resolvability perceptions. Results suggest that partners should attend to both initial goals and trajectories of goal pursuit during argumentative interactions.

A fundamental premise of much interpersonal communication scholarship is that communicators' goals may change during the course of interaction. Yet, the implications of these changes remain underexplored. This study examines the associations between goal variability and perceived resolvability of serial arguments. Seventy-five heterosexual romantic couples discussed a current serial argument and reported their interaction goals at 1-minute intervals, using a video-recall method. Within-interaction variability in self-focused and relational goals had positive curvilinear (i.e., U-shaped) associations with at least one partner's perceptions of perceived resolvability in each model tested. This study demonstrates the potential for goal variability to shape global interaction outcomes in the context of relational conflict.

This study explored the role of decision-making power in withholding communicating about relational complaints. A total of 350 participants (nested in 175 couples) completed surveys about the balance of decision-making power in their relationship, complaint avoidance, and complaint-related appraisals. Decision-making power had a curvilinear association with avoidance, such that individuals engaged in the least complaint avoidance when they were relatively equal to their partners in power. For complaint-related appraisals, problems were perceived as least severe, and outcome expectancies and communication efficacy assessments were most positive, when power was equal. Furthermore, severity appraisals and outcome expectancies mediated the curvilinear association of power with complaint avoidance. Results provided support for Dyadic Power Theory outside of laboratory contexts, and highlight cognitive mechanisms through which decision-making power may influence communication in close relationships.

Guided by research demonstrating that intoxication impairs cognitive processing, this study examined the effects of drinking on goal-related appraisals and communication behavior during cooperative interactions. In it, 42 male teams played four rounds of a cooperative game whereby one person produced clues and the other guessed the category the clues described. One partner was sober and the other was randomly assigned to drinking condition (sober or breath alcohol count of .08 g/dl). Analyses compared the appraisals and behaviors of the participant randomly assigned to drinking condition. Intoxicated participants felt less anxious and judged games as less challenging yet did not feel they had more control compared to their sober counterparts. Behaviorally, intoxicated participants exhibited more persistence yet were less flexible in goal pursuit than were sober participants. Ultimately, intoxicated—sober dyads had more success than did sober—sober dyads. Implications for message production under the influence of alcohol are discussed.

Research examining the role of goals in message production has identified ways communicative goals can be characterized. The authors conducted 2 studies investigating how characteristics of goals influence linguistic features in responses to problematic events in close relationships. We posited that 5 features of goals would be associated with message focus and embellishment. In Study 1, respondents recalled a problematic event in a close relationship, the conversation they had with that partner after the event, and the reasons why they offered the recalled response. Participants then answered questions about the event. In Study 2, they presented participants with hypothetical problems and asked them to role-play leaving a telephone message for their partners about the event. The results indicated that goal challenge, intensity, and complexity were positively associated with message embellishment. Focal center was predicted by a respondent's primary message goal. They discuss implications for understanding facets of communication goals and the nature of problematic events in close relationships.

As part of the growing effort to clarify the nature of goals in interpersonal communication contexts, the authors conducted two studies investigating the communication goals generated after problematic events in close relationships. In Study 1, a cluster analysis of 76 exemplar reasons for communicative responses to problematic events in close relationships identified seven categories of goals: maintain the relationship, accept fault for the event, manage positive face, avoid addressing the event, manage the conversation, manage emotion, and restore negative face. An examination of self-reported goals for responses to problematic events in dating relationships and friendships indicated that the most frequent goal was to accept fault for the event. Study 2 developed a 28-item inventory to evaluate the intensity of and relationships among goals after problematic events in close relationships. Analyses indicated that the goal to accept fault for the event was frequent and intense, whereas the goal to avoid addressing the event was infrequent and did not co-occur with the other goals. A second-order factor analysis provided preliminary evidence that the seven goals may be broadly categorized according to social versus nonsocial concerns.

Relational communication researchers have asserted that dominance and affiliation are the fundamental features of social reality. The authors argue that when individuals interpret interaction, they focus on one dimension or the other, such that dominance and affiliation are differentially salient. On that premise, the authors hypothesized that the relative salience of dominance or affiliation would be a function of the goal-defined context. Further, some investigators have argued that the notion of involvement is also essential to the study of relational communication. Although the authors concur, they believe that involvement is a fundamentally different type of construct than dominance or affiliation. The authors hypothesized that involvement is relevant to both dominance and affiliation judgments; it functions as an intensifier variable. A study was conducted in which participants rated the relevance of a series of word pairs that operationalized dominance, affiliation, and involvement within 12 interaction scenarios. Although there was evidence that the biological sex of the judge moderated the magnitude of some effects, the results were uniformly supportive of the hypotheses.