COMMUNICATION AND UNDERSTANDING IN MARRIAGE

doi:10.1111/j.1468-2958.1984.tb00022.x

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Wiley InterScience

Human Communication Research

Volume 10 Issue 3, Pages 317 - 350

Published Online: 17 Mar 2006

Published on behalf of the International Communication Association

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COMMUNICATION AND UNDERSTANDING IN MARRIAGE

ALAN L. SILLARS ¹ GARY R. PIKE ² TRICIA S. JONES ³ MARY A. MURPHY ⁴

¹ Alan L. Sillars (Ph. D., University of Wisconsin. 1980) is assistant professor of communication at Ohio State University, Columbia ² Gary R. Pike (M.A., Southwest Missouri State University, 1978) is a doctoral student at Ohio State University ³ Tricia S. Jones (Ph. D., Ohio State University. 1983) is assistant professor of speech at the University of Denver. ⁴ Mary A. Murphy (M. A., West Virginia University, 1971) is a doctoral student in speech communication at the University of Illinois. This research was supported by a grant to the first author from the Ohio State University Graduate School.

ABSTRACT

Two studies are reported in which audiotape contestations of married couples were analyzed. A total of 82 couples were involved. The research considered how understanding of feelings is related to verbal and nonverbal communication. Paraling expression of affect was more consistently related to understanding than verbal disclosure. Further, there was a strong tendency for spouses to use their own feelings as a reference for predicting their partner's feelings. These findings suggest that information that is more immediate to the perceiver has the greatest effect on understanding.

ABSTRACT

The key results of the first study were as follows: (1) There was a strong tendency for people to overestimate the similarity between their own feelings and their partner's feelings. (2) Understanding of the partner's feelings was negatively related to marital adjustment. (3) Among the more satisfied individuals, those who were better understood had more negative statements, fewer neutral statements, fewer no continuity statements, and more direct and indirect distributive statements than did individuals who were less understood. (4) Among the less satisfied individuals, there was little relationship between communication and understanding. (5) Individuals with a better understanding of their partner were more neutral and less negative than individuals with less understanding.

DIGITAL OBJECT IDENTIFIER (DOI)

10.1111/j.1468-2958.1984.tb00022.x About DOI