Verbal Disclosure Research Articles

Reciprocity of Marital Communication

The discussions of seventy-three married couples were analysed for sequential and distributional patterns of paralinguistic affect and verbal conflict. The paralinguistic analyses supported behavioural skills approaches to marital communication: on highly salient topics, less satisfied couples had greater negative reciprocity than more satisfied couples. However, the verbal communication results were inconsistent with prevailing assumptions about effective communication: more satisfied couples had a higher rate of conflict avoidance. Subsequent analyses indicated that the relationship between verbal communication patterns and marital satisfaction depends on a couple's implicit expectations and standards of communication. Non-verbal affective patterns appear to have more general meaning than verbal disclosure and conflict avoidance.

Distancing in Dyads: A Comparison of Four Models

A general view of interpersonal distancing, integrating verbal and nonverbal components of interaction could follow any of four different rules of dyadic exchange of intimacy: (1) reciprocity, (2) compensation, (3) attraction mediation, and (4) attraction transformation. An experiment was conducted assessing subjects' verbal and visual distancing responses while orthogonally manipulating interviewer attractiveness, question intimacy, disclosure personalness and visual gaze. The results support the norm of reciprocity with regard to verbal disclosure. With regard to visual gaze, an interaction with attractiveness emerged, conforming to the attraction transformation hypothesis. Reciprocity occurred with a likeable interviewer while compensation occurred with an unlikeable interviewer.

The Effects of Lighting, Distance and Intimacy of Topic on Verbal and Visual Behavior

This experiment examined how Ss assess degree of intimacy and how they respond to intimacy. Forty female Ss answered 3 non-intimate questions in a baseline interview and 3 intimate questions in an experimental interview, in which they sat far from or near to E in a brightly or dimly lit room. Dependent variables included verbal and visual behavior and questionnaire responses. Ss reduced verbal disclosure and eye-contact during the intimate inverview. They rated the Dim and Near conditions as more intimate and less appropriate than the Bright and Far, respectively, and they preferred the Near over the Far condition. In the Dim condition, Ss decreased eye-contact and increased latency to talk, but the Near-Far distinction did not affect behavior. Intimacy may be independent of appropriateness and preference, and may affect verbal and visual behaviors d ifferently.