Psychology Commons^™

The Relationship Of Verbal-Nonverbal Incongruence To Communication Mismatches In Married Couples, Amy Van Buren

Psychology Faculty Publications

Communication accuracy refers to whether a message sent by a sender is perceived by the receiver to have the same emotional meaning intended by the sender. Previous research using marital dyads suggests that receivers sometimes receive the emotional meaning in senders’ statements differently than senders intend. The present study was conducted to test the possibility that one reason such misunderstandings occur is that senders may convey emotional messages differently than they intend. Twenty-four married couples carried on a ten-minute videotaped free interaction during which they rated the emotional meaning in each others’ statements. Results indicated that senders conveyed messages that …