Wood, Emily Victoria. Word choice during a cooperative task and romantic partners’ relationship quality. Retrieved from https://doi.org/doi:10.7282/T3NK3CCG
DescriptionFunctional word choice in conversation may reveal a speaker’s implicit feelings towards his or her interaction partner. In the present study, 89 emerging adult couples (n=178) representing various relationship statuses (dating, cohabitating, and married) were videotaped while completing a cooperative task. The couples were ethnically diverse and in relatively new relationships (mean length of relationship= 3.7 years). Pronoun use during the conversation was analyzed using Linguistic Inventory Word Count (Pennebaker et al, 2001) and correlated with relationship quality at the time of the interview, and correlated with a one year follow-up of relationship success and relationship quality. Findings reveal a few important correlations between pronouns used and relationship quality and success. Additionally, this research successfully extends past research by examining young couples in a cooperative task, rather than conflict, and by examining the predictive power of separateness versus togetherness pronoun use in attempts to understand relationship quality.