Callie Parrish, Mira Cleveland, and Benjamin Wassink Communication Accommodation in Technologically-Mediated Conflict Between Romantic Partners Callie Parrish, Mira Cleveland, and Benjamin Wassink

Overview Project Origins Research question Methodology Results Takeaways

Project Origins

Variables Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT) Modifying behavior to facilitate interactions Correlated with healthy relationships Language-Style Matching (LSM) How communication is “matched” between interactants Predicts liking, relationship initiation, and stability Technologically-Mediated Communication (TMC)

Variables cont. Technologically-mediated communication TMC in romantic relationships Relationship between satisfaction and media use TMC in conflict with partners Asynchronous-– lacks simultaneous message sending Less studied in romantic contexts LSM in TMC corresponds with relationship longevity

BUT how do partners match (or avoid matching) language during conflict?

Research Question RQ: Does convergence over text message differ between romantic partners’ positive and negative conversations?

Methodology

Participants 28 participants 16 female, 11 males Age 18-43 (M = 21.97) Ethnicity 76.3% White/Caucasian 7.9% Latinx 7.9% Native American 5.3% African American/Black 2.6% Asian/Pacific Islander

Methods Anonymous online survey Measures Demographics, motivation for disclosure, rewards & costs Measures Conversation evaluation (McLaren & Sillars, 2014; Harwood, 2000) Integrative and reluctant accommodation (Harwood, 2000) Type of non accommodation (Gasiorek & Giles, 2012) Relationship satisfaction (McHale & Crouter, 1986)

LIWC Software Participants submitted one text conversation (at least 4 exchanges) on a good day, and one conversation on a “not so good” day. LIWC “reads” the texts to determine matching on various grammatical levels

Results

Overall Findings Romantic partners do language style match more in positive conversations than conflict conversations Language style matching does not correlate with conversation satisfaction or relationship satisfaction ***Perceived accommodation significantly greater in positive conversation than conflict conversation Relates to conversation satisfaction

Takeaways

Implications Differences in perceptions of accommodation in strained vs. non-strained conversations Accommodation is particularly important in conflict conversations Perception affects satisfaction more than reality Conversation satisfaction positively relates to perceived accommodation Application of LSM measures in transcribed rather than technologically-mediated conversations Limitations of LIWC software

Conclusions This study offers theoretically and practically valuable implications about Communication Accommodation Theory and technologically-mediated exchanges. Future Research should: Expand application of LSM with additional accommodation measures Acquire a larger sample size Lends itself to dyadic data analyses Explore possible influences of gender and sexual orientation in relation to LSM in TMC

Thank you This study showed the applicability of communication privacy management theory to mental health contexts. Overall, disclosing potentially stigmatic information (such as a bipolar diagnosis) carries various costs and benefits. However, this study implies that disclosing may not be as terrible as we anticipate.

Contact Info Callie Parrish at callie.parrish@umontana.edu Mira Cleveland at mira.cleveland@umontana.edu Ben Wassink at benjamin.wassink@umontana.edu