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

2. Overview Project Origins Research question Methodology Results
Takeaways

3. Project Origins

4. 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)

5. 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

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

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

8. Methodology

9. 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

10. 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)

11. 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

12. Results

13. 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

14. Takeaways

15. 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

16. 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

17. 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.

18. Contact Info
Callie Parrish at
Mira Cleveland at
Ben Wassink at