Referent communication skills in marriage: spouses as speakers and listeners

Abstract

Seventy-two volunteer married couples were categorized as either adjusted or non-adjusted on the basis of scores on the Locke-Wallace Marital Adjustment Scale and then participated in a communication task developed by Rosenberg and Cohen (1964). In order to examine differences in communication accuracy between adjusted and non-adjusted married couples, 12 husbands and 12 wives from both adjustment groups attempted to communicate with their spouses and with other married persons. Each subject (S) served as either a speaker or a listener but not as both. A bipolar adjective checklist was administered to each ~ under eight different response sets (self, ideal self, spouse, ideal spouse, and the prediction of how ~'s spouse responded to those sets) in the manner developed by Murstein and Beck (1972).