Record Detail Back
EFFECTS OF SEX OF SENDER AND EMOTIONAL PARAMETERS OF MESSAGE ON PHYSIOLOGICAL RESPONDING IN MARITAL COMMUNICATION
- Share to:
Abstract of Dissertation Presented to the Graduate School
of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
EFFECTS OF SEX OF SENDER
AND EMOTIONAL PARAMETERS OF MESSAGE
ON PHYSIOLOGICAL RESPONDING IN MARITAL COMMUNICATION
By
DAVID A. HERMECZ
August 1985
Chairman: Hugh C. Davis, Ph.D.
Major Department: Clinical Psychology
Sixty-four couples presented information about specific problem
areas in their relationships. After identifying the area in which the
greatest degree of disagreement existed, one spouse from each couple
was chosen randomly to present a written description of his/her
perception of the target problem to his/her spouse. Half the
presenting spouses were coached to present the problem in an
affectively neutral (calm, matter-of-fact) manner; the others were
coached to present messages in an affectively negative (angry,
impatient) manner. A transformation of the content of the problem
descriptions was also made, with half being modified to express the
complaint in a "mindreading " manner, attributing feelings, attitudes,
opinions, and/or behaviors to the other spouse, and half being
modified to be "problem feeling," expressing the speaker's own
feelings, attitudes, or opinions about the problem area. Half of the
senders of each of these groups were wives and half were husbands.
vi
Heart rate, skin resistance responses, skin conductance responses, and
change in skin resistance level of the listeners were the dependent
measures, monitored over a period of silence, the reading of a
standard message, and the reading of the problem description. Spouses
in the negative affect conditions showed greater increases in the
number of electrodermal responses from standard message to problem
description than subjects in the neutral condition. There was a
tendency for mindreading messages to elicit a greater number of skin
conductance responses than problem feeling messages. Negative affect
combined with mindreading content elicited the greatest number of skin
resistance responses in listeners. Wives showed greater physiological
activity overall than husbands, regardless of the content or affect of
the message, wives showed more electrodermal activity to problem
feeling than mindreading messages, and husbands were more responsive
to mindreading than problem feeling messages. Content and affect also
interacted with sex, with wives hearing neutral problem feeling
messages showing the highest heart rate response and husbands hearing
negative mindreading messages showing the lowest level of responding.
Results were discussed with respect to complementarity of roles of
husbands and wives in conflict resolution and the potential for
application of the information provided by psychophysiological
indices.
