Nonverbal communication accuracy in married couples: relationship with marital complaints

Nonverbal communication abilities were examined as mediators of martial complaints for a sample of 48 recently married couples. Based on social penetration theory, we predicted that couples cohabiting longer would be better at decoding their partners' nonverbal expressions than couples cohabiting a shorter time, that individuals married to accurate nonverbal communicators would evidence fewer martial complaints, and that individuals with fewer marital complaints would be better nonverbal communicators. The data suggest that nonverbal decoding abilities do not covary with relationship length, although spouses were better at decoding their partners' expressions than were a panel of judges. In addition, nonverbal sensitivity to one's spouse did not covary with martial complaints, although an internal analysis suggests that wives' ability to decode husbands poorly encoded messages covaries negatively with both his and her complaints. Finally, husbands married to wives who are good encoders had fewer complaints, whereas the reverse was found to hold true for the relationship between husbands' encoding abilities on wives' complaints.