Positive Outcomes of Conversations and their Correlates

Abstract

Conversation plays a pivotal role in our daily lives, allowing us the ability to share our thoughts and feelings and to form relationships that will last throughout our lives. Numerous previous studies have examined different aspects of conversational behavior and the resulting outcomes. This thesis functions as an exploration of the correlations between observable conversation behaviors, namely linguistic alignment, disclosure, and backchanneling, and three positive conversation outcomes: feelings of closeness, positive interpersonal skills perception, and enjoyment. Conversation and survey data from the CANDOR Corpus was used to examine how each conversation feature affects individuals’ and their partners’ responses to the conversation. Findings of particular interest include a significant positive correlation between individuals use of the pronouns “we” and “us” and a wide variety of positive outcomes, a negative correlation between individuals’ backchanneling and several positive outcomes, and a positive correlation between lexical similarity and perceived interpersonal skills.