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Topic Avoidance in Developing Romantic Relationships

Associations with Intimacy and Relational Uncertainty

Department of Speech Communication at the University of Illinois

Katy E. Carpenter-Theune

Department of Speech Communication at the University of Illinois

Recent work, recognizing that topic avoidance embodies issues central to the field of interpersonal communication, has called for a better understanding of how topic avoidance corresponds with relationship progression. The authors employ a model of relationship development to deduce predictions about how topic avoidance may coincide with intimacy and relational uncertainty. They attend to topic avoidance in terms of the number of topics people avoid and the outcomes they anticipate from communicating about those avoided topics. They report a cross-sectional study in which 216 individuals identified and evaluated topics they avoid within a romantic relationship. With some exceptions, results supported hypotheses predicting that (a) intimacy and topic avoidance share a convex curvilinear association, (b) relational uncertainty and topic avoidance share a positive association, and (c) relational uncertainty mediates the association between intimacy and topic avoidance. They discuss how their findings illuminate topic avoidance within courtship.

Key Words: topic avoidance • relationship development • intimacy • relational uncertainty • courtship

Communication Research, Vol. 31, No. 2, 173-205 (2004)
DOI: 10.1177/0093650203261516


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