Talking Styles

Ashley Broadway COM 200 Instructor Lindsay Hallead April 8, 2013 Talking Styles I feel the score that was given from the LSM was accurate. I used a portion of the text messages between me and my husband to complete the test. Before the test I felt we had a great connection when we communicate. We can communicate verbally and non-verbally very well. We have had great communication since the beginning and over the few years we have been together our communication has grown. Communication I don’t feel that it can be measured because it changes all the time.

Communication is based upon a lot of things. It can reflect your mood and the atmosphere that you are in at the time. Your LSM score is 0. 79 Compared to other IMs that we have analyzed, your LSM score is slightly below average to give you an idea, most LSM scores for IMs range between . 75 and . 95, with an average around . 84. The more that the two people are paying attention to each other in their interaction, the higher the LSM. LSM is higher in ongoing conversations such as IMs, telephone calls, or face-to-face conversations.

LSM is lower in emails, letters, or other less direct interactions. The more similar the topic and the mindset of the two authors, the more the LSM score should be similar. Do not take this feedback about LSM too seriously. It is still in the experimental phase. Several factors can lead to LSM scores that are too low. Some problems include: •Too few words by one or both authors •Very different genres of writing between the two people •An extreme number of misspellings or IM shortcuts (words such as “2” for “to” or “b4” for “before”).

If you think this was a problem, correct these problems and see if your numbers change. Some of the best way to interpret your own feedback is to run different LSM scores with IMs or emails to and from other friends. Or track LSM scores with the same person over time. Once you start comparing your numbers, you can get a better sense of your average LSM numbers. (http://www. utpsyc. org/synch/feedback. php) I do not believe that language style matching is a comprehensive way to predict the quality of interpersonal relationships.

Interpersonal relationships are more on the inside that what the language style matching can measure. Interpersonal relationships also change like communication. You may grow closer to the person you have an interpersonal relationship with or end up hating the person you have an interpersonal relationship with. There are many things that can happen to change an interpersonal relationship. I think the article “Shared Talking Styles Herald New and Lasting Romance” is somewhat true and somewhat false. There are a lot of things in this article that I have a hard time believing are true.

I think a test about communication isn’t always accurate because of the circumstances that could affect the test. “Unconscious verbal coordination of this sort, dubbed language-style matching by the researchers, signifies not how much two people like each other but how much each is paying attention to what the other says, Ireland and her colleagues propose in an upcoming Psychological Science. ”(Bower, B. 2010) I can see the truth in this statement because giving un-divided attention when communicating is very important.

If someone isn’t really paying attention to the other person talking then the conversation is more so one sided. It is also very disrespectful. “A second experiment found that among 86 young-adult couples in committed relationships, those who used similar writing styles during 10 days of instant-messaging chats with each other were particularly likely to stay together over the next three months. ”(Bower, B. 2010) This is one of the parts of the article that I find a little fishy.

It is speed dating so that tells me that there is only about ten minutes of conversation going on and I just don’t see how any test can show how long a relationship will last. I believe that a relationship lasts because the people in it want it to last so therefore they work for it to last. Reference Bower, B. (2010, Shared talking styles herald new and lasting romance. U. S. News & World Report, , 1. Retrieved from http://search. proquest. com/docview/821694533? accountid=32521 Language Style Matching score http://www. utpsyc. org/synch/feedback. php