Communication within Romantic Relationships

Past studies have found support indicating a relation exists between personality characteristics, emotional intelligence and self-disclosure with romantic relationship satisfaction. The present study will explore the relation between personal characteristics and romantic relationship satisfaction as mediated by communication variables. Couples in established heterosexual romantic relationships of at least 3 months (N=200) will be recruited from an undergraduate population at the University of Windsor through the Psychology Department Research Participant Pool System. Both members of each couple will individually complete five questionnaires online designed to measure various personal characteristics, communication with a romantic partner, and relationship satisfaction. I hypothesize that there will be a direct, proportional relationship between three independent variables—five-factor personality characteristics, emotional intelligence and self-disclosure—and relationship satisfaction as mediated by communication behaviours. I expect results will indicate low neuroticism, higher agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, higher emotional intelligence, and higher self-disclosure will be correlated to greater relationship satisfaction as mediated by communication behaviours. This mediation would show that satisfaction in romantic relationships lie in the couples’ communication quality. These findings would have important implications for interventions that focus on modifying couples communication patterns