Bernstein’s research primarily studied the use of language as a function of social class. Social class was an important variable then, and inspired lot more research around it. Hawkins, Weisberg and Ray studied the relationship between social class and marital communication style.

Interesting! Yes, it is, Marital communication style. An issue that most people joke about, laugh about, complain about…such an integral part of our daily communication that it comes as a topic whether we are talking about parents, friends, colleagues and almost anyone to everyone.

In their study, they defined four classes of communication styles depending on the amount of self-disclosure and how open/closed one was to communication. Such classification was supported by theory, so no dispute over that. More than 160 couples (married for over three years was the criteria), from high, middle and low social classes, took part in the study and were interviewed. The interview elicited information about critical incidents in marital life, communicative behaviour expected and received from each other, and also the assumptions they held about what is good communication. The study also involved making the couple participate in a five-minute discussion which would be observed by an outsider, who would, at the end of the session, rate the communication styles of the individuals in the couple. And then data analysis…

The results were simple and profound. The higher the social class of the couple, the more contactful style was preferred and less conventional style (just imagine this situation, makes me laugh out loud). This means that the demand for open communication and high disclosure is sky high in couples from high social class. And even more funnily, this does not change for the couples from other social classes, except that their demand for such communication tends to be relatively low compared to the higher class. This meant that the communicative demands of individuals in a married couple are all the same irrespective of their social class, but that they are at different levels (may be a good news). Even more interestingly, most of the couples felt they deal with emotional issues in contactful or speculative style (that means every problem is solved on fair grounds, is that true?!). Overall, there seemed to be not much difference between couples from any social class in the way they communicate.

Ha ha…

The lesson is that marriage is a contract that demands intense focus and frequent communication, but most part of it ends in conflict while a little part of it remains secret. Isn’t that so true! This piece of research just confirms it.