The Language Young Couples Use Predicts Their Relationship Success

People are attracted to other people because of their appearance, their personality and their values, and those who get married believe they have found their match, but a new study says that there are many more things that make a relationship work, and the way people talk is one of them.

It seems that people who speak in similar styles, are more compatible and have more chances of staying together.

To test this hypothesis, study coauthors James Pennebaker and Molly Ireland, of the University of Texas at Austin, and their colleagues, conducted two experiments in which a computer program compared partners' language styles.

They wanted to see whether the speaking and writing styles that couples adopt during conversation with one another, can predict the future of the couple, and the long-term strength of their relationship.

For the first study, pairs of college students had four-minute speed dates and their conversations were recorded.

Most conversations were on the same topics – their major, their origins or whether or not they liked college.

To the untrained ear, every conversation could have sounded more or less the same, but the computer text analysis showed that there were striking differences in language synchrony.

The couples who had matching scores in style language, had four times more chances of wanting future contact compared to those whose styles were different.

The second study focused on patterns in everyday online chats between dating couples, over a ten-day period, and concluded that almost 80% of the couples with matching writing styles, were still together three months later, unlike only 54% of the couples who didn't quite match.

This entire research focused on 'function words', which are not nouns or verbs, but the words that show how those words relate.

An exact definition is a bit difficult to give, but we tend to use them all the time; they are words like the, a be, anything, that, and, will and him.

The way we use them is what defines our speaking and writing style, according to Pennebaker, who believes that “function words are highly social and they require social skills to use.

“For example, if I'm talking about the article that's coming out, and in a few minutes I make some reference to 'the article,' you and I both know what the article means,” but someone who was not present cannot understand.

People aren't consciously synchronizing their speech so even though what they say to one another is important, the way they say it can be far more revealing.

“What's wonderful about this,” added Pennebaker, “is we don't really make that decision; it just comes out of our mouths.”

This research was published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.