Emotional Communication on Romantic Relationships: Design and Validation of a Measure in Mexico

Relational communications is a basic tool to allow individuals express and interpret the messages in their close relationships, including information about the daily interaction and some vital issues about the relationship (Guerrero, Andersen, &Afifi, 2007), which will contribute to their general subjective well being. Thus, communication plays an important role on couple interaction, satisfaction and the fulfillment of their personal and interpersonal goals. Base on this, a pictographic emotional communication self-report for romantic relationships, was designed and validated. To do this, we studied a sample integrated for 384 individuals (50% males and 50% females) in an actual couple relationship. Participant’s age was from 18 to 69 years old with at least bachelor’s degree and Mexico City′s residents. Findings show a scale with proper psychometric characteristics. Some interesting factors were obtained and reflect the relationship among emotions and interpersonal behaviors.