Parent-child interaction in the laboratory: Effects of role, task, and child behavior pathology on verbal response mode use

Abstract

Fourth-, fifth-, or sixth-grade children identified as aggressive, withdrawn, or nondeviant by a consensus of teacher and peer ratings interacted with one of their parents in a modified revealed difference task. Transcripts of the interactions were coded according to a taxonomy of verbal response modes (VRMs). Comparison of VRM profiles showed small and equivocal differences between trait groups. However, differences between roles (parent and child) and differences between two phases of the task ("reach agreement" on a problematic situation and "tell you how you feel" in that situation) were large and highly significant. Results support the hypothesis that intersubjective coding categories, such as VRMs, are sensitive to role, task, and relationship variables but relatively insensitive to enduring individual differences in personality or behavior pathology.

Verbal Response Modes as Intersubjective Categories

“…This effect is, of course, consistent with the threechannel hypothesis and the implication that VRM indices measure communication in the intersubjective channel (Russell & Stiles, 1979). VRM profiles drawn from two studies, one of parent-child interaction (Stiles & White, 1981), and one of patient-physician interaction (Stiles, Putnam, Wolf, & James, 1979a, 1979b, illustrate the effects of role and task. Both studies involved individuals with complementary roles performing different interpersonal tasks, so that both influences could be assessed.…”

“…By this method, two-out-of-three agreement has typically been over 95% for both form and intent; that is, fewer than 5% of utterances have typically been coded "disagreement." Even the unusually unreliable codes in the parent-child study (Stiles & White, 1981) yielded two-out-of-three agreement of 96.9% for form and 92.2% for intent. The Cansler (1979;Cansler & Stiles, 1981) student-professor study had two-out-of-three agreement of 99.2% for form and 97.6% for intent.…”

“…It has been used to study conversations of college students with each other and with professors (Cansler, 1979;Cansler & Stiles, 1981;Stiles, Waszak, & Barton, 1979), parents and children (Stiles & White, 1981), married couples (Premo, 1978;Premo & Stiles, 1983), and medical interviews Stiles, Putnam, Wolf, & James, 1979a,b). Applications to political campaign speeches and courtroom interrogation of rape victims are in progress.…”

“…Typical levels of this kind of pairwise agreement have been about 85% for form and about 75% for intent, for undergraduate volunteer coders working from transcripts (i.e., without audio-or videotapes), who have had at least 20-30 hours of practice, feedback, and discussion on the type of transcript (e.g., psychotherapy, medical interviews, student-professor conversations) on which they are tested. To give some idea of the range of variation from study to study, agreement was only 80.9% for form and 65.8% for intent on transcripts of parents and children interacting in a modified revealed differences procedure (Stiles & White, 1981; some results of this research are described below). This relatively low agree-ment reflects the high incidence of fragmented sentences and ambiguous utterances in these interactions.…”

Further Linguistic Markers of Personality: The Way We Say Things Matters

“…Psychotherapists were more presumptuous than clients during sessions of various types of psychotherapy (Knight & Stiles, 1987;Stiles, Shapiro & Firth-Cozens, 1988). Parents were more presumptuous than their ten-to twelve-year old children in two laboratory-problem-solving exercises, (a) reach agreement on an ongoing source of conflict and (b) tell each other how you feel in the conflictual situation (Stiles & White, 1981). Courtroom attorneys were more presumptuous than witnesses (rape victims) during both direct and cross-examination (McGaughey & Stiles, 1983).…”