Actor goal achievement and sensitivity to partner as critical factors in understanding interpersonal communication competence and conflict strategies

Abstract

Communication scholars have long argued that achieving one's personal goals with others constitutes an important element of interpersonal communication competence. Moreover, sensitivity to the partner's goals has been implicated in various lines of research related to competence. Despite the presumed status of goal achievement and sensitivity to the partner's goals, models do not develop the relationships between these constructs and how actors are assessed in terms of competence criteria. This paper attempts to repair this oversight by advancing and testing hypotheses that connect assessments of competence to actor's goal achievement and sensitivity to the partner's goals. Using the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model (APIM) (Kashy & Kenny, 1999), both actor and partner assessments of the actor's sensitivity and conflict strategies were analyzed. Results reveal that sensitivity to the partner's goals was a strong predictor of competence assessments and that actor goal achievement was a moderate predictor of competence assessments. In short, support was found for the explicit inclusion of goal achievement and goal sensitivity in models of interpersonal communication competence.