Situational formality, personality, and avoidance‐avoidance conflict as causes of interpersonal equivocation

Abstract

This study explores the causes of a widespread and important communication phenomenon, interpersonal equivocation. Participants were asked to imagine themselves in three different interpersonal situations, manipulated to vary the level of situational formality, and to respond to a question from their hypothetical conversational partner. These questions were designed to manipulate the presence or absence of avoidance‐avoidance conflict. Participants’ responses produced equivocation scores for each situation and an overall score. Participants also completed the Revised Self‐Monitoring Scale. As expected, results supported a strong role for avoidance‐avoidance conflict as an influence on equivocation and also suggested that formality level and avoidance‐avoidance conflict interact to influence the degree of equivocation. A surprising discovery was that higher self‐monitoring results in less equivocation, a finding that is explained by the likelihood that higher self‐monitors are more aware of the importance of Grice's Cooperative Principle for the smooth functioning of interactions.