Suspicious receivers' interactions goals and strategic behaviors within dating relationships

Abstract

The study of suspicion in previous research has primarily focused on the impact of suspicion on deception detection accuracy or the pragmatics of suspicious receivers. The premise of the present study is that cognitive aspects of suspicious receivers must be accounted for to further understand their active participation in deceptive communication. The present study attempts to identify suspicious receivers' interaction goals and strategic behaviors and to find links between the goals and behaviors. The influence of situational and affective factors on suspicious receivers' goals and behaviors are also investigated. Data were collected from one hundred and eighty two undergraduate students within dating relationships. The results revealed four interaction goals and nine behavior categories of suspicious receivers in dating relationship. Some qualitative differences between the goals were found in terms of their association with behavioral strategies. Also, outcome involvement, relational commitment, and emotional intensity were found to have important influences on suspicious receivers' behaviors. Implications for future suspicion research are discussed as well as the study's limitations.