Chapter 17 Further Reading: Verbal Communication in Courtship

Primary Research

Pennebaker, J. W., Mehl, M. R., & Niederhoffer, K. G. (2003). Psychological aspects of natural language use: Our words, our selves. Annual Review of Psychology, 54, 547–577. The best single overview of Pennebaker's research program on language and personality, including the foundations of the LSM framework. Accessible and surprisingly readable for a review article. Pennebaker's broader argument — that function words reveal psychological states in ways content words do not — is developed here with rich examples.

Ireland, M. E., Slatcher, R. B., Eastwick, P. W., Scissors, L. E., Finkel, E. J., & Pennebaker, J. W. (2011). Language style matching predicts relationship initiation and stability. Psychological Science, 22(1), 39–44. The direct test of LSM in courtship contexts. The speed-dating study with three-month follow-up. This is the paper you want to read if you want to understand what the LSM research actually shows for romantic relationships specifically.

Aron, A., Melinat, E., Aron, E. N., Vallone, R. D., & Bator, R. J. (1997). The experimental generation of interpersonal closeness: A procedure and some preliminary findings. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 23(4), 363–377. The original 36 questions paper. Worth reading the actual study rather than the popular accounts, which compress and distort the findings. Note particularly the careful language the authors use — "closeness," not "love" — and the limitations section.

Huang, K., Yeomans, M., Brooks, A. W., Minson, J., & Gino, F. (2017). It doesn't hurt to ask: Question-asking increases liking. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 113(3), 430–452. The Harvard Business School study on follow-up questions in speed-dating. Elegantly designed, clearly written, and the finding is robust across several replications.

Books: Foundational Works

Tannen, D. (1990). You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation. William Morrow. The popular-academic book that brought gendered communication differences to mainstream attention. Now dated in places (the binary gender framework and the lack of intersectional analysis are significant limitations), but the basic observations about rapport talk and report talk remain useful starting points. Read alongside its critics.

Lakoff, R. (1975). Language and Woman's Place. Harper & Row. The foundational text in feminist linguistics. Lakoff's analysis of "women's language" features — hedges, tag questions, politeness indirection — opened the field. Subsequent research has qualified many of her claims, but reading the original is important for understanding where the conversation started.

Pennebaker, J. W. (2011). The Secret Life of Pronouns: What Our Words Say About Us. Bloomsbury Press. Pennebaker's popular-audience synthesis of his research program. The chapter on how function words reveal relationship dynamics is directly relevant to this chapter. More accessible than the academic papers and a genuinely enjoyable read.

Goffman, E. (1967). Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face-to-Face Behavior. Pantheon. The original theoretical framework for "face" — the public self-image that all social actors negotiate in interaction. Essential background for understanding why strategic ambiguity exists and what face-threatening acts are. Goffman's prose is dense but his observations are endlessly illuminating.

Books: Critical Perspectives

Tannen, D. (1994). Talking from 9 to 5: Women and Men at Work. William Morrow. More careful than You Just Don't Understand on the contextual and cultural limits of gender communication generalizations. The discussion of cooperative overlap versus intrusive interruption is particularly relevant.

Illouz, E. (2007). Cold Intimacies: The Making of Emotional Capitalism. Polity Press. Sociological analysis of how intimate life has been reorganized around therapeutic, market, and self-help frameworks. The 36 questions as consumer product makes perfect sense in Illouz's theoretical framework. Demanding but important.

For the Quantitatively Inclined

Groom, C. J., Cannava, K., Pennebaker, J. W., & Ireland, M. E. (2011). Language Style Matching as a predictor of social dynamics in small groups. Communication Research, 38(1), 3–19. Group-level LSM analysis. Useful for understanding that LSM is not only a dyadic phenomenon — it indexes cohesion in multi-person interactions too.

Collins, N. L., & Miller, L. C. (1994). Self-disclosure and liking: A meta-analytic review. Psychological Bulletin, 116(3), 457–475. The meta-analysis of 94 studies on disclosure and liking. If you want the quantitative case for the self-disclosure reciprocity norm, start here.