An Exploration of Family Communication Environment, Everyday Talk, and Family Satisfaction

The current study examined the types of everyday talk occurring most frequently within each of the three family communication environments and how family communication environment and everyday talk contribute to family satisfaction. Four hundred twenty participants representing 201 families completed measures representing these three constructs. Each of the three family communication environments predicted different types of everyday talk with variations in the directions of the predictions. These results reveal specific common communication behaviors occurring within each of Fitzpatrick and Ritchie’s family communication environments. However, the expressiveness family communication environment and everyday talk categories of joking around, recapping the day’s events, and relationship talk had the greatest impact on family satisfaction predicting 63% of the variance. Both the structural traditional and conflict avoidance family communication environments predicted different everyday talk categories, but neither was seen as a predictor of family satisfaction. The study concludes with a theoretical and practical explanation and applications of the results.