REUTERS LIFE – Feb 2 – American researchers have found a new way to predict the success of a relationship — compare the speaking style of a couple. In a study of college students they found that couples whose language was in sync were almost four times more likely to want to see each other again than those who did not use similar language, said Professor James Pennebaker, of the University of Texas, who headed the research team. The researchers focused on function words — which are not nouns or verbs but the words that show how those words relate. For example: a, be, anything, that, will, him. "We found that function words are a powerful reflection of somebody's psychological state," Pennebaker said. "You can tell when people are in the same state or are on the same page." ~80% of the couples whose conversational styles were similar were still dating three months after the experiment, compared with 54% of couples whose styles were markedly different. FULL ARTICLE @ REUTERS LIFE
