Relational Mobility Predicts Conversation Depth and Conversation Avoidance

Abstract: This research explores how relational mobility—the ability of individuals to meet new people and choose their social relationships—affects conversational behavior. When individuals have opportunities to meet new people in their environments, they tend to establish new relationships relatively quickly, which leads to more in-depth conversations. Similarly, when individuals believe they can freely choose whom to stay connected with, they face fewer risks in having a potentially bad conversations, thus exhibiting lower concerns for privacy and conflict. Two online studies with Amazon Mechanical Turk participants revealed that meeting new people is related to deeper conversations, while choosing social relationships correlates with fewer privacy and conflict concerns. These results suggest that relational mobility is a crucial socio-ecological factor influencing conversational approach and avoidance behaviors. The findings imply that organizations can enhance communication by allowing team members to select their colleagues.

Keywords: Relational Mobility, Conversation Depth, Conversation Avoidance, Quantitative, Recall Study