An Exploration of Uncertainty Reduction Strategies in Romantic Relationships

Abstract

The study of romantic relationships is one of the themes in the study of interpersonal communication that has attracted an avalanche of research interest. Several reasons trail this increasing research interest, and one of these reasons stems from the recognition that relationships are not as simple or trivial as they are supposed to be. Therefore, this paper specifically explores uncertainty reduction strategies in romantic relationships. The paper presents a review of the scientific literature on reducing uncertainty in romantic relationships. The review encompasses the analysis of 20 studies, all published in peer-reviewed journals. The review discovered a large body of literature on uncertainty reduction strategies for both online and in-person romantic relationships. For online romantic relationships, uncertainty reduction strategies like passive strategy, active strategy, and interactive strategy were found to be prevalent and germane. On the other hand, consistent communication with partner, eye contact, and establishing rapport with partner's family and friends were discovered to be the best strategies for a face-to-face romantic relationship. In light of the above, the paper concluded that even though effective communication appears to be the hallmark of uncertainty reduction, the nature of a romantic relationship determines what uncertainty reduction strategy to adopt.