Suspicious Receivers’ Goals and Behaviors 15
Message uncertainty, partner uncertainty, and relationship uncertainty. A four-item
semantic differential scale was created to measure message uncertainty. Participants were asked
how certain they were that their partner was being untruthful. Responses were made on 7-point
scales anchoring with various terms indicating uncertainty and certainty. The items were
unidimensional and highly reliable (
= .94). The scale is presented in Appendix.
Partner uncertainty measurement was adopted from Parks and Adelman’s (1983)
uncertainty scale. The original 8 items were modified to better fit with the context of suspicion.
The modified scale is presented in Appendix. Responses were made on the 7-point Likert scales
with anchors of strongly disagree and strongly agree. Factor analysis result indicated the
unidimensionality of the modified items. The scale was reliable (
= .84).
Relationship uncertainty measurement was adopted from Solomon and Knobloch’s
(2001) study. Three subscales of relationship uncertainty were employed: Uncertainty about
behavioral norms, uncertainty about the future, and uncertainty about mutuality. First, the
subscale of uncertainty about behavioral norms is developed to measure an individual’s
uncertainty about the relational rules (e.g., “I became uncertain about the norms for this
relatioship”). Four items were reliable (
= .87). Second, the subscale of uncertainty about the
future attempts to measure a person’s confusion about the future of the relationship (e.g., “I
became uncertain about where this relationship is going”). Four items were highly reliable (
= .94). Lastly, the subscale of uncertainty about mutuality attempts to measure one’s confidence
about the equal level of commitment or affection in the relationship (e.g., “I became uncertain
about whether or not my partner likes me as much as I like him/her”). Four items were highly
reliable (
= .96).
Convention