{"id":2070,"date":"2008-09-29T13:43:52","date_gmt":"2008-09-29T17:43:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=2070"},"modified":"2011-05-31T12:41:12","modified_gmt":"2011-05-31T16:41:12","slug":"communications-professor-studies-dark-side-of-relationships","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2008\/09\/communications-professor-studies-dark-side-of-relationships\/","title":{"rendered":"Communications Professor Studies Dark Side of Relationships"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"<p>Melissa<\/a>
Melissa Tafoya, assistant professor of communication sciences, in her office. Photo by Frank Dahlmeyer<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Melissa Tafoya has always been drawn to the dark side of human behavior.<\/p>\n

\u201cI study the real-life stuff \u2013 infidelity, jealousy, aggression, and conflict,\u201d says Tafoya, an assistant professor of communication sciences.<\/p>\n

Tafoya, who joined the UConn faculty in 2007, earned her bachelor\u2019s and Ph.D. degrees in communication from Arizona State University\u2019s Hugh Downs School of Human Communication. She has a long-standing interest in behavioral research.<\/p>\n

\u201cInterpersonal communication is an interdisciplinary science, and since I was interested in psychology, sociology, and family studies, communication was a good fit for me,\u201d she says. \u201cThe field is broad and diverse.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tafoya, who describes her research interests as eclectic, is working on several different studies.<\/p>\n

In one project, she is examining the variations in siblings\u2019 experiences and interactions across different relationship types, including half, full, and step-siblings, in nuclear, divorced, and remarried families.<\/p>\n

\u201cSiblings are your longest lasting relationship,\u201d Tafoya says. \u201cYou\u2019re stuck with your \u2018full\u2019 siblings. They\u2019re your siblings no matter what. But with step-siblings there is more of a choice in terms of the kind of relationship you can have with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also conducts research on the experiences of jealousy, envy, and rivalry in families, friendships, and romantic relationships. Her most recent study examined infidelity in romantic relationships.<\/p>\n

She conducted a study with a researcher from San Diego State University on what is called \u2018communicative infidelity.\u2019 The term was coined to describe an infidelity committed to \u2018send a message\u2019 to a partner.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe person is unfaithful intentionally,\u201d says Tafoya. \u201cThe infidelity is a strategic and manipulative act. For example, a partner may be unfaithful because he or she is unhappy and wants to let the partner know.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tafoya is also interested in the physiological effects of communication. In one study, she examined how people\u2019s stress levels were reduced by expressing affection through writing a letter.<\/p>\n

The participants\u2019 cortisol levels, heart rates, blood pressure, and blood glucose levels were measured. \u201cWe found that participants\u2019 stress levels were significantly reduced when they wrote a letter of affection to somebody they cared about,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Tafoya says much of her research is in areas that are understudied.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m interested in the things that we just don\u2019t know too much about,\u201d she says, \u201cor where there are large gaps.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tafoya says teaching is one of her passions.<\/p>\n

This semester, she is teaching undergraduate courses on conflict management and negotiation, and interpersonal communication.<\/p>\n

She also teaches graduate courses on interpersonal communication theory and family communication.<\/p>\n

The interpersonal communication course includes an examination of identity, attraction, and love, as well as jealousy and infidelity. In that course, she tells stories about her own life, and has the students write about concepts and theories, then apply them to their own experiences.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had students tell me they left abusive relationships after taking my interpersonal communication course,\u201d she says, \u201cand others who\u2019ve said it changed their lives. Everything I teach is applicable. The students take what they\u2019ve learned in class and really think about it and talk about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

For one of the assignments in that class, students have to find an article about relationships published in a magazine like Cosmopolitan<\/em> or Maxim<\/em>. They then compare and contrast the advice given in the magazine article to scholarly journal articles.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe students learn that the majority of articles in these magazines are oversimplified, and much of the time there are no similarities between the articles and the scholarly research,\u201d Tafoya says. \u201cFor example, in magazines like Cosmo, there are articles about what a man finds attractive in a woman. They\u2019re very sexist, and promote stereotypical gender roles. That\u2019s just not what the research is showing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The focus of her conflict management and negotiation class is on positive aspects of conflict. \u201cWhen most people think about conflict, they think about hostility and negativity,\u201d she says, \u201cbut we don\u2019t spend too much time on that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, she teaches students ways to manage conflict constructively \u2013 in their own relationships, in organizations, and in intercultural interactions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe talk about the negative stuff too,\u201d she says, \u201cbut I want them to leave the class being able to manage conflict situations in an effective and appropriate manner.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Melissa Tafoya has always been drawn to the dark side of human behavior.<\/p>\n

\u201cI study the real-life stuff \u2013 infidelity, jealousy, aggression, and conflict,\u201d says Tafoya, an assistant professor of communication sciences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[59],"class_list":["post-2070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-25 18:47:52","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2070"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2070\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37310,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2070\/revisions\/37310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2070"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=2070"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}