Applying Communication Theory to Real Interactions
Apply communication theory: senders encode messages, receivers decode them with different interpretations.
Contributions
Every accepted correction to this page is recorded with the exact change, so readers can see how the page improved over time.
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A review of the research and case-study sections of this article on applying communication theory found the great majority of its classic citations (Watzlawick, Bateson, Trevino/Lengel/Daft, Uri Hasson, Albert Mehrabian) were accurate. Two issues were found: John Gottman's well-known relationship-prediction accuracy figure was presented with more certainty than the research supports, and a claim connecting sociologist Charles Perrow to the official Deepwater Horizon Presidential Commission report could not be verified.
What the page claimedThe article stated that John Gottman's team achieved 'over 90 percent accuracy in predicting relationship dissolution years in advance' without noting that the exact figure varies across his own studies or that the prediction claims have drawn real methodological criticism from statisticians. It also stated that the Deepwater Horizon disaster's official 2011 Presidential Commission report included a communication analysis written by sociologist Charles Perrow.
What was correctedThe article now describes Gottman's prediction accuracy as falling in the low-to-mid 90 percent range across different studies, and notes the real methodological debate around whether those figures reflect genuine prospective prediction or later model-fitting on the same data. It also now correctly describes Charles Perrow's real, separate public commentary on the disaster without implying he authored part of the Commission's official report, which was led by co-chairs Bob Graham and William K. Reilly.
Why: Web searches found that Gottman's prediction-accuracy claim, while based on a real, well-known research program, is more precisely described as a range with an active methodological debate rather than a single settled figure, and that no evidence connects Charles Perrow to authorship of the Deepwater Horizon Commission's report itself, even though he did comment publicly and separately on the disaster. Both were corrected while preserving the real researchers and their real, substantial contributions to this subject.
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