A recent study reveals that over half of Stapleton women communicate with their husbands almost exclusively using questions, or interrogative statements used to test knowledge. “We are studying the communication habits of married couples,” said research director Brian Crowley. “The Stapleton community has a dense population of married couples in the age range we wanted to look at (35-50), so we interviewed about 1,000 couples in Stapleton. We were able to learn a lot about communication habits.”
Crowley says more work needs to be done to determine if the study only applies to Stapleton residents, or if the results apply to all married couples in that age range. “This initial study gives us a benchmark,” said Crowley. “We will continue to replicate the study over several areas and see how much of the results remain consistent.” Crowley determined that Stapleton women felt that their points were more easily understood when posed in a question format. “Simply telling a spouse to do something didn’t seem strong enough to the participants. The women in the study felt by asking things in question form may help their husbands learn, much like how you would teach a child.”
Many of the questions pertained to household chores, parenting techniques, or overall social behavior. For example, some of the most common questions included:
- Is that what you plan on wearing?
- Do you really think that was necessary?
- Will the kids be wearing a helmet?
- Is that really how you feed our child?
- Is that how you think you should talk in front of the kids?
- Are you ever going to get the ______ fixed?