A recently advanced schema for relational communication proposes as many as 12 fundamental and distinctive themes underlying relational message exchange. Reported here are the results of three measurement studies using exploratory oblique and orthogonal factor analyses and confirmatory factor analysis. These offer empirical validation for seven to 10 of the themes. Additionally, results from seven experiments using the relational communication measure provide reliability estimates and predictive validity data. The final recommended measurement instrument is a 30‐item scale incorporating eight independent themes or clusters of themes.
Burgoon et al. (Sun,) studied this question.