When walking across campus one day, you trip and fall down. Your partner sees you and says, “Please be careful!” How do you interpret that? Does it mean that you’re moving too fast? You need to slow down? Does it mean that your partner is genuinely worried you might hurt yourself? In all conversations, the recipient of the message must interpret the intended meaning of the message (P. Edwards, 1998), which is dependent on several factors, such as the nature of the relationship with the person and your mood at the time.
If you are angry or upset, you may perceive more hostility in ambiguous or benign comments than someone who is not angry or upset (Epps & Kendall,
1995) . If you are worried about something or preoccupied with an issue, this can also bias how you interpret a message. In one study, women who were preoccupied with their weight were more likely to interpret ambiguous sentences with negative or “fat” meanings, whereas women who were not preoccupied with their weight did not (Jackman et al., 1995). For example, if a woman who was preoccupied with her weight heard someone say, “You look much better today!” she would probably interpret this to mean that she looked fat yesterday. However, couldn’t she also interpret the message in other ways? Perhaps she looked tired yesterday or even stressed out.