Showing papers in "Communication Monographs in 1985"

The narrative paradigm: An elaboration

Abstract: This essay situates the narrative paradigm in regard to major social scientific and humanistic theories, and applies the paradigm in an interpretation and assessment of the conversation between Socrates and Callicles in Plato's Gorgias.

A naturalistic study of the meanings of touch

Abstract: The present study employed an adapted version of the contextual analysis method developed by Scheflen and others to examine the meanings‐in‐context of touches reported by persons from their daily interactions. The results revealed 12 distinct and relatively unambiguous meanings: support, appreciation, inclusion, sexual interest or intent, affection, playful affection, playful aggression, compliance, attention‐getting, announcing a response, greetings, and departure. There were also several kinds of hybrid meanings, the main ones being greeting/affection and departure/affection, and four categories of potentially ambiguous touches: reference to appearance, instrumental ancillary, instrumental intrinsic, and accidental. Finally, the analysis revealed a number of types of “touch sequences,” patterns of behavior consisting of a series of related touches, which took two primary forms, repetitive sequences and strategic sequences. These results are discussed in terms of three emergent generalizations about the ...

The influence of cultural similarity, type of relationship, and self‐monitoring on uncertainty reduction processes

Abstract: This study examined the scope of Berger and Calabrese's (1975) uncertainty reduction theory of initial interactions in developed relationships. Multivariate analysis of covariance was employed to examine the influence of cultural similarity (intracultural vs. intercultural relationships), type of relationship (acquaintance vs. friend), and self‐monitoring (covariate) on self‐disclosure, interrogation, deception detection, attraction, attitude similarity, length of relationship, shared communication networks, and attributional confidence. Results indicated that each of the independent variables influenced the set of dependent variables and, as predicted, there was a significant interaction between cultural similarity and type of relationship. The findings suggest that selected aspects of the theory can be extended to culturally similar and dissimilar acquaintances and friendships. The present data identify boundary conditions (i.e., some theorems are limited in scope to the initial interaction context) for...

Consistencies in theoretical and naive evaluations of comforting messages

Abstract: Prior research on comforting communication from the constructivist perspective has employed a hierarchical system of message analysis to classify different comforting strategies; within this system, messages are scored for the extent to which they explicitly acknowledge, elaborate, and legitimize the feelings of distressed others. The present paper reports two studies assessing the extent to which naive actors' perceptions of comforting strategy sensitivity, effectiveness, and quality correspond with the formal analysis of comforting strategy sophistication embedded in the constructivist hierarchical coding scheme. In the first study, 73 female college students interacted with a female confederate who feigned distress over having recently been dropped by her long‐term boyfriend. These interactions were videotaped and content analyzed; in addition, both the confederate and an experimental observer rated participants' behaviors for sensitivity. Results indicated that participants employing a greater proport...

The validity of the communication competency assessment instrument

Abstract: This study reports validity information on one measure of communication competence, the Communication Competency Assessment Instrument (CCAI). Conceptual validity of the CCAI was demonstrated in prior research. This study, in confirming operational validity, found that self‐reported measures correlated only slightly with observations of students' actual behaviors, while holistic impressions of competence were wholly consistent with the CCAI ratings. Also, students' persuasive speech grades and instructors' impressions correlated with the CCAI measure, adding to reification, or convergent validity. Elaboration validity analysis discovered that argumentativeness was unrelated to CCAI scores. However, a relationship existed between knowledge and skill, lending credence to the notion that impressions formed about others' communication competence involves judgments of behavioral appropriateness as well as knowledge about the communication process.

A comparison of gratification models of media satisfaction

Abstract: A largely neglected variable in mass media theory and research is media satisfaction. This is particularly true of uses and gratifications research, where the concept is mentioned frequently but few attempts have been made at operationalization. This study compares the abilities of six alternative gratification/expectancy‐value models to predict satisfaction with television news. The results of correlational and hierarchical regression analysis emphasize the important influence of gratifications obtained from the television news experience on viewer satisfaction levels. They also reveal the weakness of GS‐GO discrepancy models as compared to more straightforward gratification/expectancy‐value models.

Situational influences on the selection of compliance‐gaining messages: Two tests of the predictive utility of the Cody‐McLaughlin typology

Abstract: Recent work on the dimensions of compliance‐gaining situations offers an opportunity for systematizing a portion of message selection research. Two studies that utilize the six dimensions isolated by Cody and McLaughlin (1980), as well as one other, as predictors of compliance‐gaining message selection are reported. The first study relied on the hypothetical situation method typical of most compliance‐gaining research. Study 2 utilized a new method that asked participants to recall a persuasion situation they had been part of. Across the two investigations the effects attributable to the situation were relatively few in number and small in size. Several alternative interpretations of the data are suggested. The advantages and disadvantages of the two methods are examined. Explanations for each of the situational effects (or lack thereof) are considered.

Conversational involvement and loneliness.

Abstract: The relationship of conversational involvement to loneliness was assessed. Sixty chronically lonely and 60 nonlonely people were selected from a pool of 968 college students with known loneliness scores. Each participant had a 10‐minute, videotaped, “get acquainted” conversation with an opposite‐sex “partner.” Afterwards, participants recalled as many details of their conversations as possible. Participants and partners completed measures of communication satisfaction, liking, and desires for future interaction and friendship. They also rated participants' levels of conversational involvement. The involvement construct was operationalized with nine involvement behaviors, coded from the videotapes, and five cognitive involvement variables, derived from comparisons of the memory protocols to transcripts of the conversations. Lonely participants had lower rates of talkativeness, interruptions, vocal back‐channels, and attention than nonlonely participants. They were also perceived as less involved and less i...

Nonverbal cue context and episodic memory: On the availability and endurance of nonverbal behaviors as retrieval cues

Abstract: Two investigations provide evidence that nonverbal cues (in this case, hand gestures) play a role as contextual cues in the retrieval of co‐occurring verbal messages. In the first study, type of hand gesture and processing strategies were investigated as possible determinants of message retrieval. Results indicated that the type of hand gesture was a major determinant of language recall. The second study investigated the durability and persistence of nonverbal cues in providing utterance retrieval. Results indicated that nonverbal cues provided retrieval of messages one week after exposure to conversational stimuli and that once again the type of gesture made a difference in the effectiveness of recall.

Accounts as a reconstruction of an event's context

Abstract: Persons offer accounts of their actions in problematic situations to change the meaning of an event. This linguistic practice of accounting has been studied primarily for its functions—how accounts manage meanings. This line of research is extended by examining the procedures persons use to accomplish accounts. The reconfiguring of the event's context is the key to understanding how accounts change meanings. The view of context as hierarchically organized is drawn upon to construct a model of accounts. Accounts are accomplished by the procedures of: (1) specifying contextual objects, (2) organized by the actor's rules to warrant, (3) the reconfiguration of the hierarchical levels of context.

Two approaches to marital interaction: Relational control patterns in marital types

Abstract: Using the Relational Dimensions Instrument, 80 married individuals were categorized into three basic relational definitions: traditional, independent or separate. The individual definitions of husbands and wives were compared and couple types were constructed. Pure couple types—Traditionais, Independents, and Separates—agreed with their spouse on the definition of the marriage while the Mixed types were comprised of those couples who disagreed on the nature of the relationship. Couples were audiotaped as they discussed both neutral and conflict topics. The tapes were transcribed and coded with a scheme designed to tap relational control messages. Both Markov and lag sequential analysis results indicated that different types of couples used markedly different control strategies in conversations with their spouses. Traditionais relied on complementary interacts in neutral discussions yet shifted to symmetrical ones in conflict; Independent and Mixed couple types used competitive symmetry in both neutral and...

The relationship between perceived communication competence and perceived empathy

Abstract: Empathy has been previously treated as a dimension of communication competence. This study indicates that both concepts are essentially composed of the same set of skills and reflected by the same set of behaviors, thus raising a question about the research value of communication competence and empathy. Twenty‐seven conversational sets were evaluated by respondents. One group of respondents evaluated the 27 response statements for the level of reflected communication competence. Another group evaluated the responses for the level of reflected empathy. The ratings were highly correlated (r = .98) thus supporting the hypothesized relationship between communication competence and empathy. Additional tests for reliability and validity were performed to demonstrate the power of the method used in the study.

The jeremiad and Jenkin Lloyd Jones

Abstract: Speakers themselves within a speech sometimes suggest standards by which a rhetorical critic might at least partially evaluate that speech. In his speech, “Who is Tampering with the Soul of America?”, Jenkin Lloyd Jones suggests a cluster of images, a set of related rhetorical roles, that a critic usefully can employ to analyze the workings of this speech. Through direct statement and indirectly through word choice, Jones assumes the rhetorical roles of a “calamity howler” and an evangelist in the genre of a secular jeremiad. First the tradition of the American Puritan jeremiad and the characteristics of the contemporary secular jeremiad are traced. Then Jones's speech is analyzed as a “paradigm case” to further illuminate the nature of the contemporary secular jeremiad. Significant dimensions examined are: (1) internal and external evidence of Jones's self‐chosen role of Jeremiah, evangelist, and calamity howler; (2) invocation of the Puritan heritage and the American Dream; (3) value appeals and condemn...

Directive use in negotiation interaction

Abstract: This study examined how conversational directives expand strategically in negotiation interaction. The directive expansions were examined in relationship to four contextual parameters that are most influential in structuring communication choices in negotiation: participant goals and interests, the negotiation procedures, relational history of the negotiators, and the topic or issue consuming the interaction. Findings revealed that when participant goals are discrepant and a less cooperative context is apparent, when the procedures for conducting the negotiation are not as rigid, when participants have a substantial relational history, and when the negotiation content is personally involving, then more face‐threatening directives are used. The significance of these results is discussed with respect to the value of focusing on directives as a means of learning how the negotiation of information influences the negotiation over specific outcome proposals.

Temporal density in courtroom interaction: constraints on the recovery of past events in legal discourse

Abstract: Data for the present study were drawn from an ongoing investigation of a murder trial, naturalistically observed throughout a six‐month period, including pretrial hearings, and grounded in the microanalytic, turn‐by‐turn analysis of a courtroom transcript exceeding 1,000 pages. Attention is given to how courtroom interaction may be understood as a temporally organized and constrained social activity. Guided by formal legal procedures, lawyers and witnesses collaborate by time‐traveling into past times and places, through present interrogation and testimony, for future deliberation and sentencing. These temporal and spatial shifts are similar to more casual conversations, yet also unique due to the restrictions imposed on questioning and storifying practices. An examination of these comparisons leads not only to an enhanced understanding of the communicative functions and language devices used to time‐travel within the judicial system, but also reveals the inherent tensions involved as the temporally dense...

Syntactic and pragmatic code usage in interpersonal communication

Abstract: This research identifies and describes the nature of codes in interpersonal relationships. It derives from the linguistic mediation assumption, which holds that language reflects and mediates the social world. However, some intermediary organizing concept linking language to the social world is necessary, and a code is offered as this organizing concept. Three lines of literature are drawn on to establish the theoretical underpinnings for the codes: (a) the evolution of language from a predominantly oral medium to a textual one, (b) the differences between planned and unplanned discourse, and (c) the general developmental pattern of language in children. It is hypothesized that two codes, termed pragmatic and syntactic, should distinguish between relationship definitions of varying types. Results of quantitative and qualitative analyses support this hypothesis. The nature of the codes and their sensitivity to communicative requirements are discussed.

Differences in Self-Disclosure in Dual-Career and Single-Career Marriages.

Abstract: This investigation assessed the differences in depth, breadth, and amount of self‐disclosure of 30 dual‐career and 30 single‐career couples. Respondents completed a self‐disclosure questionnaire adapted from the Taylor‐Altman Intimacy Scaled Instrument (1966). Two‐way interactions between career and sex for all three dimensions of self‐disclosure necessitated follow‐up analyses comparing dual‐ and single‐career husbands, dual‐ and single‐career wives, dual‐career spouses, and single‐career spouses. Implications for the study of self‐disclosure in marriage are discussed.

Media public affairs exposure: Issues and alternative strategies

Abstract: This study examined the reliability and stability of newspaper and television public affairs exposure; the relationship of social structural variables and media exposure, when measurement error is taken into account; and the effect of these social structural variables on change in exposure. A secondary analysis was performed on a two wave national study composed of 7201 respondents. Using a LISREL model, the results indicated that: (1) the indicators of newspaper public affairs exposure were more reliable than the indicators for television public affairs exposure; conversely, the television public affairs construct was more stable than the newspaper construct, although both yielded fairly high stability estimates; (2) various indicators of location in the social structure (age, education, income, perceived social class, and sex) had effects on exposure to newspaper and television public affairs information, and effects on the change in this type of exposure over time. It was concluded that more attention ...

Nonlinguistic influences on lexical selection: Evidence from double entendres

Abstract: Contemporary models of lexical selection tend to be based upon spreading activation. Lexical units are supposedly organized such that semantic (and perhaps phonological and syntactic) associates are interconnected. During the encoding of a message lexical units are activated, and the activation reverberates with associate units. Those units which accumulate the greatest levels of activation have the greatest probability of being selected for the speech plan. The present study challenges two assumptions common to these models. One of these is the assumption that lexical activation may operate within only one semantic network at a time; the other is that lexical activation is instigated only by the linguistic parameters of the encoded message. The present experiments demonstrate that during the coding of neutral messages, sexually‐aroused respondents encode more sexual double entendres—i.e., words semantically appropriate to both the message and the arousal state—than do non‐aroused control respondents, and...

Explaining choice shift: An effects coded model

Abstract: This study compared three competing explanations of the choice shift phenomenon in small groups: the tendency of a group to make a more extreme decision than its members have made. The explanations tested were the diffusion of responsibility hypothesis, based upon reduced individual accountability, the social comparison hypothesis, based upon prevailing cultural values, and the persuasive arguments hypothesis, based upon the provision of additional information. Results indicated no support for the diffusion of responsibility hypothesis, minimal support for the social comparison hypothesis, and strong support for the persuasive arguments hypothesis. Suggestions for future research include further attempts to differentiate the social comparison and the persuasive arguments hypotheses.

Textual and information‐theoretic indexes of style as discriminators between message sources

Abstract: This study sought to identify techniques that provide a specific and operationalized basis for the rhetorical criticism of communication style. Twelve indexes of communication style were applied to three different message sources: Winston Churchill, Clement Atlee, and Neville Chamberlain. Results indicated that the traditional numerical, quantitative techniques of stylistic analysis are not especially effective discriminators among message sources. Much more effective were techniques drawn from information theory and based upon auditor responses to the messages.

Effects of two types of familiarity on children's referential communication abilities

Abstract: Stimulus familiarity has been shown to facilitate children's performance on referential communication tasks. The facilitative effects of stimulus familiarity could result either from prior stimulus recognizability or from immediate experience with experimental stimuli. The present study separated the effects of stimulus recognizability and experience. Kindergarten and third grade children communicated about both familiar and novel stimuli. Half the children were exposed to both types of stimuli prior to participation. The results indicated that older children chose the correct referent more often than younger children; children who received experience performed better than children who did not, and familiar stimuli were described more accurately than novel stimuli. The effects of stimulus recognizability and experience were independent. Third‐grade listeners were more likely to ask for additional information than kindergarten listeners, and third‐grade speakers tended to respond to such requests more ofte...

The emergence of the welsh bounder: David Lloyd George's oratorical attacks during the Anglo‐Boer war

Abstract: This essay focuses on an episode in David Lloyd George's early political career, long before he held even a minor cabinet post, when he brilliantly used deliberative oratorical techniques to challenge governmental war policy during the last imperial war of Victoria's long reign. Despite the popularity of the 1899–1902 Anglo‐Boer war among British patriots, Lloyd George was able to attack verbally the government's war stance, gain popularity with his Welsh constituents, and earn enough national reputation to rise in the estimation of his own opposition party. The beginning of his national career can thus be traced to many smoky, noisy Welsh speaking platforms where Lloyd George began his climb as a major politician of reckoning.

Printings of Aristotle's rhetoric during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries

Abstract: This study applies the results of an updated and extended investigation of the printings of Aristotle's Rhetoric between 1477 and 1599 to demonstrate the availability of the Rhetoric during the Renaissance. Four conclusions are drawn: (1) the Rhetoric was widely available, for at least 95 printings occurred during the period examined; (2) the repeated printings of Latin translations by five different humanists indicates a growing demand for the Rhetoric; (3) Victorius's efforts to reconstruct an authentic Greek text had a favorable influence on improving subsequent editions; and (4) the fact that most of the printings appeared in five continental cities indicates that the dissemination of the Rhetoric depended upon its purchase by private scholars and collectors.