Showing papers in "Communication Monographs in 2005"
TL;DR: This paper developed four alternative conceptual perspectives on the nature of reactance (i.e., combinations of cognition and affect) and provided an empirical test of each of them, concluding that reactance can be operationalized as a composite of self-report indices of anger and negative cognitions.
Abstract: Reactance theory might be profitably applied to understanding failures in persuasive health communication but for one drawback: The developer of the theory contends that reactance cannot be measured. Rejecting this position, this paper develops four alternative conceptual perspectives on the nature of reactance (i.e., combinations of cognition and affect), then provides an empirical test of each. Two parallel studies were conducted, one advocating flossing (N = 196), the other urging students to limit their alcohol intake (N = 200). In both cases, a composite index of anger and negative cognitions fully mediated the effects of threat-to-freedom and trait reactance on attitude and intention. The data showed that, in fact, reactance can be operationalized as a composite of self-report indices of anger and negative cognitions. The implications for persuasive communication, in general, are considered as well the specific findings for flossing and drinking.
1,044 citations
TL;DR: Tests of the underlying mechanisms of the Parasocial Contact Hypothesis were generally supported, suggesting that parasocial contact facilitates positive parasocial responses and changes in beliefs about the attributes of minority group categories.
Abstract: We propose a communication analogue to Allport's (1954) Contact Hypothesis called the Parasocial Contact Hypothesis (PCH). If people process mass-mediated parasocial interaction in a manner similar to interpersonal interaction, then the socially beneficial functions of intergroup contact may result from parasocial contact. We describe and test the PCH with respect to majority group members' level of prejudice in three studies, two involving parasocial contact with gay men (Six Feet Under and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy) and one involving parasocial contact with comedian and male transvestite Eddie Izzard. In all three studies, parasocial contact was associated with lower levels of prejudice. Moreover, tests of the underlying mechanisms of PCH were generally supported, suggesting that parasocial contact facilitates positive parasocial responses and changes in beliefs about the attributes of minority group categories.
600 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a longitudinal study of an online violent video game with a control group tested for changes in aggressive cognitions and behaviors and found that the findings did not support the assertion that a violent game will cause substantial increases in real-world aggression.
Abstract: Research on violent video games suggests that play leads to aggressive behavior. A longitudinal study of an online violent video game with a control group tested for changes in aggressive cognitions and behaviors. The findings did not support the assertion that a violent game will cause substantial increases in real-world aggression. The findings are presented and discussed, along with their implications for research and policy.
215 citations
TL;DR: This paper found that narrative rationality (the patient's story) was consistently subjugated to technical rationality (actionable lists) in emergency medicine communication, and a heightened awareness of the bias for technical over narrative rationality and a better recognition of uncertainty in emergency management communication are important first steps toward anticipating potential failures and ensuring patient safety.
Abstract: Emergency medicine is largely a communicative activity, and medical mishaps that occur in this context are too often the result of vulnerable communication processes. In this year-long qualitative study of two academic emergency departments, an interdisciplinary research team identified four such processes: triage, testing and evaluation, handoffs, and admitting. In each case, we found that narrative rationality (the patient's story) was consistently subjugated to technical rationality (actionable lists). Process changes are proposed to encourage caregivers to either reconsider their course of action or request additional contextual information. A heightened awareness of the bias for technical over narrative rationality and a better recognition of uncertainty in emergency medicine communication are important first steps toward anticipating potential failures and ensuring patient safety.
189 citations
TL;DR: Using qualitative data gathered among correctional officers and a post-structuralist theoretical lens, the authors suggests that emotion labor is more difficult when societal discourses and organizational processes limit employees' ability to maintain preferred understandings of identity.
Abstract: Using qualitative data gathered among correctional officers and a post-structuralist theoretical lens, this study suggests that emotion labor—the instrumental use and suppression of emotion—is more difficult when societal discourses and organizational processes limit employees’ ability to maintain preferred understandings of identity. The paper provides rich description of the complex web of emotion norms faced by correctional officers and then makes the case that identity, power, hidden transcripts, role distancing behaviors, strategic interaction, and organizational identification affect the ease of emotion work. The analysis moves beyond extant research's focus on emotive dissonance, or a clash between “true” feeling and “false” emotional display, to highlight the roles of macro discourses and everyday organizational practices in understanding the discomfort of emotion labor.
154 citations
TL;DR: The authors examined storytelling content and process to assess the extent to which families jointly integrated or fragmented a shared sense of identity and how these discursive practices relate to family qualities, and found that story framing, perspective-taking, statements about self-in-the-family, and identifying as a “storytelling family” emerged consistently as positive predictors of family satisfaction and functioning.
Abstract: Family stories work to construct family identity. Little research, however, has examined storytelling in families. This study examined storytelling content and process to assess the extent to which families jointly integrated or fragmented a shared sense of identity and how these discursive practices relate to family qualities. Results of a study involving 58 family triads indicate relationships between story theme (e.g., accomplishment vs. stress), person referencing practices (e.g., we-ness vs. separateness), and interactional storytelling behaviors (e.g., engagement, turn-taking). Moreover, story framing, perspective-taking, statements about selves-in-the-family, and identifying as a “storytelling family” emerged consistently as positive predictors of family satisfaction and functioning. The results offer a portrait of how families communicate identity and functioning in joint storytelling interactions and further position storytelling as a communication phenomenon worthy of consideration.
139 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that organizational communication has largely situated the study of resistance at the level of the individual, and characterized it as an element of micro-politics located within organizational boundaries, without full appreciation of its political and ideological significance.
Abstract: This essay addresses the need for organizational communication scholarship to come to terms with the contested nature of globalization through analyses of collective resistance. We argue that organizational communication has largely situated the study of resistance at the level of the individual, and characterized it as an element of micro-politics located within organizational boundaries. Thus, resistance has been considered in localized, interpersonal terms, without full appreciation of its political and ideological significance. This essay builds a case for reconsidering resistance in order to study “globalization from below” and highlights protest movements as exemplars of transformative resistance. Finally, the essay advances a study of organizational communication with expanded disciplinary engagement with respect to globalization.
119 citations
TL;DR: In this article, two models were constructed to test the link between the chilling effect and family members' continued concealment of secrets, and the results supported the direct effects model and the indirect effects model.
Abstract: In this study two models were constructed to test the link between the chilling effect and family members' continued concealment of secrets The direct effects model suggests that coercive power in families has a direct influence on family members' concealment, such that it suppresses the desire to reveal sensitive information for fear of negative consequences In contrast, the indirect effects model contends that coercive power diminishes family members' closeness and commitment to one another, which in turn, compels them to want to continue to conceal negative secrets For families in general, the results supported the direct effects model This study also assessed how these models applied to conformity– and conversation-oriented families
105 citations
TL;DR: This article found that managers may be constrained by the very concertive systems of control that they enact and that managers might subtly and indirectly support employee resistance to control, by communicating ambivalence about changes they introduced; this gave employees support in resisting the proposed changes.
Abstract: This research contributes to our understanding of control and resistance by demonstrating that managers may be constrained by the very concertive systems of control that they enact and that managers may subtly and indirectly support employee resistance to control. A study of an aerospace company finds concertive control acts as a barrier to management directed organizational change. In this case, managers subverted their own change efforts by communicating ambivalence about changes they introduced; this gave employees support in resisting the proposed changes. Despite clear material necessity and discursive ideologies supporting change, managers were bound by their identification with and devotion to the traditional value premises of the company.
94 citations
TL;DR: This work advances the study of reciprocal behavior by making conceptual distinctions between obligation and gratitude, and testing these two presumed mediating states in two experiments, demonstrating that obligation and gratefulness can be empirically distinguished.
Abstract: Several studies suggest that providing a favor to a target before making a direct request for compliance is more effective than making a direct request alone. The most widely accepted explanation for this effect is that receiving favors causes beneficiaries to feel obligated to repay. Another potential explanation is that beneficiaries comply out of gratitude to the benefactor. Past conceptualizations frequently confound obligation and gratitude and no research tests these alternative explanations. We advance the study of reciprocal behavior by making conceptual distinctions between obligation and gratitude, and testing these two presumed mediating states in two experiments. Results demonstrate that obligation and gratitude can be empirically distinguished, supporting the gratitude explanation, but not the obligation explanation.
94 citations
TL;DR: This paper examined intergenerational communication and conflict management styles in China and found that older participants preferred the accommodating style over the problem-solving style, while young adults either preferred the problem solving style to the accommodating one or judged the two styles as equally positive.
Abstract: We examined intergenerational communication and conflict management styles in China. Older and younger Chinese adults were randomly assigned to evaluate one of four conversation transcripts in which an older worker criticizes a young co-worker. The young worker's communication was varied across the transcripts to reflect four conflict management styles: competing, avoiding, accommodating, and problem-solving. As expected, older participants favored the accommodating style over the problem-solving style. Young adults either preferred the problem-solving style to the accommodating style, as predicted, or judged the two styles as equally positive. The results illustrate the juxtaposition of tradition and modernization/globalization in the changing Chinese cultural context, and demonstrate how such cultural changes are reflected in interpersonal communication between the generations.
TL;DR: The authors found that men are less likely than women to provide sensitive emotional support when attempting to comfort others, and that men employ less sensitive messages because they desire to avoid acting in what they view as a feminine manner.
Abstract: Men are less likely than women to provide sensitive emotional support when attempting to comfort others. This paper reports four experiments that tested a normative motivation account for this sex difference, which maintains that men employ less sensitive messages because they desire to avoid acting in what they view as a feminine manner. We propose that target sex and gender schematicity influence the perceived normativeness of comforting behaviors and examined how these variables affected: participants’ judgments of the normativeness of helpers’ behavior (Experiment 1); helpers’ goals, as reflected in judgments about the importance of different ends that might be pursued in support situations (Experiment 2); helpers’ plans, as reflected in judgments about the appropriateness of different comforting messages (Experiment 3); and helpers’ actions, as reflected in the verbal messages produced to comfort distressed friends (Experiment 4). These studies supported the normative motivation account, but also indicated that other factors influence comforting behavior.
TL;DR: In this paper, a four-phase experiment was conducted involving 298 participants to investigate the role of known elements in the process of resistance: the core elements of threat, issue involvement, and counterarguing output facilitated resistance, as did the more recently introduced element of attitude certainty.
Abstract: This investigation introduced the concept of associative networks to the resistance domain. A four-phase experiment was conducted involving 298 participants. The results confirmed the role of known elements in the process of resistance: the core elements of threat, issue involvement, and counterarguing output facilitated resistance, as did the more recently introduced element of attitude certainty. Also, the results indicated that inoculation treatments modified the structure of associative networks, planting additional nodes and increasing the linkages between nodes. Subsequently, changes in the structure of associative networks contributed to resistance to counterattitudinal attacks.
TL;DR: This paper conducted a random telephone survey of 182 parents to assess their reactions as well as their children's reactions to child kidnapping stories in the news and found that children below age 13 experienced more fright-related feelings and more concern for their personal safety than adolescents did.
Abstract: We conducted a random telephone survey of 182 parents to assess their reactions as well as their children's reactions to child kidnapping stories in the news. Children below age 13 experienced more fright-related feelings and more concern for their personal safety than adolescents did. Children who were heavy viewers of TV news also were more frightened. Parents rated themselves as more upset by the stories than their children were. Parents' fright responses and coping strategies were more prevalent among those who paid close attention to the high-profile news stories and those who regularly viewed TV series about missing persons. The findings are discussed in terms of cultivation theory and developmental differences in how children process information.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors adapts Burt's 1992 network theory of structural holes to explore dynamic developments within global organizational networks, questioning the proposition that alternative forms of organizing are replacing the nation state as the central figure on the global stage.
Abstract: This article adapts Burt's 1992 network theory of structural holes to explore dynamic developments within global organizational networks, questioning the proposition that alternative forms of organizing are replacing the nation state as the central figure on the global stage. Our analysis of structural holes within the emerging global human rights regime moves beyond Burt's “ideal” conception of “communication as information” and expands Burt's notion of competitive environments, reconciling tensions associated with two opposing network theories, network closure and structural holes. Analyzing two interdependent historical cases—the founding of the United Nations in 1945 and the subsequent creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 and the Helsinki Final Act of 1975—we demonstrate the ways in which filling structural holes not only strengthens NGOs’ positions within the global network but simultaneously reinforces the robustness of the entire regime network and the nation state.
TL;DR: The role of case presentations in the socialization of medical and optometry students is investigated and the research challenges the binary opposition that exists between art and science especially for professions that bring their disciplinary knowledge into practice.
Abstract: This paper presents a qualitative study that investigated the role of case presentations in the socialization of medical and optometry students. Using the debate from classical rhetoric around the term techne (art or science), we observed that genre theory helps explain the way case presentations mediate the development of professional identity through the interaction of certain knowledge (techne 1), “savvy” knowledge (techne 2), and ethical reflection (phronesis). We noted that these mediated scenes of learning are necessary but problematic because they can lead students to yearn for certainty and to exclude outsiders (other healthcare providers, patients). Finally, our research challenges the binary opposition that exists between art and science especially for professions that bring their disciplinary knowledge into practice.
TL;DR: The authors argue that focal center and message embellishment are products of the cognitive processes recruited for strategic action and are implicated in five goal characteristics, and they provide support for several of the proposed associations between goal characteristics and message features.
Abstract: Our model of goal-driven message production highlights the impact of activated knowledge stores on micro-level message features. We argue that focal center and message embellishment are products of the cognitive processes recruited for strategic action and are implicated in five goal characteristics. To examine our model, we had dating couples (N = 106) engage in a conversation about a hypothetical problematic event, during which one member of the dyad acted according to an assigned role. Accounts of goals were solicited before and after the conversation. The results of this study provide support for several of the proposed associations between goal characteristics and message features. Implications of the current results for our model and future message production research are discussed.
TL;DR: In this paper, the role played by television in constructing spatial fear is proposed as a possible explanation for the persistence of this collective memory, and the greatest fear of Watts is found among respondents with stronger dependency relations with television.
Abstract: 215 mental maps collected in 1998 indicate that Watts is Los Angeles’ epicenter of fear. Spatial cluster analysis provides evidence that this fear is most closely associated with the 1965 “Watts” riots. The role played by television in constructing spatial fear is proposed as a possible explanation for the persistence of this collective memory. Analysis of phone survey data and of a set of mental maps indicates that the greatest fear of Watts is found among respondents with stronger dependency relations with television.
TL;DR: The authors explored the relationship between specific, PMSV-enhancing message features and outcomes related to persuasion and found that the use of suspenseful features (intense imagery and second-half punch) increased message processing among older teens.
Abstract: Fast-paced and arousing anti-drug ads, considered to have high perceived message sensation value (PMSV), enhance message processing and reduce drug use among young adults. Studies have yet to explore the relationship between specific, PMSV-enhancing message features and outcomes related to persuasion. Messaris’ (1997) concept of syntactic indeterminacy provides one plausible explanation for why message features contained in high PMSV ads might enhance message processing and subsequent changes in attitudes and behavior. The study explored this explanation by coding specific anti-tobacco ads for PMSV-enhancing features, merging these codes to a telephone survey among teens, and testing the relationship between message features and processing. The number of unrelated cuts and the use of suspenseful features (intense imagery and a second-half punch) increased message processing among older teens. An additive index comprised of these features was associated with message processing among both younger and older ...
TL;DR: The authors developed a simulation that produces socio-egocentric speech and report on its use in a study that asked naive raters to discern human-generated from simulated socio egocentric group discussion, finding that participants correctly judged the source of transcripts at rates worse than chance.
Abstract: Scholars interested in group phenomena generally conceive of communication as either a conduit for, or as constitutive of, group decisions. Hewes's socio-egocentric model contends that we possess no unambiguous proof of any communicative impact on decision making. This study asks whether contrived socio-egocentric group speech is distinguishable from real group speech, and therefore whether the socio-egocentric model is even a plausible depiction of interaction. We developed a simulation that produces socio-egocentric speech and report on its use in a study that asked naive raters to discern human-generated from simulated socio-egocentric group discussion. Results indicated that participants correctly judged the source of transcripts at rates worse than chance. Furthermore, heuristics employed by the participants can explain their poor performance, because criteria that produced accurate judgments of human transcripts produced inaccurate ones for the simulated transcripts and vice versa. We conclude that ...
TL;DR: In this article, the content of relevant discussion is analyzed, participants experienced an experimental simulation of a resource dilemma with either of two replenishment rates, and the higher replenishment rate was associated with larger total harvests, less variation among participants in points harvested, more positive participant judgments of their experience, and a greater proportion of types of communication content related with successful performance.
Abstract: A resource dilemma is a circumstance in which an aggregate of people share a slowly replenishing “resource pool” out of which each person can “harvest” a significant amount at any time. In the first study in which the content of relevant discussion is analyzed, participants experienced an experimental simulation of a resource dilemma with either of two replenishment rates. As hypothesized, the higher replenishment rate, in comparison to the lower, was associated with larger total harvests, less variation among participants in points harvested, more positive participant judgments of their experience, and a greater proportion of types of communication content related with successful performance.