Background: In aged-care settings, direct care staff play a crucial role in supporting older people with communication needs. Many direct care staff, however, have unmet skill needs in interpersonal, intercultural, and intergenerational communication. Communication Partner Training (CPT) provides a potential solution. However, it is not known if…

In a synthesis of the research, the authors present findings from communication and literacy studies conducted with children and youth with deafblindness, ages 0-22 years, and published in peer-reviewed journals, 1990-2015. Findings are organized within the structure of the four aspects of communication: form, function, content, context. The…

In daily language use, we sometimes comment on the conversation with phrases such as "What do you mean by saying that?" or "That was nice of you to say." This communication about the communication is sometimes labeled as metacommunication. It can be used for many different purposes; for instance, to try and clarify or appraise…

Examines threats, suggestions, hints, and promises for politeness and expediency in gaining others' compliance. Tests predicted rank-orderings of politeness/expediency of threats, suggestions, etc., stemming from politeness-theory literature. Indicates hints, although inefficient, are not the most polite for gaining compliance; threats, although…

Recently, communication researchers have suggested that dialectics may offer a different way of looking at mediation, organizational conflict, and the fundamental oppositions of interpersonal bonding. Leslie Baxter and Barbara Montgomery, through their relational dialectics perspective, have claimed a dialogical conceptualization of…

Synthesizes past studies of illness, stress, coping, and social support and offers a model of communicative support, based on problematic integration theory, that emphasizes two major dimensions of meaning in the breast cancer experience. Suggests that supportive messages are designed to help the breast cancer patient manage both perceptions of…

The communication discipline has advanced the belief that arguing (high argumentativeness) is a constructive communication activity. Recent research efforts have attempted the integration of principles from argumentation, interpersonal communication, and conflict management, and several benefits of high motivation to argue and skill in informal…

Several theories exist to explain the differences in the interruptive behavior of men and women. Early research suggested that men interrupt more than women, and this finding was attributed to the dominant/submissive relationship traditional in relationships among men and women. Later studies, however, found that either there were no significant…

Communication scholars have only recently begun to consider internal processes of thought as essential components of interpersonal communication. In 1964 a reorientation of thinking to include intrapersonal processes as integral to the communication process was first urged. The "hidden other" refers to the wellspring of the mind and its…

Reviews research concerning the role played by variations in the timing of communicator identification as one aspect of the effect that communicator credibility has on persuasive communication. Claims that variations in the timing of the identification of the source of a persuasive communication can produce substantial differences in persuasive…

Observes that three dominant perspectives on intentionality--the encoder, decoder, and interactional--emerge from communication literature. Explains that the encoder perspective links intent to conscious activity, whereas the decoder perspective associates intent with observable actions. Notes that the interactional perspective attempts to unite…

Examines research (in communication theory and in cognitive neural sciences) which supports the view that mindful and mindless communicative behavior coexist and operate in complementary fashion during information processing. Argues that current communication pedagogy does not reflect this emerging model and that adaptations in content and…

Examines what we know and don't know about group leadership and concludes that current metaphors which guide inquiry into leadership are incapable of dealing with the complexity inherent in the phenomenon. Describes and adapts an alternative metaphor, leader as medium, to group communication as relationships. (BH)

Synthesizes findings of 18 published experimental studies comparing face-to-face and computer-mediated communication (CMC). Finds that in general, discussions using CMC take longer, produce more ideas, and have greater equality of participation; but that there is reduced normative pressure and poor comprehension of the discussion in CMC. (SR)

Proposes a new explanation for accumulated research findings concerning door-in-the-face (DITF) influence strategy. Treats successful DITF implementations as guilt based. Finds explanation consistent with theoretical and empirical understandings of the nature of guilt and with guilt-based social influence. Suggests a significant role for a new…