Schedules of reinforcement typically produce reliable patterns of behaviour, and one factor that can cause deviations from these normally reliable patterns is schizotypy. Low scorers on the unusual experiences subscale of the Oxford-Liverpool Inventory of Feelings and Experiences performed as expected on a yoked random-ratio (RR), random-interval…

Background: Restricted repetitive behaviors (RRBs) are a core feature of autism and consist of a variety of behaviors, ranging from motor stereotypies to complex circumscribed interests. The objective of the current study was to examine the structure of RRBs in autism using relevant items from the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised in a sample of…

Suggests that silence--avoidance or termination of talk in problematic and face-threatening situations-is used by hard-of-hearing people as a face-saving strategy in communication with hearing people. One hundred hearing-impaired people were asked to list situations in which they refrain from conversation due to embarrassment. (Author/JL)

A study investigated whether receivers who detect senders behaving deceitfully will automatically become more resistent to the message being presented. By developing predictions derived from the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), the study hypothesized that only noninvolved receivers would respond negatively to deceptive nonverbal cues in a…

Certain characteristics of a Taylor (1965) competitive reaction time task contribute to a lack of awareness of contingencies that exist between two aggressors. The opponent's contingent response to the subject's specific shock setting may be obscured by the reaction time competition, thus concealing the matching contingency. Nine separate steps…

Clarifies the nature of communication avoidance through a structural analysis grounded in facet theory. Presents evidence for a duplex model of avoidance in which theoretical distinctions among modalities of approach-avoidance and context proved empirically relevant. Discusses implications of these findings for the explication, treatment, and…

Distressed couples were more critical of each other and less responsive to each other's influence efforts. Distressed and nondistressed couples were similar in their frequencies of inquiries and solution proposals. Criticism and responsiveness were important predictors of both satisfaction with outcomes and attainment of resolutions. (Author)

The behavior, self-esteem, and attitude toward clefting of 94 adolescents being treated at a clinic for oral-facial anomalies and communicative disorders were examined. Younger teenagers were more aggressive, more active, and had more somatic complaints than did the older teenagers. (SBH)

Examines the legitimacy of the use of personality traits as antecedent variables in the explanation of communicative behaviors. Focuses on the conceptual and empirical justification for one assumption of the trait approach: cross-situational consistency. This assumption was not supported for the traits of reticence or predisposition toward verbal…

To obtain a comprehensive understanding of the nature of deception and how it functions in interpersonal relationships, this paper explores deception as a valid and essential part of human interaction processes. The paper includes an in-depth review of social science literature on deception, specifically, R. E. Turner, C. Edgley, and G. Olmstead's…

Indicates that males were more likely than females to use (1) violence against a noncompliant male persuasive target in a noninterpersonal relational context, and (2) direct coercion against persistently noncompliant and noninterpersonal persuasive targets in relational contexts with short-term consequences. (JD)

Presents results from two studies of how lower-back-pain patients communicate to health care providers. Suggests specific directions for future research. (MS)

An experiment was conducted in which perceptions of an individual responding to an initial disclosure were examined. Observer subjects (N=315) read a brief description of a first encounter between two women. During the meeting one of the women made either an intimate or a non-intimate disclosure (low vs. high initial intimacy). The other woman…

Focuses on courtroom speech as it occurs when a lay person interacts with an attorney and proposes a framework that includes a (1) macrostructural description of direct and cross-examination sequences as contexts that condition the interaction, and (2) microanalytical model that accounts for the effectiveness of the question-and-answer examination…

An exploratory study was conducted to define and differentiate interruptions structurally and tactically. The participants were 60 college students assigned to female-female, female-male, and male-male conversational dyads. The dyadic conversations were recorded for 14 minutes, during a period of "getting to know each other" and during a…