Solving challenging math problems often invites a child to ride an "emotional roller-coaster" and experience a complex mixture of emotions including confusion, frustration, joy, and surprise. Early exposure to this type of "hard fun" may stimulate child's interest and curiosity of mathematics and nurture life long skills such…

In this article we examine intuitions as they emerge in groupwork activities. We provide a framework and a methodology to code various aspects of the activity, social and mathematical. Focusing mostly on students' gazes, we explore how affective moves give rise to, and determine, students' interactions and thoughts. We argue that intuition does…

A study explored the affective impact of interpersonal influence messages. Thirty-nine students enrolled in an undergraduate communication course listened to a tape-recording of 15 directives and rated each directive on explicitness or dominance. Results indicated that the set of stimuli tapped nearly the full range of both continua, and that the…

Personal relationships can provide comfort and pleasure or strain and disappointment. Relationships which provide the greatest opportunities for support and companionship may also be the ones most open to negative exchanges. Theoretical perspectives can help predict how positive and negative interpersonal experiences can together affect…

Two experiments examined nonverbal behavior patterns and relational communication perceptions associated with communication reticence. In the first experiment, pairs of friends and pairs of strangers engaged in nine-minute discussions. Subjects were rated by their interaction partners and by trained observers. Results showed that as their level of…

Recent attempts to predict marital success or failure have explored the explanations couples offer for interpersonal events. To investigate whether positive and negative affect would lead to different causal attributions in a conflict-resolution conversation, 20 married couples were asked to observe a conflict-resolution and a control conversation…

Regulated expressiveness (the modification of expressive behavior) is a complex phenomenon. Accomplished basically in four ways, regulated expressiveness has developmental dimensions, motivational precursors, and cognitive antecedents, including perspective-taking ability and the growth of self-awareness. Ability to regulate expressiveness appears…

It is axiomatic that context influences interpersonal behaviors, yet communication researchers have had limited success in generating a set of conceptual or operational definitions for the situation variable. Two studies were conducted to examine emotion-eliciting qualities as the basis for such a typology and the relationship of situations…

The originator of the communication apprehension (CA) construct has consistently maintained that communication apprehensive people should not be expected to exhibit anxious behaviors. On the other hand, inept and incompetent communicative actions constitute the reticence syndrome, clearly a construct defined through behaviors. Noting that it is…

A study examined whether a perceiver would distinguish between nonverbal messages sent with greater or lesser intent and the extent to which this correlated with the messages' general affect. Sixty-two students were recruited from communication courses at a large southwestern university to participate in a "conversation study." None had…

A study investigated the interrelationships among warrants, argument dimensions, and perceived argument effectiveness. Warrants were operationalized as analogies, examples, and causal warrants, while argument dimensions were defined as degree of logicality, emotionality, and ethicality. Based upon prior research, weak and strong arguments were…

The importance of the grandparent-grandchild relationship can be used effectively in group work with the aged by using pictures of grandchildren to stimulate personal interaction. Participants are asked to bring pictures of their grandchildren, great-grandchildren, or surrogate grandchildren to a two-hour training session on grandparenting. During…

This study investigated the ability of high-functioning verbal individuals with autism or Down syndrome (DS) to respond appropriately to conversational "social scripts" involving reactions to another person's distress. Subjects were 13 persons with autism and 13 with DS, aged 5-27, matched on verbal mental age. During a "tea…

A study examined the subjective experience of love (the feelings associated with love and the meanings attributed to these feelings) and the manners in which love is communicated. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with 76 respondents (ages ranged from 21 to 54, with 52% over 30 years old). In the first part of the interview, respondents were…

As women increasingly use the Internet, a variety of behaviors worthy of psychological study are emerging. Through e-mail discussion lists, newsgroups, and Web sites, women are exploring new ways of interacting. Asserting themselves, initiating bold conversations, experimenting with anger, involving themselves in furtive love affairs, and having…