Every day people are bombarded with information about romantic relationships. Magazine articles offer how-to advice on flirting, dating, and fixing relationship problems. Advertisements--from billboards to radio commercials to email marketing campaigns--feature products that promise to help people attract a special someone. Television and movie…

This research explores how cues deposited by social partners onto one's online networking profile affect observers' impressions of the profile owner. An experiment tested the relationships between both (a) what one's associates say about a person on a social network site via "wall postings," where friends leave public messages, and (b) the…

Noting that communication scholars have begun to sense the inadequacy of traditional theoretic perspectives to frame the sorts of questions and answers required for a fully articulated theory of interpersonal attraction and relationship development, this paper explores the possibility of applying constructivism to that area. (It defines the…

A study examined the relationship of interpersonal perceptual variables to communication contexts, specifically relationship types. The variables examined were (1) interpersonal solidarity, (2) perceived homophily, (3) uncertainty reduction, (4) feeling good, (5) interpersonal attraction, (6) relational safety, and (7) self-disclosure. The…

Finds the conjunction between subjects' uncertainty and their use of question asking and disclosure strategies was limited to preliminary conversation and derived from global uncertainty. Finds that, although uncertainty and liking were related synchronously in ways consistent with uncertainty reduction theory, there was little evidence of…

Reports on three studies which articulate and test multiple models for integrating the concept of motivation to reduce uncertainty into the axiomatic structure of uncertainty reduction theory. Finds that none of the models (tested in terms of their ability to predict information seeking and attraction) provides such an integration. Recommends…

Finds that similarity in communication values among heterosexual dating partners did not contribute to whether people dated one another, but did contribute to how satisfied they were with their dating relationship and how attracted they were to their partners. (SR)

Assess the expectedness, interpretations, and evaluations of touch and its influence on such communication outcomes as communicator attractiveness and credibility. Finds that brief touches among strangers may have positive consequences, especially when initiated by high-valence communicators, for whom they may qualify as positive violations. (SR)

Examines whether individuals can generate memory structures for increasingly intimate relationships; agree on the rank ordering of expected actions; distinguish between perceived typicality of such actions and how necessary the behaviors are for a relationship to develop; and segment prototypical scenes of developing relationships in a…

Works from a constructivist framework to adapt an existing hierarchy of person-centered persuasion to analyze student performance in 42 dyadic verbal disagreements. Finds that students using person-centered tactics were rated by their partners as more persuasive: partners' level of construct differentiation appeared to mediate these effects; but…

Finds that higher Humor Orientation (HO) was associated with lower levels of loneliness; acquaintances' perceptions of HO and self-reported HO were positively related; people seen as more humorous were seen as socially attractive; and verbally aggressive individuals did not report more loneliness, but were perceived to be less socially attractive,…

While attraction research has repeatedly shown a strong similarity/attraction relationship between perceivers and others, it has not shown that perceivers are repulsed by dissimilar others--only that they seem to withhold judgment and wait for more information about the other before indicating either attraction or dislike. A study investigated the…

A study was conducted to identify the independent and conjoint influence of attitude similarity and initial interactions on interpersonal attraction to relative strangers. The 124 college students who were participants in the study were informed that they would be working on a project with either an attitudinally similar or dissimilar stranger…

Examines whether communicative competence influences perceived task, social, and physical attractiveness. Results indicated that communicative competence accounted for 17 percent, 14 percent and 8 percent of the variance in perceived task, social, and physical attractiveness, respectively. (MM)

Reveals that previously accepted positive association between attitude similarity and attraction is absent in beginning acquaintance. Suggests that information available during initial conversations may strongly influence perceptions of attitude similarity. Also examines the possibility that a potential initial acquaintance association between…