Three studies investigated the purposes of teasing and the reaction to it. The first study asked 26 college students to describe one instance when they were teased and one when they teased someone else. In addition, they were asked to explain why the teasing had occurred and why they categorized it as teasing. The second study, involving 24…

Drawing upon the philosophical and technical frameworks of discourse analysis, this paper suggests the rules governing linguistic choices in constructing negotiation. First, it clarifies the philosophical assumptions underlying different approaches to analysis, specifying a conceptual focus, particularly with regard to the situation and the…

A study investigated whether the interaction patterns of high consensus groups differed significantly from the patterns of low consensus groups in the final stage of a decision-making task. Eighty-four college students placed into 19 groups were told to select a social problem, investigate it, and develop a solution. At the end of the three-week…

Data collected from 161 married couples were analyzed for communication patterns indicative of "domineeringness" and "transactional redundancy" (the degree of randomness contained within a couple's communicative behavior). From this data came the following observations: There is a negative correlation between domineeringness, particularly by the…

Defining interpersonal orientations as the characteristic and consistent ways in which individuals interact with others, this paper examines various conceptualizations and theories regarding such orientations in order to discover how they affect interpersonal communication. In particular, the paper (1) reviews work concerning psychological types;…

Examines whether the use of a particular unit of interaction behavior enhances reliability in interaction analysis research. (Author)

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

A study was conducted to describe the speech patterns of four adolescent girls. All four subjects were in the same eighth grade class and knew each other. Approximately 19 hours of observational data and 9 hours of interview data were collected. The descriptive framework of D. Hymes (1972), which focuses specifically on settings, participants,…

Suggests conditions or "cues" that provoke the process of second- guessing, and describes an experimental study confirming that interactants do second-guess when confronted with those cues. (MS)

These two experiments focus on nonverbal behaviors that might have meaning in defining the relationship between partners and on the broader relational connotations produced by a reticent person's verbal and nonverbal communication style. (PD)

Results of this study suggest that knowing the sex and level of dominance of the potential liar should help in detecting deceptions and provide guidelines as to where observers should look for cues. (PD)

Reviews recent research on mother-infant communication that takes into account both the infant's and parent's influences in interactions. Topics discussed include varieties of infant communications, cross-cultural research, the beginnings of communication patterns, assessment of communication effectiveness, and sequelae of differing mother-infant…

A study was conducted to examine self-disclosure as a relational control strategy in speech communication. Conversations of seven married couples were coded using L. E. Rogers-Millar's Relational Communication Control Coding Scheme and a self-disclosure coding system developed for the study. A message-by-message comparison of the codes from the…

Studies based on models of interpersonal coorientation have discovered regularities in communication behavior that coorientation theory cannot explain. On the other hand, rules-based theories of communication contain explanatory concepts seemingly applicable to these phenomena, but have not been articulated sufficiently to be applied to the…

Results of this investigation suggest that the greater an individual's cognitive sophistication about conversation, the better his or her performance in, and memory for, social interaction. (Auth/PD)