Six waitresses in a restaurant of a large midwestern city agreed to participate in a study of the nonverbal effects of ornamentation. The hypothesis was that diners would leave larger tips for a waitress who wore a flower in her hair than for the same waitress without a flower. During the four nights that data were collected, the waitresses…

Results indicate that individuals with relatively less developed (less differentiated) interpersonal construct systems can be expected to exhibit greater consistency between their attitudes about a person and their behavioral intentions toward that person than those with more developed interpersonal construct systems. (PD)

Three exploratory studies were aimed at describing the purposes of lies and the consequences of lying. Data were collected through a partly open-ended questionnaire, a content analysis of several tape-recorded interviews, and a large-scale survey. The results showed that two of every three lies were told for selfish reasons, while three of every…

The ways in which people described their own interpersonal relationships were examined along the universally acknowledged relational dimensions control and affiliation. A total of 216 undergraduate communication students wrote about one of three types of relationships they had: best liked friend of the opposite sex, (60), best liked friend of the…

Relational intimacy was studied for its influence on choice of interpersonal conflict strategies. Data were collected from 143 speech communication students who were randomly distributed among three groups representing different levels of intimacy (stranger, acquaintance, intimate) and were asked to imagine serious conflict with a person of the…

Presents the foundation of a communicator style construct which is stipulated to include communication variables which reflect the "way one verbally and paraverbally interacts to signal how literal meaning should be taken, interpreted, filtered, or understood." (MH)

Noting that interaction between patients and health care providers is a critical factor in the delivery of medical care, this paper argues that an interpersonal perspective can and should provide the paradigm for the study of medical communication. It suggests that the relationship between the sociocultural context in health care and communication…

A review of communication research was conducted to (1) describe and clarify the nature of empathy, (2) investigate the construct of assertiveness, (3) posit a possible relationship between empathy and assertiveness, and (4) provide possible suggestions for future research. The literature indicates that conceptualizations of empathy primarily…

Reexamines the conceptualization, measurement, and relationships among trust, disclosure and interpersonal solidarity. (MH)

A study was conducted to examine how different kinds of children's nonverbal behavior developed across grade levels. The six kinds of behavior studied were (1) proxemic, or observance of personal space; (2) haptic, or touching behavior; (3) oculesic, or gazing; (4) kinesic, or interpreting emotions from facial expressions; (5) vocalic, or…

Expands an earlier model of personal space expectations and their violations by specifying primitive terms, constitutive definitions, and the propositional logic underlying the model. (MH)

Presents a research study investigating the effects of specific dimensions of managerial behavior and interpersonal style on information-sharing norms and the subordinate's use of interpersonal communication channels. (JMF)

A 5-week study was conducted to examine the acquainting process--changes that occur as a relationship between two strangers develops. Fifty subjects were paired in same sex dyads and were asked to talk to one another once a week for half-hour periods. The unstructured conversations were tape-recorded and questionnaires were administered to the…

A study examined the relationship between rhetorical sensitivity and self-disclosure. Subjects were 419 college students who completed the Rhetorical Sensitivity Scale and the Self-Disclosure Situations Survey. The results indicated that rhetorical sensitivity and self-disclosure were inversely related. Rhetorically sensitive individuals did not…

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…