This paper points out that the available research on communication rules tends to be descriptive (or humanistic) in nature and characterized by a conspicuous absence of prediction along with experimental methods and parametric interpretations of social behavior. The paper first argues that current scientific methodology is consistent with a…

Argues that reliance upon verification procedures has inhibited theory building in communication. Advances four falsification procedures and presents examples from communication studies. Offers several implications these procedures have for empirical research in communication. (PD)

Discusses Q methodology in light of modern philosophy of science and hermeneutics. Outlines and discusses the basic steps of conducting Q-method research. Suggests that Q methodology allows researchers to understand and interpret the subjective text of respondents without confounding them with external categories of theoretical reflection. (RS)

Behavior analysis provides a unique way of coming to understand intrapersonal and interpersonal communication behaviors, and focuses on control techniques available to a speaker and counter-control techniques available to a listener. "Time-series methodology" is a convenient term because it subsumes under one label a variety of baseline…

Eighty communication researchers from universities responded to a questionnaire designed to assess attitudes toward deception-related practices in conducting communication research. Sixty-eight percent of the researchers believe that misleading or misinforming subjects is acceptable behavior within the experimental setting, as long as debriefing…

This paper proposes the use of interaction process analysis to study negotiation behaviors. Following a review of current literature in the field, the paper presents a theoretical framework for the analysis of both labor/management and social negotiation processes. Central to the framework described are two systems of activities that together…

Reports two experiments designed to further understanding of the effects of systematic desensitization (SD) training on college students and presents experimental test results indicating that students in SD do not differ significantly from those who choose not to join SD. (MH)

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

K. Burke's (1945) pentad identifies five contributing factors in any communication event: agent, purpose, act, scene, and agency. Using the pentad as an organizational schema, this paper summarizes problems in methods used by behavioral researchers to study the deceptive communication event. The paper argues that fragmenting the communication act…

Effect size is the degree of treatment effect in experimental research and is considered in relationship to power, significance criterion, and sample size. Effect size is useful in assessing meaningfulness of statistically significant research results. Its use as a discriminator between "meaningful" and "trivial" treatment effects is considered.…

Noting that recent research and theory from the expanding field of psychobiology have not been integrated into the study of human communication, this paper offers a synthesis of principles from several leading psychobiological scientists as a step toward a possible unifying approach to communication philosophy, theory, and research. The paper…

Discusses how assumptions of methodology rigidly restrict theory testing in the area of sequential analysis of social interaction. Assumptions explored center on three aspects of process: coding schemes, the nature of time, and the quality of explanations engendered by sequential analysis methodologies. (JMF)

In human communication research today, two fundamental issues must be addressed. The first issue concerns the need for study of communicative relationships as events that change over time. The second issue involves the nature of the data currently gathered in such research and its adequacy in providing information concerning change. In order for…

Reports on a study designed to determine the proportion of the communication research studies published in seven journals in the 1970s that obtained their data from, and based their conclusions upon, student populations in general and undergraduate college student populations in particular. (GW)

A study was conducted to examine the evaluative criteria or schemata that voters use in making decisions about competing candidates. More specifically, the study sought to determine (1) whether the criteria that voters employ differ between the candidates, and (2) the relative importance of various candidate-specific criteria in the voting…