The decline of manners prevalent in American audiences can be reversed only by finding and addressing the causes for poor behavior. One theory suggests that social stresses have a ripple effect, eroding generosity and spawning a meanness of spirit that is eventually reflected in audience behavior. A related theory suggests that audience rudeness…

The relationship between interpersonal needs and communication in conflict management style messages was investigated in a study to discover the magnitude and direction of the relationship between three interpersonal needs--inclusion, control, and affection--and three styles of conflict management messages--focus on self, focus on issue, and focus…

Since the identification of self-handicapping strategies in 1978, considerable attention has been paid to this phenomenon. Self-handicapping is a strategy for discounting ability attributions for probable failure while augmenting ability attributions for possible success. Behavioral self-handicaps are conceptually distinct from self-reported…

A paradigmatic model of cultural ideology provides a context for understanding the relationship between decision-making and personal and cultural rationality. Cultural rules or heuristics exist which indicate that many decisions can be made on the basis of established strategy rather than continual analytical calculations. When an optimal solution…

Believing that an individual's development is strongly influenced by the way the person perceives his or her environment, Kurt Lewin had a strong influence on the theoretical foundations of social-emotional climate research. Lewin's theories may be compared with the following basic theoretical foundations of social climate research: symbolic…

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…

These five symposium papers address the gap between behavioral and psychoanalytic theories. "Teaching the Integration of Different Models to Therapists-in-Training," by Richard P. Halgin, suggests that students should concentrate on a broad-based education, using the best of several approaches to fit individual client needs, rather than…

The relatively simple question of whether sex differences exist has evolved into the more theoretically interesting question of why sex differences occur. This transition has come about because of the meta-analytic investigations of sex differences in social behavior which established sex difference trends in a variety of social behaviors. Many…

Developed for a course in social psychology, a guided design unit was created to help students explore the phenomena known as communication apprehension, reticence, and shyness. The social psychological theories introduced in the unit are belief theory, attribution theory, and perception theory. These theories are used to explain the phenomena…

Besides the question of the maximal effectiveness of various degrees and varieties of participation, predicting the success of participative decision making (PDM) approaches also involves an understanding of sources of variance (individual employees' characteristics, the cultural milieu, and the job context and level) for planning and instituting…

The motive to avoid success (M-S) is a stable personality disposition acquired early in life in conjunction with sex role standards which acts as an inhibiting factor in achievement motivation. Horner (1968) postulates that many women experience anxiety in competitive situations and learn to fear success because of its incongruence with the…

This paper begins by reviewing previous research concerning the external validity of mixed-motive games as models of international conflict, interpersonal behavior, and behavior in large-scale social dilemmas. Two further experiments are then described, both of which cast further doubt upon the usefulness of such games as models of any real-world…

Reviews the theory and research on the physiological or genetic origins of parenting behavior, noting that an ethological or evolutionary analysis of parenting behavior supports the idea that primates, including man, have evolved psychological structures which are particularly adapted to respond to cues from young children. (Author/JM)

It is suggested that the study of ethnic identity may rely on one of at least four theoretical frameworks: sociocultural, interactionist, group dynamicist; and psychoanalytic. For each of these frameworks the major assumptions and derived propositions are set forth and an illustrative example of the treatment of ethnic identity is discussed. (EH)