Because cognition is inherently inaccessible to observers, researchers interested in cognitive approaches to argumentation frequently rely on self-reports for data. Opponents to self-reports argue that such data have very limited value. They claim that when subjects are put in a position where they have to tell more than they can know, they…

An examination of a year's worth of editorial cartoons portraying the U.S. hostage crisis in Iran indicates a surprising lack of coverage or treatment of the deposed Shah and his subsequent admission into the United States as factors precipitating the crisis. Throughout the crisis, cartoonists focused on providing readers with some insight into…

Based on research which suggests that individuals transmit good news more than bad news and that people are motivated to project a positive image of themselves, 48 college students participated in a study to test the hypothesis that individuals would be more conscientious in giving information when future social interaction was anticipated.…

To identify conditions that make a conversational interaction constructive--in the sense that the participants can find the way toward the success of what they wanted to accomplish--two situations were examined. In one, a professional researcher explained her data to a statistician. In the other, three groups of two people cooperated with each…

The primary tasks of the ethnographic researcher are to discover, describe, and comparatively analyze different speech communities' ways of speaking. Two general abstractions occurring in ethnographic analyses are normative and cultural. Communicative norms are formulated in analyzing and explaining the "patterned use of speech."…

A study examined the relationship between changes in a person's mode of responsiveness during an interpersonal communication course and his or her ability to predict the behavior of others. First an instrument to identify flexible-responsive individuals was developed. Over a period of 7 years, 163 subjects, undergraduates in a beginning…

A study was conducted to investigate acceptance and openness as possible universal, consequent interpersonal rewards among foreign-born employees who work in United States companies. In this replication of an earlier study using United States-born employees, 42 United States-born and 52 foreign-born employees completed a booklet containing 20…

To illustrate the experience of a nonprofit organization whose high respect for theory and research shaped the design and implementation of a major public relations program, this paper reports on a University of Michigan program to arrest erosion of the state financial support in a period of worsening economic problems. The next five sections of…

A study was conducted to examine relationships between communication apprehension (CA) levels and the sending of messages within an organization. It was expected that high CA would be more prevalent among support personnel than among managers or professionals, and that high CAs would report less communication participation and satisfaction. It was…

To determine the number of journal articles authored by women and related to women and communication, a content analysis was made of communication journals from 1970 to 1984. The following journals were analyzed: "Central States Speech Journal,""Communication Education,""Communication Monographs,""Communication Quarterly,""Human Communication…

A study investigated the importance of brief contemplation as a factor in the accuracy of judgments about other people, based on their nonverbal appearance. The following questions were addressed: (1) Are observers who are given time to contemplate the significance of nonverbal cues more accurate in their perceptual judgments than observers who…

The results of three projects concerned with auditory word recognition and the structure of the lexicon are reported in this paper. The first project described was designed to test experimentally several specific predictions derived from MACS, a simulation model of the Cohort Theory of word recognition. The second project description provides the…

The current development of a communication theory known as coordinated management of meaning is presented in this report. The communication process is modeled as an open system; human actors constitute component subsystems with the ability to organize their cognitions into constitutive and regulative rules. The conjoining of individuals' rule sets…

In the attempt to examine motivations for the interpersonal diffusion of news events, two sets of data were collected. First, 82 college students completed an open-ended survey regarding their reasons for passing on news events; second, another 200 college students were given the list of reasons previously compiled and were asked to rate their…

Three methods of conducting television pilot testing research--the evaluation of television programs for their potential in attracting target and general audiences--are compared and contrasted in the three sections of this report. The introductory section provides an overview of the research, outlines the goals and objectives of the pilot…