In a group of 20 severely to profoundly mentally retarded adults, an interactional dominance hierarchy was obtained by observing the frequency of patient contacts, the duration of contact, and the frequency of contact initiation. It was found that 17 of the 20 patients studied displayed territorial behavior. (Author)

Analyzes an urban alternative school program to determine the extent to which the social relations underlying educational encounters were transformed. Found that students and teachers were both reproducing previously learned social definitions of roles and behaviors and altering the fundamental character of the social relations underlying…

Analyzes and compares the communication process within effective and ineffective decision-making groups to identify specific behaviors and patterns of communicative behaviors which consistently discriminate between them. Results suggest that effective decision-making groups spend more time interacting and agreeing upon procedural matters than do…

The modeling of group experience analogues (or the vicarious observation of such analogues) is by itself ineffective for enhancing attraction to group experiences. Changes were enhanced and of longer duration when modeling was accompanied by social reinforcement of desired behavior. (Author)

Married couples rated their marital satisfaction and played interpersonal competitive games which revealed the success with which they interacted. Younger husbands who scored more maturely on the Stewart measure of psychosocial maturity belonged to more successful marriages, as did college-educated wives who showed less immaturity and more phallic…

Outlines conceptual and operational definitions that distinguish between the control movements and control patterns of domineeringness and dominance. The evidence suggests that (1) domineeringness and dominance are, in actuality, different phenomena and (2) different patterns of role strain, system satisfaction, and interaction styles are…

Suggests that young children use their expectations of a context-specific, normal range of pause duration in timing the onset of a turn at speaking. (FL)

Reports results of a study of biology classes in Israel that includes describing transactions in a representative sample of biology classes (N=22) in the year 1973, comparing transactions in recitation with those of laboratory lessons, and studying the effects of subject matter on the classroom transaction. (CS)

The handicapped and nonhandicapped children changed differentially over time in their solitary activities and dominant interactions and in their interaction with handicapped and nonhandicapped peers, but these changes all moved in the direction of making the two groups less distinguishable. (Author/SBH)

Reviews the central principles of conversational organization and characterizes conversational argument in terms of these general principles. Discusses enthymemes and why they are the substance of persuasion. (JMF)

Interactions were observed as 80 mothers helped their first-grade children on an object-sorting task in the presence and absence of a third-grade sibling. (JMB)

Sociometric analysis, using job similarity, task influence, and work interaction instruments, can be used to collect and feed back information for better understanding of the functioning of specific organizations. (JD)

Outlines some problems that emerged when speech act theory was applied to the analysis of natural discourse, traces these problems to basic flaws or misconceptions in J. R. Searle's theory, and proposes an alternative view of speech acts within the complex organization of discourse processes. (FL)

This study compared the relative efficacy of four short-term intervention techniques for modifying negative racial attitudes in White second- and fifth-grade school children. (CM)

Results showed that first-grade children were less likely to follow a task-based fair-play rule than were third graders when one of the other children was larger and older. When dealing with same-size age-mates, however, first graders were no less likely to follow a task-based rule than were third graders. (Author/CM)