A study examined the differences between how men and women respond to expert political analysis of political debates and the extremeness of traits attributed to the candidates. Subjects, 30 males and 45 females enrolled in courses at the College of Journalism and Communication of the University of Florida in the fall of 1988, viewed the live…

A study examined the role of emotion in organizational life (specifically, in a corrections organization) to determine the communicative circumstances and effects associated with emotional communication events. A detailed questionnaire administered to 105 employees of a state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation provided data on the nature…

A study examined organizational culture change to determine the effectiveness of a communication based intervention program to increase productivity and motivation. The cultural change was measured through a triangulation approach combining questionnaires, interview data and direct observation. Pre- and post-intervention data were obtained in the…

Metaphoric analysis of family systems theory illustrates how metaphors and alternatives to those metaphors identify what a psychological theory has highlighted and obscured about the phenomena at its focus and how it has structured that phenomena. The most commonly used metaphors in family systems theory are the metaphors of system (system…

A study examined the effects of controlling situational factors (i.e., instructional interventions) on reducing state anxiety level of low and high public speaking apprehensives. Subjects were 306 undergraduates enrolled in the basic public speaking course at a midwestern university during the 1988-1989 academic year. Situational factors tested…

This study examined whether faculty in advertising and public relations feel they are being treated fairly in their departments and in the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC). A three-page questionnaire was mailed to 460 people belonging to either the Advertising Division or the Public Relations Division of the…

A study examined the perceptions of black and white voters in the 1988 Southern Regional presidential primary (labeled "Super Tuesday") to determine whether or not discernible racial differences exist in the use and impact of political information. Data were gathered by trained interviewers from 678 randomly selected primary-aware…

A study examined the parenting behaviors portrayed on "The Cosby Show" to determine the use of specific parenting skills and family relationship-enhancing communication techniques. Videotapes of nine randomly chosen broadcast episodes were content analyzed according to family communication models of Thomas P. Gordon (1970), Bernard J.…

To test the claim that verbs consistently occur in particular illocutionary contexts and that illocutionary context thus should be included in models of early verb meanings, a Dutch-speaking child participated in a naturalistic case study in his home, as he grew between the ages of two and three years. The researcher taped the child's interactions…

Listeners generally rate speakers of high initial ethos (such as university professors) using mildly self-deprecating humor highly on traits like "wittiness" and "funniness." A three-part study investigated whether a speaker of lower initial ethos (such as a student) can "get away" with such self-deprecation. In Experiment 1, college students read…

Because written communication has nearly always been the medium for transmitting information in the business world, these essays are a step toward providing a seminal statement on the history and practice of business writing. The essays in this volume are: "Business Writing and the Spread of Literacy in Late Medieval England" (Malcolm Richardson);…

Based on the belief that preadolescence is a highly stressful time of development and a period when people need support from peers to cope with stress, a network analysis was used to examine the social support networks of preadolescents and the behavior of central network members. Subjects, 24 sixth-grade children, completed specially constructed…

Interpersonal communication competence has been conceptualized as a function of impressions of competence formed in the context of a dyadic relationship, and also in terms of individual behaviors. The Measure of Relational Competence, along with individual self-reports for empathy, role taking, and self-monitoring, were administered for 36…

This longitudinal, ethological study explores the development of communication behaviors, different types of social peer interactions, and mother-child interaction among 15 boys and 15 girls from 16 through 30 months of age. Each subject was filmed twice each month over a period of 14 months while he or she had lunch with 5 peers. Several subjects…

In a study designed to discover and describe the transmission of cultural meaning among women in middle management positions, oral histories of 10 middle management women were tape-recorded. The tapes were then transcribed and statements referring to the subjects' organizational enculturation were transferred onto approximately 500 sort cards.…