The intent of this study was to determine the extent to which preschool children's speech to self, their private speech, was differentiated from their social speech. Ten randomly chosen preschool children, six boys and four girls with a median age of 56 months, were observed in conditions supportive of oral communication (free play), and in…

Sixty half-hour family discussions generated by the "revealed differences technique" were analyzed to determine the emotional intensity and quality (friendliness/attacking) of messages between individuals in families with schizophrenic and "normal" sons. Thirty families in each situation (schizophrenic/normal) were matched for comparison. Both…

In a study of turnover in a midwest trucking firm, the files of 199 terminated drivers were used in a statistical analysis of 19 variables that might have been correlated to length of service. A series of interviews with drivers and key management personnel supplemented the statistical data. It was found that previously identified biographical…

Interviews with 588 college students found support for the proposition that sex role norms and interpersonal communication norms and patterns had influenced their occupational decision making as adolescents. Specifically, the findings showed that the adoption of the traditionally masculine sex role norm (as measured by the Bem Sex Role Inventory)…

A model of the generation of initial trusting attitudes toward groups by individuals who were not members of those groups was developed from the literature on interpersonal trust. The model proposed that perceptions of situational threat would be preconditions to the saliency of trust as a concept. Given that trust was a salient concept, the model…

The Communicator Style Measure (CSM) was administered to 731 students in Japanese universities and 520 American students at the University of Hawaii to discover if members of certain ethnic or national groups possessed a style of speaking that distinguished them from members of other groups. The CSM contains 51 randomly ordered items that inquire…

A review of the research on developing children's referential communication ability reveals two approaches: the role-taking approach and the task-analytic approach. In the role-taking approach, researchers attempt to improve children's communication accuracy by training them to be more sensitive to listener needs. In the task-analytic approach,…

Cultural differences in interpersonal attraction were studied using 93 black, 112 Chicano, and 112 white college students who completed 40 Likert-type rating scales for each of four concepts of attraction (intimate, friendship, acquaintance, and stranger attraction). When a factor solution was generated, differences were noted in the amount of…

A study was conducted to determine the perceptions of staff members in the psychiatric treatment division of a residential mental health center regarding the internal communication situation among division employees. The study, which combined organizational communication and basic communication research perspectives, was based both on an…

This paper explores the relationship between communication style and organizational effectiveness. The first section of the paper reviews eight empirical studies that illustrate the importance of communication style in organizational effectiveness. The second section of the paper discusses management functions and particular communication styles…

Discusses ways in which talk during writing and group discussion can help children's writing, including (1) helping teachers learn to listen, (2) teaching children to elaborate and clarify, (3) giving children experience with an audience and reasons for writing, (4) helping children gather ideas and assistance, and (5) teaching children to be…

Argues that the form and function of presidential foreign policy rhetoric are grounded in a nation's acceptable images of political reality. Examines the rhetorical responses of Presidents Reagan and Mitterrand to the terrorist bombing in Beirut and to acts of military interventions by the United States and France in Grenada and Chad. (JD)

Discusses the goals of French academic research policy in the field of information science, emphasizing the interdisciplinary nature of the field. Areas of research highlighted include communication, telecommunications, co-word analysis in scientific and technical documents, media, and statistical methods for the study of social sciences. (LRW)

Examines which message-based behavior alteration techniques (BATs) teacher evaluators perceive as commonly used by good, average, and poor teachers. Reports that principals equate reward-type messages with effective teaching and punishment-type messages with ineffective teaching. (MM)

Identifies verbal teacher immediacy behaviors which relate to increased learning, finding that the impact of both verbal and non-verbal behaviors on learners is enhanced as class size increases. Provides empirical definition of a specific set of low-inference verbal variables which, combined with previously identified nonverbal variables, clarify…