Several studies of attrition from encounter and therapy groups have identified anxiety about self-disclosure as a common cause of early therapy termination. If such anxiety also contributes to attrition from interpersonal skills training groups, then time and funds invested in training mental health paraprofessionals may be lost. The relationship…

A study compared the communication apprehension of basic studies (underprepared) and nonbasic studies college students in four contexts: (1) group, (2) interpersonal, (3) meetings, and (4) public communication. Subjects were 238 male and 209 female undergraduate students enrolled in the required basic communication course at the University of…

The use of poetry as a valuable part of the psychotherapeutic experience has gained increasing acceptance and usage in recent years. Poetry provides a viable modality for releasing intense emotions and reducing anxieties and hostilities. Poetry therapy was used with an 18-year-old male who was experiencing sexual orientation disturbance to examine…

Ways of enriching the high school English curriculum with instruction in oral communication and career related skills are presented in this paper. The suggestions include activities for developing skills in basic public speaking, listening, social awareness, educational awareness, economic awareness, group discussion, letters of application, job…

A prototype is a theoretical standard against which real people can be evaluated. To derive a prototype of a lonely person, 40 students were asked to describe a lonely person whom they knew. All descriptions were studied by judges who formed a final listing and frequency of all identified features. The 18 features which formed the prototype fell…

This paper provides a conceptual definition and model of self-presentational behavior. Self-presentation is defined as the attempt to control self-relevant images before real or imagined others. Several aspects of the definition are discussed along with the notion that people's self-presentations represent the choice of the most desirable images…

From a group of 288 college students that completed the Communicator Style Measure (CSM), 72 subjects were randomly assigned to triads in a study exploring the relationships between communicator style, effectiveness, and attractiveness. The 72 subjects were selected by their CSM scores and stratified into three groups (high, medium, and low). The…

Differences in 3-month-old infants' vocal responsiveness to vocal-visual stimulation by mothers and strangers has been shown to be related to performance on both the Stanford-Binet at 3 years of age and the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistics at 5 years of age. The present retesting of 12 of the original 14 normal, first-born male subjects, now 12…

Although skilled social performance has been defined as a sequential, two-stage process involving both social cue discrimination plus skillful performance, investigators have de-emphasized cue discrimination in favor of skill performance. The relationship between cue discrimination and skill performance was investigated among undergraduates who…

A study was undertaken to determine the relationship between assertiveness and communication apprehension by examining common factors that exist between the items on the Rathus Assertiveness Schedule and the Personal Report of Communication Apprehension. The two instruments were administered to students at a large midwestern university. Responses…

This study, part of a larger project called "Project Competence," explored the relationship between two aspects of social-cognitive ability (interpersonal awareness and social problem-solving) and three aspects of manifest competence in children (social, behavioral, and academic). In a series of hierarchical multiple regressions, social-…

A study investigated the effects of mass media, interpersonal communication, and sociolinguistic background on adults' political, cultural, and economic attitudes and agendas. Data for the study came from two earlier research efforts: one conducted in Minnesota, involved 414 adults who were interviewed concerning their media use, interpersonal…

A study examined the relationship between rhetorical sensitivity and self-disclosure. Subjects were 419 college students who completed the Rhetorical Sensitivity Scale and the Self-Disclosure Situations Survey. The results indicated that rhetorical sensitivity and self-disclosure were inversely related. Rhetorically sensitive individuals did not…