The variety of terms used to describe the process of self-other differentiation in communication--empathy, role taking, decentering, and perspective taking are but a few--tend to undermine efforts to establish a consistent framework for research in this area. A review of these terms suggests that decentering is the broadest of the concepts,…

Panel studies have frequently been used by mass communication researchers. While these studies allow researchers to draw inferences about mass communication effects over time, they also tend to sensitize respondents to the issue under study. A study was undertaken to investigate panel effects by examining the survey interview as a medium of…

A study investigated how the attribution of a problem solution to an individual or group affects the consumer's perception of the solution's quality. Based on the tendency to support group decision-making (Hydra phenomenon) it was predicted that decisions attributed to groups would be perceived as higher in quality than those made by individuals,…

Noting that intercultural understanding is a prime construct in the study of intercultural communication, this paper examines two questions that confront all intercultural communication researchers: (1) What are the underlying characteristics of intercultural understanding? and (2) What constitutes an interpretative perspective to intercultural…

In the first of two experiments designed to determine whether the use of humor would enhance audience reactions to a speaker without damaging that speaker's ethos (character and authoritativeness), 98 university students were randomly assigned to read one of four versions of the speech, "Why I Chose Psychology." The subjects read…

A study compared male and female managers' preferences for using communication-based as opposed to power-centered strategies for resolving employer-employee disputes. Subjects, 40 male and 40 female middle and upper level managers, were interviewed and asked to report their preferred manner of resolving four different personnel problems: (1) an…

Prepared by educators and researchers involved in argumentation and debate, the articles in this special journal issue are based upon the assumptions that presidential debates are important, are likely to continue, and are of unique interest to students, scholars, and practitioners of argument. The first two articles in the issue provide overviews…

Developed as part of a program designed to examine why so few graduates of doctoral programs demonstrate their scholarship through the media of books and refereed publications, the four papers in this series address the question of publication. The first paper explains why one should publish, explores differences between graduate term papers and…

Research shows that information received by one brain hemisphere (e.g., auditory messages entering the right ear) is processed and transferred to the other, interpretation being a combination of right and left brain processing, with high intensity messages shifting control from the left to the right brain. If information is received by one…

A study analyzed six prime-time television shows--"The Cosby Show,""Cheers,""Dear John,""Designing Women,""Golden Girls," and "Roseanne"--to examine group communication as it is portrayed on a daily basis in these shows, or how groups interact in the sitcom genre. One episode of each of…

After outlining feminist theory (conceptualization and characteristics), a study examined attitudes toward issues having to do with feminist scholarship and the fields of journalism and communication, particularly assessing the validity of the conventional wisdom that women are advised against doing feminist research. The subjects were a purposive…

A study examined how the relative familiarity of a social group described in a message may affect the impact of ostensibly fiction and nonfiction messages on subsequent beliefs about social groups. The 24 paid subjects each received one of four sets of prose excerpts. Each set consisted of four excerpts that were labelled as fiction or nonfiction…

A study examined the concept of interpersonal communication competence in order to construct a more refined instrument than those currently used to measure competence. Using 70 items drawn from several existing measures of competence, 660 volunteer subjects from undergraduate communication courses at a large midwestern university provided their…

Summarizing research activities in 1989, this is the fifteenth annual report of research on speech perception, analysis, synthesis, and recognition conducted in the Speech Research Laboratory of the Department of Psychology at Indiana University. The report contains the following 21 articles: "Perceptual Learning of Nonnative Speech…

A study examined the perceptions of pharmacy students regarding pharmacist-patient communication to determine whether the increased emphasis on the patient counseling role of pharmacists resulted in perceptual differences between students, pharmacists, and faculty. Data were gathered from 25 students, 2 pharmacy faculty, 8 communication studies…