Illustrates how children handle conflict and adjust to one another when their goals are incompatible. Found clear developmental trends: with increasing age, children used more compliance-gaining strategies; their compliance-gaining strategies became more adaptive; and their conflict episodes became more complex. (PD)

Discusses three aspects of trial simulations used to study juror responses: (1) individuals used as jurors, especially college students; (2) the amount of information provided for jurors; and (3) the presence or absence of jury deliberation. Suggests three methodological caveats for legal communication research employing trial simulations. (PD)

Examines four methods of instruction to teach public speaking students how to use visual aids effectively in their speeches: oral lectures, written handouts, demonstration lectures, and multi-media demonstration lectures. Found that demonstration lectures are the most effective method of instruction and written handouts the least effective. (PD)

Suggests language used to depict the elderly is overwhelmingly negative. Points out many ageist terms are doubly offensive because they contain both ageist and sexist references. Urges the establishment of a set of guidelines for language usage in the various media to reduce ageism. (Author/RC)

Examined various kinds of sending-receiving relationships. Males (N=10) and females (N=10) served as both senders and receivers of nonverbal expressions. Females were found to be significantly better receivers but not significantly better senders than males. (Author/RC)

Concerns types of communication strategies people choose when confronted with situations which have no model. Found that subjects (women returning to college) did not attempt to fit into the established student role. Instead, they invented various strategies and reported the "active friendly" strategy as most positively related to communication…

Same-sex dyads, consisting of a high or low argumentative college student paired with a moderate, argued a controversial topic. Analysis revealed seven dimensions of communication behavior discriminated between high and low argumentatives: flexibility, interest, verbosity, expertise, dynamism, willingness to argue, and argumentative skill. (PD)

Describes an experiment designed to investigate the characteristics of speech addressed to children and to determine if they are distinctive enough to be perceived as a special register. Explains how evidence for specialness was found in the judgments of observers exposed to messages addressed to different categories of listeners, including…

Describes a study to develop a communications research technique that can produce information suitable for analysis about the management of public institutions, particularly in higher education, from readily available sources, in this case, newspapers. (JMF)

Defines interpersonal communication competence, describes a competency-based course offered at the University of Cincinnati, and reports the results of research testing the effects of a skills approach to interpersonal communication instruction. Tests for specific skills of empathy, descriptiveness, owning thoughts and feelings, and…

Telephone counselors responded to client statements which contained two messages. Results showed counselors' responses were either nonspecific or included both messages. Counselors responded to content rather than positioning of messages, thus providing no support for the recency hypothesis. (Author)

Identifies a substantial percentage of voters as "campaign deciders." Shows that these voters were low in partisanship during the 1976 presidential campaign, attended closely to the campaign, and voted according to campaign-specific perceptions. Contrasts these voters with "precampaign and last-minute deciders," who voted mainly on the basis of…

Finds communication apprehension to be significantly negatively related to both middle-school students' attitudes toward school and final grades. Indicates that communication apprehension influences the choice of desired others made by students and their teachers in a classroom communication network. (JMF)

Emphasizes that problems in assessing functional communication have their origin in conceptional ambiguity. Contrasts communicative competence with functional communicative effectiveness and proposes the latter as a more appropriate construct for older children and adults. (JMF)

Evaluates the reliability, concurrent validity, and comparative predictive validity of political sophistication in comparison to those of exposure, attention, and civics knowledge. Suggests that political sophisticates do not simply consume more news but process it differently than their less-sophisticated counterparts. (SR)