Do we connect?: A staff development programme

Staff development as opposed to staff training demands a different kind of learning approach. Library staff who are accustomed to the passive learning of technical skills, often equating training with instruction, can be less confident in an active learning environment. The paper describes the design and delivery of a staff development programme which focussed on issues of customer care, interpersonal skills and rules and procedures. Group interactions and outcomes of the programme are analysed and modifications considered. It is concluded that the benefits of a staff development programme both to the service and to individuals within it can be considerable but that success depends on the willingness of individuals to take responsibility for their own development and on the commitment of management.     

Effects of Actual (Manipulated) and Perceived Similarity on Liking in Get-acquainted Interactions: The Role of Communication

The effects of actual and perceived similarity on interpersonal outcomes (e.g., liking) in initial interactions were examined in a live interaction paradigm, which also included a pre-interaction manipulation of bogus similarity or dissimilarity. Pairs of previously unacquainted students engaged in a two-segment interaction using a structured self-disclosure task. One member of the pair was assigned to disclose while the other listened in the first segment; the two then switched roles in the second segment. Participants who received bogus information (prior to the interaction) that the other was similar expected to experience more liking toward the other and enjoyment of the interaction, relative to those who received bogus dissimilarity information. The pre-interaction manipulation of similarity/dissimilarity, however, did not generally affect liking and other affiliative outcomes once the pairs interacted. Perceived similarity was strongly associated with liking, closeness, and the other affiliative outcomes. Furthermore, more support was found that liking leads to similarity (Morry, 2005) than that similarity leads to liking in the initial interactions.     

An interactionist perspective on dominance‐submission: Interpersonal dominance as a dynamic,situationally contingent social skill

Dominance‐submission in interpersonal interaction typically has been conceptualized as largely a function of either highly stable characteristics of individual actors (e.g., basic termperament, genetic heritage, fixed social roles) or highly dynamic properties of situations (e.g., relational control sequences). Too, the dominance end of the continuum frequently has been infused with negative connotations. Here it is argued that a more balanced and comprehensive perspective is achieved by conceptualizing interpersonal dominance as influenced by a combination of person, situation, and relationship factors and as including positive qualities that also underwrite social competence. Experimental data relevant to this interactionist perspective were examined for the impacts of one traitlike actor variable (self‐reported social skills), two situational factors (communication format and message goal), and one relationship factor (acquaintanceship) on dominance displays during dyadic interactions. Sender and receiver perceptions were also triangulated with observational data from trained coders. Results support an interactionist conceptualization of dominance.     

Interpersonal Skills in the Reference Workplace

SUMMARY

Reference librarians are expected to interact effectively with a variety of clientele and are taught skills such as approachability, showing interest, and verbal and non-verbal cues. Librarians who have a knack for interpersonal skills do very well both at the reference desk and interacting with their co-workers. An area that is rarely addressed in the literature (or in library school) is that of educating librarians about how to establish professional, collegial relationships with one another. It is assumed that if a reference librarian can interact well with patrons, in a professional manner, he or she will be able to successfully “fit into” almost any reference department. This article discusses the importance of interpersonal skills within the Reference Department and ideas for improving these skills to enhance co-worker relations.     

论科技期刊编辑的社会互动性

为探讨如何提高编辑工作的质量与效率，从社会心理学的角度界定编辑的社会互动性，分析科技期刊目前所处环境的变化，强调科技期刊编辑工作双向、连续、动态性互动的重要性，指出这种互动性在人际沟通、知识结构、作品内容和信息渠道等方面的表现。     

Intergroup,Interpersonal, and Intercultural Nature of Patient–Provider Communication: A Comparison of IMG and USMG Physicians

Using communication accommodation theory as a framework, this study explores and compares communication patterns of international medical graduate (IMG) physicians and United States medical graduate (USMG) physicians in intergroup, interpersonal, and intercultural context. Given that every fourth doctor practicing medicine in the U.S. is an internationally trained physician (AMA-IMG, 2010) an examination of the influence on patient-provider communication involving IMG physician and comparison with USMG physician is warranted. In a national survey of IMG and USMG physicians, the participants self-reported their perceptions of communication behaviors they used during a medical interaction. Although no difference was found between IMG and USMG physicians use of communication accommodation strategies during medical interaction, IMG physicians reported practicing significantly more relational communication than their U.S. counterparts. USMG physicians reported greater difficulty in communication owing to differences in culture than IMG physicians. Implication of findings for patient-centered communication, patient-physician relationship, and communication skills training is discussed.     

编辑压力缓解的共情策略

编辑压力源主要包括社会压力源、职业特性压力源和个体压力源等。运用共情能力可缓解编辑压力。对自己运用共情,有助于正确认识自己、接受自己、释放自己给自己带来的压力;在人际交往中,包括与审稿专家、作者沟通时,以及与周围人的相处中运用共情,可以提高人际交往能力,能够感受他人需求、彼此产生共情,缓解压力;与家人相处中运用共情,可以建立亲密关系、减小压力。     

Communication Mediation Model of Late-Night Comedy: The Mediating Role of Structural Features of Interpersonal Talk Between Comedy Viewing and Political Participation

This study advances a communication mediation model of late-night comedy in an effort to understand the process wherein consuming satirical humor indirectly spurs political participation via the conduit of interpersonal talk about politics. The theoretical model was tested utilizing two different research designs. The findings from the experiment and the survey provide considerable support for the model, demonstrating that various structural features of interpersonal talk (e.g., discussion frequency, online interaction, and network size) positively mediate the association between late-night comedy viewing and political participation. Meanwhile, the assessments concerning the mediating role of heterogeneous discussion illustrate that late-night comedy can draw a higher level of political involvement from those who are highly educated. The present study urges the field to extend the scope of the communication mediation model by incorporating a greater number of media channels and more diverse aspects of interpersonal talk.     

Relational Framing Theory and Coming-Out Narratives: A Data Analysis Activity

Courses: This single class activity would be most useful in interpersonal, family, gender/sexuality communication, or research methods courses. This activity facilitates better discussion in a small or seminar-style class with students who have had pervious exposure to or who are in the process of learning about interpersonal communication theory or research methods.

Objectives: The goals for this activity are to (a) practice data analysis utilizing a specific theory, (b) identify the presence of relational frames and judgments to become more familiar with the interpersonal dimensions of coming-out interactions, (c) appreciate a multiplicity of data interpretations through the practice of group coding, and (d) practice evaluating the quality of data interpretations.     

A Robot That Communicates With Vocal Fillers Has … Uhhh … Greater Social Presence

Social robots are communicative partners that need interpersonal communication skills. Vocal fillers have been shown to act as cues during interpersonal communication. The purpose of this experiment was to test people’s perceptions of their social presence with social robots utilizing vocal fillers. Participants reported an increase in their perceptions of social presence during the condition in which the social robot spoke with vocal fillers.     

Criticism From Artificial Agents: Prior Interaction Reduces Negative Effects

The present study explored interaction between humans and artificial agents from a relational perspective. According to theories on interpersonal communication and relationships, criticism by known agents, as compared to unknown agents, could be less negative (the buffering effect of relationship) or more negative (the expectancy violation effect) to human-agent relationships. Using online survey tools, participants who had interacted with an agent were led to one of the same or different agent conditions, in which the same or a new agent gave negative comments (criticism) to participants. Participants evaluated the agent and the interaction with it before and after receiving the criticism. Results showed that a brief acquaintanceship with agents lessened the negative effects of criticism. Participants’ evaluations decreased to a lesser degree when the negative comments were given by the acquaintance agent rather than the stranger agent. Thus, the buffering effect of relationship was supported in human-agent relationships.     

Adding Value at the Desk: How Technology and User Expectations are Changing Reference Work

The notion of what reference service ought to be continues to change as technology provides new ways to interact with users and alters their expectations of the library and librarians. As new tools for interaction become available, it is critical that librarians continuously evaluate their effectiveness at providing users with a valuable service that meets the needs of the community being served. By assessing tools and techniques in light of user expectations and satisfaction, librarians can come up with unique service programs that also incorporate their own knowledge and interpersonal skills.     

Predicting exposure to and liking of media violence: a uses and gratifications approach

The current study examined the interpersonal coordination of nonverbal immediacy behaviors in the emotional support process. Participants (N = 216) disclosed a distressing event to a confederate who was trained to exhibit emotional support that varied in high, moderate, or low nonverbal immediacy. After the 5-minute conversation, participants evaluated the confederate on several scales. Trained coders coded 10 immediacy cues of confederates and participants. Results indicated that participants tended to match confederates, regardless of the immediacy condition. Perceived liking for the helper did not moderate immediacy matching and exerted only a main effect on confederate immediacy; participants reported liking better highly immediate helpers than either moderately immediate or nonimmediate helpers. The study also generated several sex differences, such that, with the exception of eye contact, women tended to match confederates more than did men.     

Parents' Communication Skills and Adolescents' Salivary α-Amylase and Cortisol Response Patterns

The primary goal of this study was to examine patterns or groupings of adolescents’ hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA) (measured through cortisol) and sympathetic nervous system (SNS) (measured through salivary alpha amylase or sAA) responses as a function of their parents’ communication skills. A related goal was to decipher whether adolescents who demonstrate different patterns of physiological reactivity vary in their personal and relational health. The sample consisted of 118 parent–adolescent dyads who were asked to talk about something stressful related to the parents’ relationship. The results revealed that adolescents’ perceptions of their parent's communication skills predicted the likelihood that the adolescents would overreact, show no reaction, or down regulate in response to such a discussion, but only for sAA. All of the communication skills in question—social support, communication competence, feeling caught between the parents’ conflict, and inappropriate disclosures—supported the hypothesis that adolescents with parents who they think are more communicatively skilled are better able to recover from a stressful interaction than adolescents whose parents are less skilled. Adolescents who were considered “overreactors” in sAA also had more negative health indices, somewhat lower psychological well-being, and poorer quality relationships with their parents.     

Young adults’ social skills are independent of their parents’ social skills

It has been suggested that young people's social skills are influenced by the parenting styles, and modeling of social skills by their parents. To test these hypotheses, 141 university students completed measures of social skills and engaged in a brief interpersonal interaction from which several behaviors indicative as social skills were assessed. In addition, 127 mothers and 111 fathers of these subjects completed measures of their own social skills and parenting styles. The results indicated that both parental parenting styles and parental social skills were poor predictors of the young adults’ social skills. In most cases parental predictors explained less than 10% of the variance of any of 15 social skills variables assessed in their children.     

I. SEARCH ANALYSTS AS SUCCESSFUL REFERENCE LIBRARIANS

In most academic libraries, reference librarians are confronted with increasing patron demands for online database searching. Since this type of service requires unique skills and expertise, there is also demand for librarians who can provide traditional reference service integrated with online searching. This article will examine five critical factors which must be considered for successful functioning of search analysts as reference librarians: professional training, background knowledge and working experience in reference services, personality characteristics and interpersonal skills, the marketing of online services, and patron evaluations supplemented by postsearch reference assistance.     

Chronemics in Instructor–Student E-Mail Communication: An Experimental Examination of Student Evaluations of Instructor Response Speeds

Text-based computer-mediated communication (e.g., e-mail) lacks nonverbal cues afforded by traditional face-to-face interaction in the classroom. A lack of cues may cause students to place increased importance on elements that are still present, such as how long it takes an instructor to respond to a message. This study experimentally explored how instructor e-mail response speed and message content interact to influence student perceptions of instructor interpersonal attraction and credibility. Results (N = 385) suggested that the quicker an instructor responds to a student e-mail message, the more positively s/he is evaluated in terms of social attractiveness, task attractiveness, competence, character, and caring. However, the content of the message did not significantly influence student perceptions of the instructor. These findings offer practical implications for instructor e-mail communication in the classroom and extend what is known about chronemics in computer-mediated communication to the instructional setting.     

Political Communication and Statistical Interaction: Reexamining Issue,Image, Involvement,and Interpersonal Conversation

Statistical interactions present complex problems in analysis and interpretation for research on communication. Recently, Pinkleton (1999) examined how the relevance of political conversation is associated with issue attention, image attention, and situational involvement. He reported significant interactions but did not fully interpret them. Our reexamination of his findings provides tips for avoiding common pitfalls in analyzing statistical interaction. Understanding the pattern of an interaction requires considering simultaneously the unstandardized regression slopes for the interaction term and for the separate interacting variables. We illustrate how interpreting any slope in isolation can lead to incorrect conclusions. Graphical methods are recommended for exploring the model-implied associations and for diagnosing data problems that can undermine the analysis, such as coding errors, outliers, and so forth. With a coding error corrected, Pinkleton's data in fact showed no significant interactions. We conclude by noting a need for conceptual clarification in the theoretical relation between issue and image attention.     

Close encounters of the digital kind: A research agenda for the digitalization of public services

This paper contributes to e-government research by presenting a review and discussion on how digitalization of public services has affected the interaction between citizens and government. We argue for a conceptualization and critical reflection on the nature of the underlying interaction between citizens and public officials - the public encounter - that digital public services are developed to support. We apply a qualitative and hermeneutic approach and illustrate that digital public services change public encounters concerning when, where, and how interactions occur, what each actor does, and the skills required of them. By relating these changes to emerging digital technologies (e.g. data mining, machine learning, sensor technology, and service automation), we illustrate that while these new technologies carry the potential to further digitalize service provision and fulfill the democratic goals of digital government, authorities can apply the same technology to restrict, control, and surveil citizens. Based on a critical discussion on what digitalization might entail for society, we identify problem areas arising from this development and propose a research agenda for understanding this phenomenon further. We raise questions and ethical concerns regarding accountability and reskilling of citizens and public officials as public service provision becomes citizen self-service.     

The relationship of communication apprehension and interaction involvement to perceptions of computer‐mediated communication

This study investigated how the interpersonal traits of communication apprehension (CA) and interaction involvement (II) are related to one's attitudes toward and use of computer‐mediated communication (CMC). Data were collected by administering a self‐report survey to a sample of 133 participants, and results were analyzed with multiple regression. Findings revealed that CA and II failed to predict CMC attitudes. However, each trait predicted communication style during online interaction. Findings are interpreted within the context of current theories of CMC.