There is No Agony Like Bearing an Untold Story Inside You: Communication Research as Interventive Practice

Integrative interpersonal theory implies that relational uncertainty may play a role in the reassurance-seeking and negative feedback-seeking behavior of people with depressive symptoms. We sought to extend the theory by (a) documenting how individuals with depressive symptoms communicate under conditions of relational uncertainty, (b) evaluating actor and partner effects, and (c) utilizing observational measures of reassurance-seeking and negative feedback-seeking. Sixty-nine romantic couples engaged in 50 minutes of conversation rated by independent judges. Multilevel modeling results indicated that the depressive symptoms of actors and partners were the primary predictor of an actor's reassurance-seeking, but an actor's relational uncertainty was the primary predictor of an actor's negative feedback-seeking. The findings illuminate the interplay among depressive symptoms, relational uncertainty, and communication.     

The Relationship between Self- and Other-Perceptions of Communication Competence and Friendship Quality

This study explored dyadic effects of communication competence, assessed through self-perceptions and other-perceptions, on relationship quality in same-sex platonic friendships. Undergraduate students recruited a same-sex platonic friend to participate in this study along with them. Participants (N = 310; dyads = 155) completed an online questionnaire assessing their own and their partner's communication competence as well as their own relationship satisfaction and commitment. Results from actor-partner interdependence model analyses revealed both actor and partner effects for self-perceptions and other-perceptions of communication competence on relationship satisfaction and commitment. Additionally, partners’ other-perceptions of communication competence moderated the relationship between actors’ other-perceptions of communication competence and relationship commitment.     

Enacted Goal Attention in Family Conversations about End-of-life Health Decisions

Most extant research on end-of-life communication in families has been based on the assumption that more communication is better communication. We used a multiple goals theoretical perspective to demonstrate that the quality of communication about end-of-life decisions matters. Members of 121 older parent/adult child dyads (N = 242) engaged in an elicited conversation about end-of-life health choices and reported their assessments of the conversation. Using multilevel linear modeling, we found that outside ratings of a person's communication quality (i.e., attention to task, identity, and relational goals) as well as outside ratings of the partner's communication quality were positively associated with the person's reported conversational satisfaction and hopefulness and negatively associated with the person's hurt feelings and relational distancing.     

Examining the Bidirectional Nature of Topic Avoidance and Relationship Dissatisfaction: The Moderating Role of Communication Skills

This study examined the bidirectional nature of the association between one's own topic avoidance and relationship dissatisfaction. It also explored how perceptions of a dating partner's communication competence and one's own communication efficacy affect this association. Three hundred undergraduates tracked their topic avoidance with their dating partner over a two week period. The results provided modest support for the idea that the association between topic avoidance and dissatisfaction is bidirectional for women, but not men. In addition, for men and women, global dissatisfaction with their dating relationship was a stronger predictor of daily topic avoidance (than daily topic avoidance was of daily dissatisfaction). Initial global levels of relationship dissatisfaction predicted greater levels of topic avoidance and this effect was quite stable over time, particularly for women. The results also revealed that the perception of a partner's communication incompetence was indirectly associated with increases in topic avoidance over time only because it affected one's communication efficacy. Finally, the results indicated that women who were highly efficacious were particularly dissatisfied by their topic avoidance over time.     

A test of the initial processes of the goal‐planning‐action model of interpersonal influence

Dillard's goals‐planning‐action (GPA) model of interpersonal influence encompasses two different process models depending on the initial weighing of primary and secondary goals. In contrast to the GPA's prediction that the ordering of the intervening processes is moderated by the initial weighing of these two types of goals, a simplified version was found that fit the data both when the primary goal was greater than the secondary goal and when the secondary goal was greater than the primary goal. In both conditions, the two types of goals have simultaneous, direct relationships with the persuaders’ decisions to engage their targets, and indirect effects on subsequent plan generation.     

Nonverbal communication and marital adjustment and satisfaction: the role of decoding relationship relevant and relationship irrelevant affect

The present study investigates the relationship between nonverbal encoding and decoding of positive and negative affect attributed to relational and nonrelational factors and spouses' marital adjustment. Findings indicate that accuracy in decoding of nonverbal affect was associated with the partner's, but not one's own, marital satisfaction. In regard to specific relational and nonrelational affect, results showed that accurate decoding of relational positive affect and of nonrelational negative affect was associated with the decoder's marital satisfaction, while accurate decoding of relational positive affect was associated with the partner's dissatisfaction. In regard to nonverbal communication and sex differences, we found that husbands' decoding of wives' nonrelational affect was more predictive of marital satisfaction than wives' decoding of husbands' nonrelational affect. Overall, however, we did not find many of the sex differences in nonverbal communication reported in previous studies. Implications of these findings for our current understanding of nonverbal communication in marriages are discussed.     

Support providers' interaction goals: the influence of attributions and emotions

The current study examines cognitive and emotional influences on the formation of interaction goals. Specifically, it develops and assesses an extension of Weiner's attribution-emotion-intention model of helping (e.g., Weiner, 1995) to the prediction of support providers' goals. 608 college students read situations manipulating attributions of responsibility, stability, and effort with regard to a friend who was seeking support. They subsequently responded to measures of emotional response (anger, sympathy), interaction goals, and attributions. Attributions were found to influence goals both directly and through the mediation of emotion, though the character of this influence depended strongly on the goal. The results suggest that at least some variability in the effectiveness and sensitivity of supportive communication can be explained by support providers' goals. They also indicate the need for continued, closer examination of cognitive and emotional influences on interaction goals and behaviors.     

Attachment and Relational Satisfaction: The Mediating Effect of Emotional Communication

This study investigated associations among one partner's relational satisfaction and the other partner's style of attachment and emotional communication. Findings from a questionnaire study involving 581 couples showed that participants reported more relational satisfaction when their partners scored high in security and low in dismissiveness and preoccupation. These associations between one's relational satisfaction and the partner's attachment style were partially mediated by how the partner reported communicating emotions. Specifically, participants were less satisfied in relationships with preoccupied partners who reported expressing anger using destructive communication. Participants were less satisfied with dismissive partners who reported using detached emotional communication. Finally, participants were more satisfied with secure partners who reported using prosocial emotional communication. These findings suggest that the often-cited relationship between attachment and relational satisfaction is partially explained by emotional communication.     

An analysis of the association between topic avoidance and dissatisfaction: comparing perceptual and interpersonal explanations

There is consistent evidence that individuals tend to be dissatisfied with their relationships if they report that topics are frequently avoided in those relationships. The extant literature contains two plausible general explanations for such findings: perceptual processes (e.g., the perceptions that the relational partner avoids are unrelated to the partner's actual avoidance but adversely influence relational satisfaction) and interpersonal processes (e.g., one individual's topic avoidance diminishes the counterpart's satisfaction because the counterpart accurately detects that avoidance). The current study compared the utility of these two explanations with data gathered from two separate samples, one including 100 heterosexual dating couples and the other including 114 parent-child dyads. Findings indicated that both perceptual processes and interpersonal processes help account for the association between topic avoidance and dissatisfaction. For example, the interpersonal explanation was consistent with evidence that boyfriends, girlfriends, and parents (but not children) all had perceptions of their counterpart's topic avoidance that were more accurate than would be expected by chance, and that those perceptions of avoidance were, in turn, associated with dissatisfaction. Despite such evidence for interpersonal factors, the effect sizes associated with perceptual processes were, in general, significantly stronger than those associated with interpersonal processes. The relative salience of the perceptual processes has important practical implications, supporting theoretical arguments that there are likely circumstances when topic avoidance can help maintain a cohesive relationship.     

The Interpersonal Competence Development Project: The Intersection of Theory and Practice

Objective: The goal for this project is for students to develop their interpersonal communication competence. Students identify an interpersonal competency (skill) that they wish to develop (or eliminate) to become a more effective communicator.

Courses: This assignment is designed for use in a skills-focused undergraduate interpersonal communication course.     

Perceptions of conflict strategies and communication competence in task‐oriented Dyads

Individuals in temporary task‐oriented dyads or groups must manage conflict competently if they hope to be successful in reaching their goals. Thus far, however, research on the associations between conflict styles and communication competence has focused on acquainted dyads, such as relational partners and coworkers, rather than unacquainted dyads assigned to work on tasks. The present study tests the applicability of the competence model of interpersonal conflict to temporary task‐oriented dyads. Dyads (N = 100) who had little or no relational history completed a simulated decision‐making task that involved choosing two out of four employees to lay off in response to a company's need to downsize. Results indicate people generally perceived the solution‐oriented strategy as appropriate and effective. Although people perceived their partners' use of the controlling strategy to be inappropriate, people rated themselves as more effective when they used the controlling strategy. People evaluated nonconfrontational strategies as particularly incompetent.     

To Avoid or Not to Avoid: When Emotions Overflow

ABSTRACT

This study focuses on how postepisodic conflict avoidance is related to the emotional and behavioral reactions to a partner's destructive conflict behavior. The first hypothesis predicted that a partner's destructive behavior is positively related to postepisodic conflict avoidance when an individual becomes emotionally flooded and withdraws during an argument. Conversely, a partner's destructive behavior was expected to be negatively related to postepisodic conflict avoidance when an individual becomes emotionally flooded and reciprocates the destructive behavior during an argument. A path analysis of the accounts of 182 undergraduate participants about a recent conflict episode supported the second hypothesis but not the first. However, results indicate other positive paths between a partner's destructive behavior and postepisodic conflict avoidance. Limitations and future research directions are discussed. This study extends the anger avoidance model and also advances understanding of destructive communication processes.     

Relational power,marital schema,and decisions to withhold complaints: An investigation of the chilling effect on confrontation in marriage

Previous research on dating relationships suggests that perceptions of a partner's power exert a chilling effect on the expression of relational grievances. This paper extends the chilling effect perspective by examining two issues: (a) whether a partner's power corresponds with decisions to withhold complaints within marriage, and (b) whether the manifestation of the chilling effect varies as a Junction of individual differences in marital schema. Married individuals (N = 215) completed questionnaire measures of a partner's power, marital schema, and decisions to withhold complaints from spouses. Findings underscore the importance of both power and marital schema within spouses’ decisions to express complaints.     

Understanding social influence: Relations between lay and technical perspectives

This essay urges an appropriately complicated view of the relationship of the actor's and the researcher's perspectives on persuasion and social influence. As a foil for this project, it initially sketches an interpretive‐phenomenological approach that takes the researcher's central project to be that of describing the actor's point of view. It then argues that because commonsensical conceptions of how persuasion works contain beliefs that are not well‐founded, reproducing the actor's perspective will yield an inevitably inadequate account of social influence. For quantitative studies of persuasion, this points to the importance of assessing actual (as opposed to perceived) message effects; for qualitative investigations, this emphasizes the dangers of unreflective reliance on interview data.     

Cross-Cultural Adaptation of Hispanic Youth: A Study of Communication Patterns,Functional Fitness,and Psychological Health

This study examined the role of communication in the adaptation of Hispanic youth to the dominant cultural values and practices embodied in US American public schools. Seven hypotheses predicted positive interrelationships among four theoretical constructs identified in Y. Y. Kim's integrative theory of communication and cross-cultural adaptation: host communication competence, host interpersonal communication, psychological health, and functional fitness. Structured, closed-ended questions were administered in face-to-face interviews with 112 Hispanic adolescents in the upper Midwestern United States. Structural equation modeling results supported all seven hypotheses, indicating Hispanic youth with greater host communication competence were more actively engaged in host interpersonal communication and enjoyed greater psychological health and functional fitness with respect to US public schools and the larger US society.     

Linear goal programming for academic library acquisitions allocations

The allocation of an academic library's acquisitions funds should contribute to the achievement of the library's goals and objectives. The availability of diverse materials and the varying demands of user needs in a variety of subject disciplines may represent a set of conflicting, incommensurate goals. Lexicographic linear goal programming offers an appropriate allocation methodology for determining an optimal solution with conflicting goals. This article applies this methodology to 90 funds representing books and periodicals in 45 subject disciplines at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UT). The model's goals incorporate several categories of budget constraints and user needs. The application of this formula resulted in the successful distribution of $3.5 million while taking into consideration ten goals or variables ranging from circulation to number of faculty and students. It also builds in accommodations for political factors and pressures, a unique feature in allocation formulas.     

Assessing communication competence in the primary care medical interview

The purpose of this paper is to present preliminary results of a language‐based coding system to analyze physician‐patient communication. This system is grounded in the framework of Cegala and Waldron's (1992) context‐based model of communication competence which reflects the sequential development of talk as primary to definitions of competence. Given a review of the model and identification of information exchange and relational development as the primary tasks in the medical interview, two research questions were advanced to test a coding scheme. Based on the notion that aligning one's utterances to meet self‐ and other‐goals relates to communication competence, the coding scheme was developed to include message content, function, and uptake. Frequency results showed that 32 physician‐patient dyads produced 10, 958 coded utterances. Physicians and patients contributed relatively equal numbers of units. The frequencies of each category and exploratory sequential patterns relating to competence are summarized along with a discussion of the limitations of the analytical system. Overall, the code system provided new information on content, uptake, and sequential patterns of information exchange previously unavailable from published coding scheme results. Yet, the present scheme needs to be refined to produce output that more readily identifies competent and less competent interactions. These results and issues are placed in the context of an ongoing, larger research program on communication competence in the primary care interview.     

Effect of timing of communicator identification and level of source credibility on attitude

This study investigated whether roommates who were similar in their communication traits would express more satisfaction with and affinity for their roommates. Specifically, the communication traits of willingness to communicate, interpersonal communication competence, and verbal aggressiveness were considered. Participants (college students and their roommates) completed measures of their own communication traits and their feelings about their roommates. Results showed that roommates who were prosocially similar (when both roommates were high in willingness to communicate, when both roommates were high in interpersonal communication competence, and when both roommates were low in verbal aggressiveness) reported the highest roommate satisfaction and liking.     

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.