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The Gama Cuulu radio serial drama is written and produced in Zambia's Southern Province. It promotes behavior change and service use to prevent HIV transmission. The authors evaluated the effects of Gama Cuulu on intermediate outcomes (e.g., perceived norms), as well as number of sexual partners, condom use, and HIV testing in the past year among adults between 18 and 49 years of age. The authors used a pretest/posttest assessment with a comparison group design, with Southern Province as the intervention area and Western Province as the comparison area. Approximately 1,500 in-person interviews were conducted in both provinces in 2006 (pretest), 2007, and 2008. Regression models included terms for province, time, and the interaction of the two. Outcomes improved in both provinces (e.g., by 2008, 37.6% of participants in Southern Province and 28.3% participants in Western Province tested for HIV in the past year). Pretest-to-posttest changes in condom use (from 20.2% to 29.4% in Southern Province) and 5 intermediate outcomes were significantly different in the 2 provinces. However, changes in condom use were not associated with listening to Gama Cuulu and changes in other outcomes were similar in both provinces. Weak intervention effects might be attributable to implementation challenges or the saturation of HIV programs in Zambia.

Two experiments examined 4- to 11-year-olds' and adults' performance (N = 350) on two variants of a Stroop-like card task: the day-night task (say 'day' when shown a moon and 'night' when shown a sun) and a new happy-sad task (say 'happy' for a sad face and 'sad' for a happy face). Experiment 1 featured colored cartoon drawings. In Experiment 2, the happy-sad task featured photographs, and pictures for both measures were gray scale. All age groups made more errors and took longer to respond to the happy-sad versus the day-night versions. Unlike the day-night task, the happy-sad task did not suffer from ceiling effects, even in adults. The happy-sad task provides a methodological advance for measuring executive function across a wide age range.

The purpose of the study is to describe from a relational perspective, partners' psychological adjustment, coping and support needs for advanced prostate cancer.A mixed methods design was adopted, employing triangulation of qualitative and quantitative data, to produce dyadic profiles of adjustment for six couples recruited from the urology clinics of local hospitals in Tasmania, Australia.Dyads completed a video-taped communication task, semi-structured interview and standardised self-report questionnaires.Themes identified were associated with the dyadic challenges of the disease experience (e.g. relationship intimacy, disease progression and carer burden). Couples with poor psychological adjustment profiles had both clinical and global locus of distress, treatment side-effects, carer burden and poor general health. Resilient couples demonstrated relationship closeness and adaptive cognitive and behavioural coping strategies. The themes informed the adaption of an effective program for couples coping with women's cancers (CanCOPE, to create a program for couples facing advanced prostate cancer (ProCOPE-Adv).Mixed method results inform the development of psychological therapy components for couples coping with advanced prostate cancer. The concomitance of co-morbid health problems may have implications for access and engagement for older adult populations in face-to-face intervention.

This study was part of an ongoing investigation into four of the potential challenges confronting women and men in cross-sex fiendships (O’Meara, 1989). Unlike previous research, which explored the perspective of only one member of each cross-sex fnendship, this study examined the perspectives of both individuals in cross-sex fienhhips. The levels of actual and perceived agreement and understanding were investigated through utilization of a variation of Heiderian Balance Theory and Laing’s Interpersonal Perception Method. Seventy three pairs of cross-sex fiends completed a survey examining direct perspectives, metaperspectives, and meta-metaperspectives, on the four challenges. Over 92% of the participants were heterosexual, 68% were Caucasian, 10% were Afican American, 10% were Hispanic, 3% were Asian, 4% were Native American, and 5% indicated “other.” Results indicate that cross-sex fiends generally agree that O’Meara’s four challenges present only minimal problems in their individual relationships, and that balance theory provides a viable explanation of how perceived agreement and understanding concerning challenges are arrived at within cross-sex fnendships. Additionally, results illustrating disagreements and misunderstandings within cross-sex friendships highlight the importance of looking at the perspectives of both individuals within a dyad.

This research focused on the communication behavior of bereaved individuals using the ethnography of communication methodology. From the eight individuals interviewed, three main bereavement communication categories emerged and were described: private interaction, impersonal interaction, and interpersonal interaction. Two suppllem communication techniques were then posited in order to facilitate communication within those categories. The methodology proved to be a useful tool in elucidating the categorks of communication behavior used the bereaved and was also found to be effective in facilitating bereavement communication.

This chapter reviews the literature on cross-sex friendships and communication across the life cycle. It begins by establishing the importance and historical relevance of cross-sex friendships and the relative neglect of these relationships by the scholarly community. It then offers a delineation of conceptual and methodological issues involved in the study of male-female friendships. Next, with a focus on communication, studies are reviewed on cross-sex friendships in early childhood, middle and late childhood, adolescence, young and middle adulthood, and old age. Finally, the author makes some summarizing observations concerning the lack of theory in cross-sex friendship studies, the adoption of a “heterosexist” worldview in cross-sex friendship investigations, and the relative neglect of communication topics pertinent to those friendships. The central observation in the chapter is that cross-sex friendships have a protean quality that makes them significantly different in each stage of the life cycle, ...

This research was an investigation into four challenges purported to confront cross-sex friends. One hundred and thirty eight individuals (females = 86, males = 52) completed two surveys designed to explore the extent to which the “sexual,” “emotional bond,” “audience,” and “equality” challenges were present in their cross-sex friendships. Over 98% of the participants were heterosexual, 99% were Caucasian, and approximately 5% were Hispanic. Data gathered from the first survey were analyzed using a three-way analysis of variance, with gender, type of friendship, and romantic status as the independent variables, and three of the four challenges as the dependent variables. The first survey also included open-ended questions designed to explore the nature and existence of the challenges. The second survey was in a diary format. Respondents kept a frequency count for three weeks of discussions they had with their cross-sex friend concerning the challenges, and thoughts that they had as individuals concerning those challenges. Results from both surveys indicate that though the challenges exist and have powerful effects on a small percentage of individuals in cross-sex friendships, for the majority of participants the challenges are not perceived as salient.

Higher levels of interpersonal perception in personal relationships have been relatively ignored over the last decade, as well as the role played by those perceptions in the creation of a relationship. Through utilization of Balance Theory and a variation of Laing's Interpersonal Perception Method, this study investigated multiple levels of interpersonal perception in cross-sex friendships, and how those perceptions help create a shared perceptual reality among cross-sex friends. One hundred and three pairs of cross-sex friends completed a survey examining direct perspectives (DPs), metaperspectives (MPs), and metametaperspectives (MMPs), on various manifestations of intimacy, the importance of the friendship and the definition of the relationship. As predicted by Balance Theory, there was significant agreement, understanding and realization of understanding between cross-sex friends concerning intimacy in the relationship and the importance of friendship. Results also reveal that perceived agreement and perceived understanding in those friendships was significantly greater than actual agreement and understanding. In addition, there was strong evidence that individuals in cross-sex friendships use their own attitudes as a basis for predicting the attitudes of their partner - that they create their partner's perspectives so that they more closely agree with their own (i.e. they assimilate). These results question the acceptability of higher-order perspectives as fully validated constructs, and suggest that the location of explanatory force in POX systems may reside in individual level variables - as opposed to dyadic level measurements.

The purpose of this study was to investigate how individuals in cross- and same-sex friendships define and express intimacy. In a self-report questionnaire 164 college students were asked what they meant by the term `intimacy' in the context of cross- and same-sex friendships. Individuals assigned an average number of two meanings to the term `intimacy', though the number of meanings ranged from one to five. Results revealed substantial similarities in the meanings of intimacy in both types of friendship, as well as some gender differences. For instance, five of the seven most frequently mentioned definitions of intimacy were specified by both cross- and same-sex friends: self-disclosures, emotional expressiveness, unconditional support, physical contact and trust. One of the remaining two meanings of intimacy, i.e. sexual contact, was mentioned by cross- but not same-sex friends. Sharing activities was given as a definition of intimacy by 9 percent of the males in same-sex friendships, and 4 percent of the females in cross-sex friendships. Within cross-sex friendships, emotional expressiveness and sexual contact were specified as meanings of intimacy by a higher percentage of males than females, while physical contact was specified by a greater percentage of females in those relationships.

Because of the task and social pressures involved in doing a dissertation, a significant percentage of graduate students never complete it. This essay describes a procedure that communication departments, advisors, and graduate students can utilize to help students cope with the task and social pressures that accompany working on a dissertation, and is written from the phenomenological perspective of two recent PhDs who went through the process of completing their dissertations together. Being and having a dissertation partner supplements the advisor's role by providing task support in the form of weekly meetings and social support in the form of empathy and companionship. Suggestions are made concerning how this procedure might be incorporated into PhD programs so as to lessen the number of individuals who never complete their dissertations.

Effective social decision making often depends upon gathering needed information. Since the kind and quality of information obtained depends on the tactics used to gain it, the study of information-gathering tactics is of prime importance in understanding the processes of social decision making. We focused on one facet of information-gathering—the cognitive process of second-guessing developed by Hewes and Planalp (1982). We developed and tested a theory of reinterpretation assessment that explores the relationship between second-guessing and the use of social information-gathering tactics. Four of the five principles on which this theory is based are tested empirically. They concern the effects of motivational (need for accuracy), cognitive (processing load), and practical (social effort) antecedents on the tactics employed by social actors to improve subjectively the quality of their reinterpretations of messages. Moderate support is garnered for all four principles. Some challenging anomalies result in modifications of the theory.