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The competence model of conflict communication suggests that individuals who use various conflict styles will be perceived differently in terms of appropriateness and effectiveness. A simulated organizational decision‐making task involving 100 randomly‐paired dyads consisting of business students suggested that an integrative conflict style is generally perceived as the most appropriate (in terms of being both a polite, prosocial strategy and an adaptive, situationally appropriate strategy) and most effective style. The dominating style tended to be perceived as inappropriate when used by others, but some participants judged themselves as more effective when they used dominating tactics along with integrating tactics. The obliging style was generally perceived as neutral, although some participants perceived themselves to be less effective and relationally appropriate when they employed obliging tactics. The avoiding style was generally perceived as ineffective and inappropriate. Finally, compromising was perceived as a relatively neutral style, although some participants judged their partners to be more effective and relationally appropriate if they compromised. Overall, these results and others provide general support for the competence model's predictions, while also suggesting some modifications and directions for future research.

Communicative responses to jealousy fulfill critical functions within romantic relationships. They can help maintain one's relationship, preserve one's self‐esteem, reduce uncertainty about the primary relationship, reduce uncertainty about the rival relationship, re‐assess the relationship, and restore equity through retaliation. This study, which utilized self‐report data from 266 individuals currently involved in romantic relationships, investigated the role that these six jealousy‐related goals, in concert with emotional frequency and intensity, play in shaping communicative responses to jealousy. Results from regression analyses suggest that each communicative response to jealousy is associated with a different profile of goals. These and other findings are discussed in terms of their implications for theory on jealousy and interpersonal communication.

According to attachment theory, the attachment system is activated to manage thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that stem from potential separation and relational threat. Thus, jealousy provides an important situation in which to examine attachment-style differences. In the present study, 144 individuals currently involved in enduring romantic relationships completed questionnaires regarding their jealousy experience, jealousy expression, and attachment styles. Four major findings emerged. First, those with negative self-models reported experiencing more cognitive jealousy than did those with positive self-models Second, jealous individuals with negative other-models reported feeling fear less intensely, using less relationship-maintaining behavior, and engaging in more avoidance/denial than did those with positive other-models. Third, preoccupieds reported displaying more negative affect and engaging in more surveillance behavior than did those with other attachment styles. Finally, dismissives reported feeling less fear than did secures and preoccupieds, and less sadness than preoccupieds, when experiencing jealousy. Attachment-style dimensions, such as lack of confidence and preoccupation with relationships, were also associated with jealousy experience and expression. These results are interpreted in light of attachment-theory principles.

This study examines the extent to which members of same‐ and cross‐sex friendships avoid topics related to relationship issues, negative life experiences, dating experiences, sexual experiences, and outside friendships. Four reasons for topic avoidance are also explored: self‐protection, relationship protection, partner unresponsiveness, and social appropriateness. Results from 177 undergraduate students, who referenced a friend of the same sex and a friend of the opposite sex, showed that individuals avoided discussing negative life experiences and relationship issues with males more than females and, when with opposite‐sex friends, avoided disclosures related to dating and sexual experiences more than when with same‐sex friends. Additionally, individuals avoided disclosure for a variety of reasons, but seem primarily motivated to avoid topics due to concerns for self‐protection. Results of this investigation shed light on the communicative implications underlying differences between same‐ and cross‐sex ...

This study provides a contrastive test of three immediacy-exchange theories: Burgeon's expectancy violations theory (EVT), Cappella and Greene's discrepancy-arousal theory (DAT), and Andersen's cognitive valence theory (CVT). EVT predicts that high immediacy, by rewarding communicators, leads to an orientation response and positive behavioral and affective outcomes. In contrast, DAT and CVT predict aversive arousal and compensatory responses in response to high immediacy increases. Findings from opposite-sex friend dyads failed to find unequivocal support for a single theory. Targets showed a mix of reciprocal and compensatory responses in the higher immediacy condition, indicating that existing immediacy-exchange theories should consider incorporating elements from all three theories and perhaps from dialectics theory to explain the complex reactions that occur in response to high immediacy changes from friends.

This study tests Bryson's dual motivation model of jealousy, which predicts that jealousy responses vary based on self‐esteem and relationship maintenance goals. A questionnaire study found limited support for the model. Individuals who were motivated to maintain self‐esteem reported more integrative communication, manipulation, and avoidance/denial. Those motivated to maintain their relationships reported more integrative communication, compensatory restoration, and negative affect expression. Individuals motivated by only relational maintenance reported the most surveillance. A moderate to moderately high motivation to maintain the relationship was associated with the most distributive communication and active distancing. These findings indicate that self‐esteem and relationship maintenance goals are related to communicative responses to jealousy, but in more complex ways than Bryson's model suggests.

This study investigates the relationship between nonverbal behavior and initial impressions of instructor competence and course content within the context of instructional videotapes used in distance education courses. Four 10‐minute segments of introductory lectures from videotaped distance education courses were shown to 8 undergraduate classes in speech communication, with 2 classes viewing each videotape. After watching the videotapes, the 180 students rated the instructor's involvement/enthusiasm, expressiveness/warmth, fluency/ composure, articulation/clarity, and eye contact. Students also judged the instructor's competence (in terms of likability and trustworthiness) and the course content (in terms of interest and value). In line with our hypotheses, results indicated that instructors who are viewed as expressive, warm, and involved are most likely to be judged as highly competent. In addition, when instructors are expressive, warm, involved, and articulate, their course content is likely to be j...

The degree of consistency and change in communication across different dyadic partners is an important issue in theory on interpersonal interaction. Factors such as communicator sex and predispositions toward approach/avoidance are likely to contribute to consistency, whereas factors such as target sex, relationship type, intimacy and impression management are likely to contribute to change. Using a partial round-robin design, this study investigates how individuals' involvement behavior changes across interactions with same-sex friends, opposite-sex friends, and romantic partners. Results showed that close proximity, touch, gaze, general interest, less fluency, longer response latencies, and more silence distinguished romantic relationships from friendships. Frequent nodding and vocal interest were more prevalent in friendships than romantic relationships. Postural congruence occurred more in same-rather than opposite-sex dyads. Sex differences also emerged: females displayed more direct body orientation and gaze, whereas males engaged in more for-ward lean and postural congruence. Overall, results indicate that while there is considerable consistency across an individual's interactions with various relational partners, there are important differences due to relationship type.

This study tested the hypothesis that individuals with different attachment styles vary in the degree to which they display intimacy and nonverbal involvement to their romantic partners. Eighty dyads currently involved in enduring romantic relationships participated in an observational study, with one partner from each dyad representing one of Bartholomew's (1990) four attachment styles. A team of coders viewed videotapes of the dyads' conversations and rated the degree of intimacy and involvement exhibited. Preoccupieds and Secures surpassed Dismissives and Fearful Avoidants on measures of trust/receptivity, gaze, facial pleasantness, vocal pleasantness, general interest, and attentiveness. Preoccupieds engaged in more in‐depth conversation than Dismissives. Fearful Avoidants sat farthest from their partners and displayed the least fluency and longest response latencies. Finally, Preoccupieds and Fearful Avoidants were the most vocally anxious. These findings, which provide preliminary behavioral validat...

Attachment-theory principles suggest that those with different attachment styles will react to nonverbal involvement change in a manner consistent with their approach/avoidance orientations and mental working models of self and others. It was hypothesized that preoccupieds initially reciprocate increases in involvement, but compensate for decreases, whereas dismissives initially compensate for increases in involvement, but reciprocate decreases. A second hypothesis predicted that over time interactants reciprocate both increases and decreases in nonverbal involvement. Partners in enduring romantic relationships participated in two separate conversations. Between conversations, one member of each dyad was enlisted as a confederate who increased or decreased nonverbal immediacy and positive affect in the second conversation. Results indicated that, regardless of attachment style, targets reciprocated confederate behavior in the increase-involvement condition and displayed behavior indicative of both compensation and reciprocity in the decrease-involvement condition. However, preoccupieds showed the strongest pattern of reciprocating increases in involvement and compensating for decreases in involvement. Results also demonstrated a pull toward reciprocity over time. Findings are interpreted in light of the bidimensional model of distancing and interaction adaptation theory, with results most supportive of the latter theory.

Interpersonal Deception Theory (IDT) proposes that among the strategies deceivers use to create credible messages is information management. Delineated here are five fundamental dimensions along which verbal content and style can be altered to manage information: (1) completeness (informational and conversational), (2) veridicality (actual and apparent), (3) directness/relevance (semantic and syntactic/pragmatic), (4) clarity (semantic and syntactic/pragmatic), and (5) personalization. Two studies employing encoding and decoding methodologies are presented that assess the degree to which (1) senders can vary discourse on demand along these dimensions and (2) receivers (observers) can recognize such variations. Participants in the first experiment engaged in separate truthful and deceptive interviews; during the latter, they enacted one of three different forms of deception (falsification, equivocation, concealment) representing different combinations of the five dimensions. Participants in the second expe...

Communicative responses to jealousy perform critical functions in interpersonal relationships: They can reduce uncertainty, help maintain or repair relationships, and aid the jealous person in saving face and restoring self‐esteem. The three studies reported herein concentrate on conceptualizing and measuring communicative responses to jealousy that are relevant to these functions. Study 1 is a descriptive, qualitative analysis of respondents' communicative responses to jealousy. Twelve superordinate categories and 67 tactics were found. Studies 2 and 3 focus on finding reliable and valid measures representing the various responses found in Study 1. Measures for six types of interactive responses (integrative communication, distributive communication, active distancing, general avoidance/denial, expression of negative affect, and violent communication/threats) and five types of general responses (surveillance/restriction, compensatory restoration, manipulation attempts, rival contact, and violent behavior...

Interpersonal Deception Theory (IDT) posits that socially skilled individuals are better able to project truthful demeanors and evade detection than are unskilled individuals. IDT also predicts that social skills benefit receivers, making them better able to detect deception. Past research by Riggio, Thcker, Throckmorton, and Widaman in 1987 (in two separate studies) has shown that socially skilled individuals emit nonverbal behaviors that enhance believability. The present study extends Riggio's findings by investigating how social skills and nonverbal communication work in concert to predict three forms of deception/detection success: believability, accuracy, and bias. Acquainted and unacquainted dyads participated in interviews in which interviewees (senders) answered two questions truthfully and then used falsification, equivocation, or concealment to deceive on the remaining 13 questions. Results confirmed that as sender social skills increased, believability increased and receiver detection accuracy decreased, especially during equivocation. Skilled senders were more fluent and less hesitant. Senders were more believable, and truth biases were higher, if senders displayed greater involvement, positive affect, fluency, and composure and used a concealment strategy. Hesitancy was also implicated in a complex way. Only one dimension of receiver skill improved accuracy. Receivers were also more accurate if senders were less fluent.

This study extends topic avoidance research by investigating both child/parent and sibling relationships. Results indicated that: (1) Adolescents and young adults avoid discussing negative life experiences and dating experiences more with parents than siblings, and more with male targets; (2) adolescents and young adults avoid discussing sexual matters with opposite‐sex family members; (3) female dyads (daughter/mother, sisters) practice the least avoidance on topics involving relationship issues or friendships; and (4) males avoid discussing relationship issues, negative life experiences, dating experiences, and friendships more than females. Wanting to protect oneself was highly predictive of topic avoidance across all family relationships except for sister‐sister relationships. For sisters, partner unresponsiveness and social inappropriateness were predictive of topic avoidance.

This study investigated the combined effects jealousy experience and expression have on relational satisfaction. A sample of 346 individuals currently involved in dating or marital relationships completed questionnaires. Results indicated that: (1) cognitive jealousy is a more potent predictor of relational satisfaction than emotional jealousy, (2) individuals who use integrative communication and/or expression of negative affect to communicate jealousy, while refraining from using distributive communication and/or active distancing, are most likely to be satisfied with their relationships, and (3) jealousy expression accounts for significantly more variance in relational satisfaction than jealousy experience alone.

Past research on deception success has focused on receiver judgments, ignoring deceiver perceptions, which may influence the ways deceivers choose to behave in interpersonal interactions. The present study investigated how several preinteractional and interactional factors affect both deceiver and observer perceptions of deception success. Preinteractional factors included three that have been found relevant to deceptive communication: social skill, self‐monitoring, and motivation. Interactional factors included receiver suspicion, plus four proposed by the four‐factor theory of deception (anxiety, affect, task difficulty, and behavioral control). Results indicated that deceivers’ perceptions of success were more affected by interactional factors (especially anxiety, interaction difficulty, and conversational normality). Conversely, observers were more affected by preinteractional factors such as deceiver social skill. However, motivation, self‐monitoring, and conversational normality affected both deceiv...

This study explores the similarity of touch behavior and touch attitudes among dating and married couples. Touch behavior showed a strong matching effect for seriously dating and married couples. Z-tests revealed that correlations between relational partners were significantly stronger for marrieds than for serious or casual daters. Results for attitudes concerning touch showed a statistically significant but weak relationship between dyadic partners though the correlation strengthened in closer relationships. As was the case in previous studies, results showed that women reported less positive attitudes toward opposite-sex touch than men. A linear contrast in proportions demonstrated that men initiated touch significantly more in casual romantic relationships, but women initiated touch more in married relationships. Together, these data suggest that patterns of matching may vary as a function of relationship stage, while patterns of touch initiation may vary as a function of both relationship stage and sex.

Most research on anger has focused on clinical intervention, psychological processes, and physiological effects rather than on how anger expression affects interpersonal relationships. This study investigates how four modes of expression (distributive‐aggression, integrative‐assertion, passive‐aggression, and nonassertive‐denial) are associated with perceptions of relational satisfaction and communiction competence. Results indicate that partner‐perceptions of integrative‐assertive anger expression are positively associated with relational satisfaction. Those viewed as expressing anger through integrative‐assertive means rather than through nonassertive‐denial were evaluated as communicatively competent by their partners. Results also demonstrate that self‐enhancing actor‐observer biases affect relational perceptions connected to anger expression. Both men and women rated themselves higher on communication competence and integrative‐assertion, and lower on nonassertive‐denial, than their partners rated th...

This study examines the associations between attachment, caregiving, and health outcomes (perceptions of somatic and depressive symptoms) in a sample of 194 parents who have a child with mental illness. Securely attached parents reported using more comforting behavior and tactile communication with their children with mental illness. Parents with a fearful attachment reported using more overinvolved and egocentric caregiving, as well as less tactile communication, and these caregiving behaviors partially mediated a positive association between fearful attachment and both somatic and depressive symptom reports. Parents with a preoccupied attachment style reported using more overinvolved, supportive, egocentric, and emotionally insensitive caregiving behavior, as well as having more depressive symptoms. The association between preoccupied attachment and depressive symptom reports was partially mediated by overinvolved caregiving. Practical and theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.

Maintenance strategies are conceptualized as vehicles by which romantic partners can change, as well as preserve, their relationships. A longitudinal approach is used to investigate the idea that daters' perceptions of proactive/constructive maintenance will affect four possible relational outcomes - escalation, stability, de-escalation and termination. Results indicate that perceived frequent use of proactive/constructive maintenance strategies is associated with stability or escalation, while perceived infrequent use of these strategies is related to de-escalation or termination. Results also demonstrate that perceptions of openness and assurances increase over time in escalating relationships, while perceptions of positivity, assurances and the sharing of tasks decrease in de-escalating relationships. These findings support the contention that proactive/constructive maintenance strategies operate not only to stabilize relationships, but also to change them.

Students from six countries—Australia, Japan, Mexico, Sweden, Taiwan, and the United States—recalled the extent to which their best or worst professors used various forms of communication that have been associated with effective teaching. Across cultures, best professors were perceived to employ more nonverbal expressiveness, relaxed movement, in-class conversation, and out-of-class communication than worst professors. Relative to Japanese and Taiwanese students, Australian and U.S. students perceived their professors to use more nonverbal expressiveness. Students from Australia, Sweden, and the U.S. also perceived their best professors to use more in-class conversation than students from Japan or Taiwan perceived their best professors to use. However, Australian and U.S. students also perceived their best professors to use less out-of-class communication than did students from the other four countries. There were also differences in the forms of communication that discriminated between best and worst professors in each culture. For example, nonverbal expressiveness and in-class conversation were the best discriminators for Australian and U.S. students, whereas out-of-class communication and relaxed movement were the best discriminators for Japanese and Taiwanese students.

This study investigated the effects of an individual's marital type (Traditional, Independent, Separate) on marital satisfaction and jealousy. Three significant findings emerged. First, Traditionals were found to be more satisfied with their marriages than Independents or Separates. Second, marital satisfaction was found to be negatively correlated with cognitive jealousy (r= ‐.64), behavioral jealousy (r = ‐.43) and emotional jealousy (r = ‐.31). Finally, Independents reported significantly more cognitive jealousy than Traditionals. Implications for the study of communication within intimate relationships are discussed.

The present study examined how the traits of argumentativeness and verbal aggressiveness are associated with perceptions of communication competence and conflict styles during a simulated downsizing activity. Participants were placed into dyads and asked to determine which two out of four employees they should terminate, with each participant being given private motivations for keeping a different pair of employees so that they would initially have incompatible goals. Findings suggest that the concept of argumentativeness is complex and nuanced and that argumentativeness sometimes works with verbal aggressiveness to predict how a person is perceived during decision-making tasks. Additionally, findings illustrate how critical it is to examine both actor and partner effects when studying conflict and decision-making.

Scholars have paid increasing attention to the role of non-verbal communication within intimate relationships. Reportedly, immediate behaviors such as touch escalate opposite-sex relationships by promoting increased intimacy and psychological closeness. This study examined the effects of relational stage, gender and touch avoidance on unobtrusively coded public touch behavior. An ANOVA indicated that relational stage was curvilinearly related to public interpersonal touch such that the level of touch was higher in intermediate stage of relationships than in either initial or stable stages. Gender had no effect on touch. Instead, a high correlation was found between the amount of touch used by males and the amount of touch used by their female partners. Touch avoidance was found to be linearly related to the amount of touch displayed, with low touch avoiders touching the most and high touch avoiders touching the least. There was a strong additive effect for touch avoidance, with all three touch avoidance groups following a curvilinear pattern for relational stage. x2 tests found that touch increased primarily in the hand and waist areas during the intermediate stage. Implications for the study of reciprocity, immediacy, intimacy and stage theory are discussed.

Touch “is the core of sentience, the foundation for communication with the world around us, and probably the single sense that is as old as life itself.” Indeed, touch is “the most intimate of senses” [1]

Kinesics is the study of body movement. This entry discusses some of the early work that provided a foundation for the study of kinesics, along with contemporary work that examines how kinesic behaviors express emotion and send relational messages related to intimacy and dominance in interpersonal interaction. Keywords: gestures; kinesics; nonverbal communication

This essay examines newspaper coverage of the Arnold Lockshin family's 1986 defection to the Soviet Union. As a case study, it illustrates how the print media can enthymematically repair ideologically problematic narratives in such a way that engaged publics can maintain cognitive consistency. It is argued that the media used four premises—credibility, perversion, gullibility, and isolation—to reconstruct enthymematically the narrative in a nonthreatening, ideologically consistent manner.

Publisher Summary This chapter focuses on one of the most common and most important emotions—interpersonal warmth. Interpersonal warmth is the pleasant, contented, intimate feeling that occurs during positive interactions with friends, family, colleagues, and romantic partners. Warmth can also be conceptualized as the pleasant emotional connection or attachment that one feels when communicating with loved ones. Similar feelings arise when one feels connected to nature. A cluster of constructs demonstrates that interpersonal warmth is both ubiquitous and important in one's emotional and relational lives. All of these constructs—intimacy, relational closeness, bondedness, attachment, and involvement—can be conceptualized as multicomponential constructs that include or are relevant to interpersonal warmth. Close relationships are affectively intense with positive emotions typically dominating. However, the majority of violent acts, including rapes and murders, occur in close relationships. The behavioral component of attachment focuses on the actions and communicative messages people use to keep them close to their partners or, conversely, to facilitate autonomy by placing physical distance between themselves and others.

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses that the origins, development, experience, and deployment of emotions are inherently communicative. The chapter outlines six general principles and related theoretical concepts including the ideas that social interaction is the primary elicitor of most emotions and that emotions are expressed through interpersonal communication. The first two principles focus on two forces that influence how and when emotion is communicated: evolution and socialization. The forces of biological evolution and cultural socialization are not mutually exclusive; rather, they combine and interact to produce emotional communication. The chapter also discusses how evolution and socialization affect emotional communication, by examining the evolution of emotional communication as a socially adaptive phenomenon. Hard-wired neural links exist between emotions and their expression, particularly their nonverbal expression. The social functions of emotions have provided a particularly powerful evolutionary advantage. Emotions permit individuals to adapt successfully to a vast array of social demands and opportunities. The primary function of emotions and their expression is to minimize rejection by other humans.

Publisher Summary This chapter reviews numerous factors that affect the experience and expression of romantic jealousy. Biology, culture, personality, relationships, situations, and strategic (partner-initiated) maneuversprovide a foundation for the study of romantic jealousy. These six factors work together to influence the type and intensity of affective responses, the extent of jealous cognition, and ultimately, the ways that members of the romantic triangle communicate about jealousy. Jealous affect and cognition influence one another, and often determine how one communicates about jealousy. Sometimes, communicative responses to jealousy are automatic responses to arousal or to intense emotions. There are six communicative functions related to jealousy: (1) preserving self-esteem, (2) maintaining the primary relationship, (3) reducing uncertainty about the primary relationship, (4) reducing uncertainty about the rival relationship,(5) restoring relational equity, and (6) reassessing the primary relationship. All of these functions have been shown to correspond with particular types of communicative responses to jealousy, such as negative affect expression, integrative communication, distributive communication, active distancing, surveillance behavior, and compensatory restoration.

Publisher Summary This chapter provides the basic emotion concepts and the popular approaches to studying emotion. The chapter begins by differentiating three related constructs—affect, emotion, and mood; and differentiates between emotional experience and expression. Three prominent approaches to emotion that are discussed in the social psychology are reviewed: the discrete emotions, dimensional, and prototype approaches. Affective valence is the most basic feature of emotion. Emotions are characterized by four components. The cognitive component refers to the interpretation of the emotion-eliciting event or stimuli, and any resultant changes in perceptions or beliefs. Action readiness concerns increases or decreases in one's desire to take action. The third component, feelings, references the valence of the emotion, including the pleasure/pain dimension. Finally, physiological change refers to increases or decreases in arousal level and physiological reactions such as sweaty palms and blushing. Emotions are typically characterized as having an object or identifiable stimulus event, such as joy after having a child or anger at being jilted. In contrast, moods are frequently described as more diffuse and nonspecific.