Suchergebnisse

The primary focus of the current research is goal projection or the ascription of a perceiver's own goal onto an interaction partner (i.e., target). Extending the finding that perceivers project their goal onto a target (Kawada, Oettingen, Gollwitzer, & Bargh, 2004), two studies applied a cognitive conceptualization of goal pursuit and detection to explain boundary conditions for goal projection in conversation. Experiment 1 demonstrated that the strength of the cognitive association between perceivers' goal and the social context moderated projection: Projection was greater for strongly than moderately or weakly linked goals. Experiment 2 established that the target's goal pursuit efficiency and the congruency between the perceiver's and the target's goals influenced projection: Compared with targets' efficient pursuit of nonidentical goals, projection was greater (a) when the target and perceiver had the same goal regardless of efficiency or (b) when they had different goals but the target was inefficient.

An experiment examined a theory explaining how people detect others' goals. The framework maintains that because components or factors (e.g., context, tactic) of interaction increase the accessibility of inferable goals, goal detection is a product of the goals these cognitive linkages activate. In dyadic initial interactions, one participant was randomly assigned as the pursuer and the other as the detector; detectors sought a goal varying in congruency (i.e., identical, concord, and discord) with pursuers' goal. Detectors' cognitive busyness was also manipulated. The level of efficiency at which pursuers sought their goal and the accuracy and certainty of detectors' inference of pursuers' goal were measured. Results generally confirmed hypotheses. Efficiency and accuracy were positively correlated only when (a) not-busy detectors' goal was concordant with pursuers' goal and (b) busy detectors' goal was discordant with pursuers' goal, whereas efficiency and certainty were positively correlated only for not-busy detectors. Other results dealt with how detectors' perspective taking promotes accuracy for inefficient goal pursuit and how accuracy yields favorable ratings of pursuers' communication competence when goal inferences are certain. Results are discussed theoretically and methodologically.

To test aspects of a theoretical framework on goal detection in social interaction, an experiment examined dyadic initial interactions wherein one participant pursued a goal unbeknownst to another participant. The level of specificity and efficiency at which a pursuer sought a goal interacted to affect the accuracy of the detector's inference as well as the time of onset for that inference. Consistent with hypotheses, efficiency was unrelated to accuracy and negatively correlated with onset latency when pursuers had an abstract information-seeking goal, whereas efficiency was positively correlated with accuracy and onset latency when detecting a concrete (i.e., specific) information-seeking goal. Unexpectedly, efficiency was unrelated to accuracy and onset latency for a midlevel information-seeking goal. Other results focused on the role of individual differences (i.e., perspective-taking and suspicion in others' motives) and perceived communication competence in the goal detection process. A more controlled, second experiment that employed confederates generally replicated results.

Based on self-categorization theory's explanation for gender-based language use, male and female participants sent e-mail on a masculine, feminine, or gender-neutral topic to an ostensible male or female recipient (i.e., intergroup or intragroup dyads). As predicted, the topic affected if and how men and women used tentative language differently: For masculine topics, traditional gender differences emerged (i.e., women were more tentative than men) in intergroup, but not intragroup, contexts; for feminine topics, differences were counterstereotypical (i.e., men were more tentative than women) in intergroup contexts only; and for a gender-neutral topic, no differences resulted in either intra- or intergroup contexts. Moreover, gender salience partially mediated these effects in intergroup interactions only: Topic affected tentative language through gender salience in the mixed-sex condition (i.e., a conditional indirect effect).

The inferences individuals make about others' goals is an integral, but neglected, aspect of empirical and theoretical work on social interaction. An original theoretical framework is proposed to account for interindividual agreement and certainty of goal inferences. Two experiments applied the framework to explain how contextual ambiguity and tactical functionality affected agreement and certainty. Results generally support hypotheses regarding agreement, such that goal inferences converged (i.e., interobserver agreement increased) as the context and tactic became more compatible, yet results largely do not support hypotheses for inference certainty, as the only significant effect that emerged was that certainty was higher in unambiguous than ambiguous contexts. A reconsideration of the theoretical framework on goal detection is discussed and implications are advanced.

Much research demonstrates an inverse correlation between topic avoidance (or aspects of avoidance) and relational perceptions, such as satisfaction. These data are almost always correlational, which does not afford causal conclusions despite statistical techniques that simulate causality. We present experimental data (using a scenario method) that examine two constructs involved in topic avoidance—avoided topics and inferred goals that precipitate topic avoidance—and their effects on the relational perceptions of satisfaction, hurt, and distance in the context of friendship. Both topics and inferred goals led to changes in perceptions of the friendship. Specifically, participants who inferred that their friend avoided a topic for self-protection goals reported lower levels of satisfaction and higher levels of hurt and distance than those who inferred relationship-protection goals. This difference was especially true for the relationship-issue topic.

Expectation states theory, role congruity theory, and the biosocial model, respectively, predict that perceptions of competence, agency and communality, and physical dominance explain the effects of nonverbal communication on social influence. This study contrasts these mechanisms by using voice pitch variation as a nonverbal signal in mixed-sex dyads. Thirty-seven pairs of male and female participants were recorded discussing a controversial topic under conditions where either their gender or a shared identity as college students was salient. Consistent with expectation states theory, men who varied their pitch more during discussion were perceived as more competent and influential by their female interlocutors, but only when gender was salient. In the same condition, male and female participants' pitch variation negatively predicted their perceptions of their discussion partner's influence, suggesting that nonverbal communication constitutes and reflects competition over status. Our findings favor expectation states theory over role congruity theory and the biosocial model.

In order to better understand the state, evolution, and impact of titling practices in the field of communication, we examine the prevalence of stylistic cues in journal article titles and whether such cues predict subsequent citations. We employed a stratified random sample of articles published in 22 communication journals between 1970 and 2010 ( N = 2,400). Although authors have increasingly used stylistic cues in academic titles, articles with titles containing such cues were cited less frequently. Journal impact modified this relationship: The presence of a stylistic title was associated with more citations if the article was published in a lower impact journal, but fewer citations if it was published in a higher impact journal. Taken together, the results highlight a tension between authors' attempts to distinguish their work in an increasingly crowded marketplace and readers' general reluctance to cite scholarship containing stylistic title cues.