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This detailed survey of present-day scientific communication theory rejects the outmoded «levels» organizational scheme in favor of a system based on the underlying model and fundamental explanatory principle each theory presupposes. In doing so it shows the fundamental similarities among all communication-relevant contexts. Most theories included in the book are causal in nature, derived from one of three underlying models: message production, message reception, or interactive. A few theories take on a functional form, sometimes in dialectic or systemic versions. An introductory chapter describes what is meant by scientific explanation, how that concept is instantiated in scientific communication theory, and delineates the three causal models prevalent in these theories. A useful resource for scholars, this book is suitable for graduate and advanced undergraduate courses in communication theory

A social dilemma is a circumstance in which each of an aggregate of people must make an individual decision whether to acquire a short-term benefit for themselves or to forego some of that benefit for the long-term benefit of the aggregate. The intent of this essay is to describe how communication, in terms of both the opportunity to talk and the content of what is said, interacts with other "cooperative mechanisms" - group identity, reciprocity and equity norms, and trust and trustworthiness - to largely determine individual cooperation versus defection. Two variables with relatively complex impacts on the cooperative mechanisms - social value orientation and group size - are also discussed. A model and set of propositions relating these variables are also included; and areas for further are explored.

The first goal of this article is to demonstrate that the dichotomy between informational and normative influence in group decision making is long outdated and should be replaced with a distinction among compliance, comparison, and argumentation influence processes. The second goal of this article is to use this distinction as the basis for a literature review of the impact of various input factors on social influence during small group discussion. The third goal of this article is to present the Simplified Model of Group Social Influence Processes, an interactive input–process–output model relevant to decision-making groups. The article ends with a discussion of the implications of this model for future research and further model development.

The response of groups to the experience of coping with resource dilemmas has been an object of study by scholars in several of the social and behavioral sciences. Social norms, trust, and the perception of group identity form cooperative mechanisms critical to group cooperation. However, the opportunity to communicate has been singled out as the most important factor influencing group cooperation performance in resource dilemmas. Until recently, the content of that communication has undergone little examination. This article examines the relationships among topical and functional communication content, group performance, and participant perceptions of cooperative mechanisms in 97 experimental simulation groups. Detailed discussion of specific strategies was positively related, and discussion of general strategy, basic information exchange, and recapitulation of past occurrences in the simulation were negatively related to both amount of harvest from the resource pool and participant perceptions of equality norm emergence, trust, and group identity formation, among others. These perceptions were positively related with both the total amount and within-group equality of harvest.

Functional theory is theory in which the central core includes a description of attributes that lead to good consequencesfor, and/or that satisfy agoal of, a system or the system's designer or user. The application of functional theory to small group discussion requires the theorist to make two types of theoretical commitments. First, functional theories should include scientific functional explanations. Second, finctional theories should include a description of necessary discussionfunctions on one and only one level of abstraction. Three well-known functional approaches to group discussion, those of Benne and Sheats, Bales, and Hirokawa, are described, and the two commitment requirements are applied to these approaches. All three approaches are shown to contain incomplete explanations and to describe functions on different levels of abstraction.

A synthesis based on persuasive arguments theory but including a revised social comparison component is proposed to account for group polarization. According to the proposal, group members choose between risky and cautious alternatives based on the proportion of known arguments supportive of each but argue exclusively for their chosen alternative during group discussion. This implies that the proportion of risky versus cautious arguments in discussion will be more extreme than the proportion in participants' lists of arguments on both sides of the issue, but no more extreme than the proportion in participants' lists of the "reasons for" their chosen alternative. Research results generally supported this implication.

The inferential approach to the study of competence evaluation assumes that an observer's evaluation of a communicator's competence is at least a two-stage process. First, the observer forms an impression of the communicator that is based on observed behavior, including unobserved behaviors and traits associated with the observed behavior in the observer's implicit theories of communicative competence. Second, the observer makes an evaluation of the communicator's competence, based on the implications of the entire impression. To test this approach and a series of complicating factors relevant to it, participants with known implicit theories judged an observed communicator on a set of competence-relevant characteristics and for overall competence, both immediately after observation and after a month's delay. Overall, inferential models predicted these judgments well. Traits were better predictors of competence evaluations than behaviors, and the delay resulted in predictable schematic biases. However, the addition of situation- and competence-level-specific judgments did not increase predictability.

An inferential approach to the study of group members' judgments and evaluations of leadership proposes that members'implicit theories of leadership serve as the basis for such ratings. Members of zero-history and standing groups made judgments of the prototypic good, average, and poor leader on a list of leadership-relevant traits and behaviors, and one month later judged other group members on the same list. Judgments of the three prototypic leaders were similar in covariational structure. Judgments and evaluations of the group members were generally similar to the prototypes as expected, but differences between judgments made by zero-history and standing group participants reveal the effect of group history and experience in small group discussion classes.

Although some descriptions of group discussion have characterized group process as an overall sequence of functionally organized linear stages, others have emphasized the presence of short proposal-centered "reach-testing" sequences recurring ("spiraling") throughout the discussion. Research has indicated that people's preconceived notions of ideal group procedure (their "group procedural memory organization packets [MOPs]") can be classified as linear, reach-testing, or some compromise between the two. A study was performed to examine whether groups consisting solely of these three MOP types differed in group process and output. The results showed linear groups to spiral less often than reach-testing and compromising groups, but the content of these spirals did not differ among the types. Across MOP types, group process revealed aspects of both linear and reach-testing models. Group output did not differ reliably among the three types.

The claim that a group's communication plays a significant role in the outcomes of its discussion presupposes that the members of the group were in actuality communicating with one another; in other words, they were conducting a coherent discussion. Past research attempting to relate discussion and outcomes has almost universally failed to test this presumption. The present study indicates that a sample of 62 groups met quantitative criteria on both the group and individual level for coherent discussion and thus can be presumed to be engaging in communication.

A resource dilemma is a circumstance in which an aggregate of people share a slowly replenishing resource pool out of which each person can harvest a significant amount. Resource dilemmas normally make salient an allocation norm of equality in harvests among aggregate members. When asymmetry among aggregate members exists in terms of either access to the resource pool or reward for harvest, the equity allocation norm becomes equally relevant. In this study, groups experienced an experimental simulation of a resource dilemma under either symmetric, asymmetric harvest limit, or asymmetric reward conditions. Groups in the asymmetric conditions were more likely to choose explicitly to follow an allocation norm, and groups that chose to follow a norm had a far more task-oriented discussion and positive perceptions of their experience than groups that did not make an explicit choice. Neither experimental condition nor explicit norm choice revealed a discernible impact on harvesting.

A resource dilemma is a circumstance in which an aggregate of people share a slowly replenishing resource pool out of which each person can harvest for her or his own use. Successful management of a resource pool demands adequate leadership, but the content of leadership-relevant communication and its relationship with group performance and group members' perceptions of their experience has not been examined. In a study of 97 experimental simulations of a group resource dilemma, procedural leadership and three types of substantive leadership (information giving, initiating, and evaluating) were consistently, although weakly, associated with total group harvesting and/or with participant judgments relevant to group cooperation.