Donald L. Rubin

Factors Leading to Self-Disclosure of a Positive HIV Diagnosis in Nairobi, Kenya People Living With HIV/AIDS in the Sub-Sahara

Understanding why, how, and to whom people living with HIV/AIDS disclose their diagnosis to others is a critical issue for HIV prevention and care efforts, but previous investigations of those issues in sub-Saharan Africa have been limited to one or two questions included in quantitative studies of social support or stigma. Instruments and findings on serostatus disclosure based on U.S. populations are likely to be at best only partially relevant because of Africas primarily heterosexual transmission vectors and highly communalistic social structures. This qualitative analysis of two male and two female focus groups comprised of persons living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHAs) in Nairobi, Kenya, revealed several HIVstatus disclosure patterns that appear distinctive to Africa. These include (a) intermediaries as vehicles for disclosure to family, (b) indirectness as a communication strategy, and (c) church pastors as common targets for disclosure.

The Added Value of Study Abroad: Fostering a Global Citizenry.

Few studies have employed experimental designs adequate for documenting the value added of studying abroad; that is, learning outcomes above and beyond that which may be achieved in domestic or traditional campus-based courses. Using a pre-/posttest, two-by-two factor design of course location (study abroad vs. home campus) by course subject matter (sustainability vs. nonsustainability), we found significant highest order interactions for three dependent measures of global citizenry. Results suggest that it is the combination of location (abroad) and academic focus that yields the greatest increases in specified learning outcomes for study abroad. Implications for political agendas, academic initiatives, and research directions are discussed.

Social Cognition and Written Communication

Considerations of audience awareness are receiving increased attention in composition theory and pedagogy. Sensitivity to audience characteristics exerts demonstrable effects on composing processes and products. Audience awareness is often conceived as a unitary, global construct, however. In fact, the distinctly identifiable dimensions of social cognition include (1) subskills, (2) coordination of perspectives, (3) content domain, (4) content stability, and (5) audience determinateness. These dimensions and their components are discussed along with their interaction with composing processes. This multidimensional conception of social cognition provides a framework for further composition research and teaching.

Reverse Linguistic Stereotyping: Measuring the Effect of Listener Expectations on Speech Evaluation

The linguistic stereotyping hypothesis holds that even brief samples of speech varieties associated with low-prestige groups can cue negative attributions regarding individual speakers. The converse phenomenon is reverse linguistic stereotyping (RLS). In RLS, attributions of a speaker’s group membership trigger distorted evaluations of that person’s speech. The present study established a procedure for ascertaining a proclivity to RLS for individual listeners. In addition to RLS, variables reflecting degree of multicultural involvement (e.g., proportion of friends who are nonnative speakers, amount of language study) predicted speech evaluations. Although the RLS measurement procedure outlined here requires more demanding administration than mere paper-and-pencil self-reports, it has the advantage of reflecting authentic RLS processes. Measuring individuals’ RLS levels can help screen teachers, job interviewers, immigration officials, and others who are called on to make judgments about the oral proficiency of speakers of nonprestige language varieties.

Context in Text: The Development of Oral and Written Language in Two Genres.

PELLEGRINI, A. D.; GALDA, LEE; and RUBIN, DONALD L. Context in Text: The Development of Oral and Written Language in Two Genres. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1984, 55, 1549-1555. The intent of the study was to test Hallidays model of context/text relations and how these relations varied across the elementary school years. Children in grades 1, 3, and 5 were asked to produce messages in narrative and persuasive genres, in both the oral and written channels. Their texts were analyzed in terms of elements of linguistic cohesion and length of clausal themes. Significant multivariate effects on these measures were obtained for grade, channel, genre, channel x genre, and grade x channel. These results generally support the predicted effects for this model of discourse production: Text varied as a function of discourse context. Predicted age effects were partially supported. These results are significant in that they document age-related features of text production: organization of text with causal conjunctions improves across the elementary school years; the production of grammatically cohesive text improves through third grade. Furthermore, the data support previous research suggesting that oral text is less explicit than written text.

Reading and listening to oral‐based versus literate‐based discourse

Previous research has rarely examined listening/reading differences in conjunction with conceptually relevant discourse variation. In the present study, college students either listened to or read ghostwritten speeches or magazine articles. Participants also completed tests of listening ability, reading ability, prior knowledge, and amount of invested mental effort. Consistent with listenability theory, results indicated that listeners and readers alike best comprehended oral‐based discourse. Reading was superior for acquiring information, though it required greater investment of mental effort.

A test of the theory of reasoned action in the context of condom use and AIDS

The theory of reasoned action (TRA) was employed as a framework for understanding adolescents’ behavior that could put them at risk for contracting AIDS. The TRA focuses on the role of subjective norms and attitudes toward behavior to predict behavioral intentions and risk‐avoidance behavior (condom use). Adolescent participants (N = 492) in three groups (8th grade, 11/12th grade, and early college) filled out questionnaires. Results supported Ajzen and Fishbeins contentions regarding the role of attitude and subjective norms, but subjective norms also functioned as a predictor of attitudes. Additional evidence indicated models by gender and sexual experience were different. For sexually active adolescents, attitude was a better predictor of both behavioral intentions and condom use than subjective norms, but for sexually inactive adolescents, subjective norm was a better predictor. For male adolescents, subjective norm was a better predictor of both behavioral intentions and condom use than attitude, bu...

Activism and the Limits of Symmetry: The Public Relations Battle Between Colorado GASP and Philip Morris

Litigation has forced tobacco companies like Philip Morris to disclose more than 7 million internal documents, including previously confidential public relations plans. We draw from this archive, as well as from activist materials, to demonstrate that, despite vigorous industry efforts to thwart them, activists in this case employed strategies of values advocacy and inoculation and capitalized on economic benefits to persuade publics. This watershed case poses continued challenges for the 2-way symmetrical or mixed-motive theoretical model of public relations. Accounting for public relations activism and understanding its voice in influencing contemporary public debate requires that scholars move beyond this widely accepted model that stresses compromise between activists and organizations. An alternative rhetorical theory of activist public relations is posited to account for groups that refuse to accommodate opponents.

Middle Class Blacks' Perceptions of Dialect and Style Shifting: The Case of Southern Attorneys

Both research and practical experience indicate that black dialect impedes mobility into mainstream American economic and political life. Blacks may learn to use Standard English as an entre into mainstream American culture and yet still preserve their cultural identities. It is possible that successful blacks retain their cultural identities because they perceive themselves as shifting, when appropriate, into a formal style that still lies within the bounds of Black English, or they may disassociate Standard English from cultural identification with white America. The authors employed in-depth interviewing of a highly selected sample for the purpose of exploring the attitudinal posture black professionals took toward Black English, Standard English and cultural identity. It was concluded that these speakers were able to acquire proficiency in Standard English while maintaining their minority cultural identities by disassociating Standard English from any ethnic identification and by assigning positive value to Black English as a form of linguistic behaviour.

Effects of dialect‐ethnicity, social class and quality of written compositions on teachers' subjective evaluations of children

In the context of previous work related to linguistic stereotypes and Pygmalion effects, this research describes the relative effect of factors of dialect‐ethnicity, social class, and quality of written compositions on pre‐service elementary teachers’ judgments of childrens scholastic success. Analysis of teachers’ semantic differential ratings indicates some relative salience for social class over dialect‐ethnicity and quality of composition. Analysis of interaction effects reveals a complex relationship between these stimulus attributes and teacher judgments. Results are interpreted as being indicative of the likely complexity of teachers’ social perceptions of children and in some opposition to previous assumptions of the more or less unique salience of linguistically mediated social stereotypes.