Frank E. Millar

Domineeringness and dominance: Replication and expansion

This paper continues the effort to define a dyadic systems relational structure on the basis of communicative behaviors. Domineeringness, an individual measure based on one‐up messages, and dominance, a joint measure based on the dyads transactional patterns, are the central variables of concern. The findings offer additional support for the conceptual distinction between domineeringness and dominance. Further, these major variables are associated with differential levels of dyadic satisfaction, degree of interspousal understanding, and interaction styles.

Message control intensity: Rationale and preliminary findings

This paper expands on the Rogers and Farace relational communication coding system by offering a definition and measure of message control intensity. The measure is based on the implicit intensity continuum which underlies the coding scheme. As a construct, message control intensity meets the face validity criterion for the “experienced” perspective on communication behavior as described by Poole and Folger. Results from exploratory correlational analyses between message intensity and (1) pronoun usage, (2) transactional structures, (3) control maneuvers, and (4) rigidity and stability measures support the measures utility and thus provide evidence of its construct validity.

Identifying patterns of verbal conflict in interpersonal dynamics

This paper presents a simple means of pragmatically identifying the occurrence of verbal conflict. The identification is structural in nature, based on the control aspects of verbalizations and consistent with the active opposition conceptualization of conflict. A verbal conflict is claimed to occur when three consecutive one‐up maneuvers have been manifested by the conversants. That is, a conflict results when speaker Bs one‐up response to speaker As one‐up statement is responded to with a one‐up maneuver by speaker A. The derivation of the identification is outlined, illustrations from husband‐wife conversations are presented, and the measures research limitations and potentials are discussed.

Science as Criticism: The Burden of Assumptions.

This essay examines the articles by Goodall and Phillips (1981) and Phillips (1981) and contends that their genuine concerns about a social science of communication are misdirected. More specifically, this essay argues that science is part of a critical approach to knowledge and that attempts to divorce science from criticism mystify the reader by misidentifying the present issues facing our emerging discipline.