Gregory J. Shepherd

The pursuit of multiple objectives in face‐to‐face persuasive interactions: Effects of construct differentiation on message organization

This is paper describes the development of a system for analyzing the management of multiple communicative goals in interpersonal arguments. The message analysis system was designed to classify conversationally produced messages in terms of (1) the communicative role of the message producer; (2) the position taken toward the issue on the floor; (3) the explicitness with which conflict is acknowledged; and (4) the manner in which the subsidiary communicative goals of face protection and interaction maintenance are managed. In an initial investigation using this system, differential reliance on goal management strategies was associated, on the one hand, with individual differences in construct differentiation, and on the other hand, with differing degrees of interpersonal success. Associations among the four dimensions of the message analysis system were also observed, and were consistent with a rational goal‐based analysis of communication.

Individual differences in the relationship between attitudinal and normative determinants of behavioral intent

The Fishbein‐Ajzen behavioral‐intentions model separates attitudinal and normative influences on behavioral intent. However, some investigations employing this model have obtained strong correlations between the attitudinal and normative components of that model, whereas others have reported no such result. The issue of the relatedness of attitudinal and normative determinants of intent is important to theorists of social behavior and the many researchers who employ the Fishbein‐Ajzen model, as well as to scholars of persuasion. Relying on constructivist theory and research, this investigation hypothesized that an individual difference variable, construct differentiation, mediates the degree of association persons are likely to exhibit between attitudinal and normative beliefs. Investigating the domain of politics and voting behavior, this study found support for that general hypothesis: persons with relatively undifferentiated political construct systems exhibited substantial collinearity between attitud...

The relationship between the developmental level of persuasive strategies and their effectiveness

Research on the development of persuasive communication skills has described the emergence of four basic strategies in persuasive messages. This study includes two experiments to assess the role these strategies play in the process of gaining compliance. In both, college students received messages requesting they volunteer for an experiment and advocating compliance. Messages differed in the level of strategic adaptation of the compliance‐gaining appeal they offered. In general, form of request (supported versus unsupported) and content of specific message appeals influenced compliance, but level of strategic adaptation made little or no contribution to message effectiveness.

Theories of communication, human nature, and the world: Associations and implications

Although much scholarly attention has been devoted to conceptualizing communication, few attempts have been made to examine the practical consequences of individuals’ beliefs about communication. This paper reports the results of an initial investigation into the relationships among personal theories of communication (or message design logics), privately held philosophies of human nature, and personal assumptions about the world. Results demonstrated significant differences in participants’ philosophies of human nature and assumptions about the world as a function of message design logic. Implications and directions for future research are addressed.

Interpersonal construct differentiation, attitudinal confidence, and the attitude‐behavior relationship

Subjects differing in interpersonal construct differentiation completed a measure of religious attitude, a measure of attitudinal confidence, and a 20‐item religious behavior self‐report inventory. High‐confidence subjects exhibited greater attitude‐behavior consistency (r = .69) than did low‐confidence subjects (r = .51). Despite high power (N = 313), high‐ and low‐differentiation subjects did not differ significantly (r = .61 and .66, respectively), indicating that the role of differentiation as a direct mediator of non‐interpersonal attitude‐behavior consistency is a comparatively small one. But the influence of attitudinal confidence on attitude‐behavior consistency was larger for low‐differentiation subjects (r = .75 for high confidence, .51 for low) than for high‐differentiation subjects (r = .68 for high confidence, .50 for low), suggesting that interpersonal construct system development may indirectly influence the relationship of non‐interpersonal attitudes and behaviors.

Transcending Tolerance: Pragmatism, Social Capital, and Community in Communication

This article investigates tolerance in its application to communities as a form of social capital. We argue that, although the building and sustaining of communities is widely viewed to be aided by infusions of tolerance, contemporary characterizations of tolerance are in fact at loggerheads with the work of social capital. We would supplant tolerance with transcendence and seek thereby to reconceive communication within communities as a pragmatic mode of civic interaction effected between self and other, self and community, and community and community. To these ends, we draw from communication literatures on tolerance and social capital and from pragmatist schemas that envision communication within communities as representing transcendence, not tolerance.