James L. Applegate

Adaptive communication in educational contexts: A study of teachers’ communicative strategies

The present study examined individual differences in psychological development among prospective teachers as these affect the adaptive, “person‐centered” quality of their communication with students. Significant relationships were found between abstract psychological development and use of person‐centered communicative strategies in regulative and interpersonal educational contexts. In addition, differences in the quality of the teachers’ construal of the student‐teacher relationship were significantly related to their ability to manage those relationships in their communication with students. The implications of the results are discussed in terms of the impact of differences in teachers’ communicative development upon development of students and their implications for future studies of relationships between specific components of psychological and communicative development.

The impact of construct system development on communication and impression formation in persuasive contexts 1

This study employs a constructivist approach to communication studies to investigate the impact of the differences in individuals’ cognitive complexity and construct system abstractness on development of more listener‐adaptive persuasive communication strategies. In addition, it examines the effect of such differences in construct system/strategic development on the quality of impressions formed of interaction partners. Communication measures were derived from analyses of both videotaped dyadic interactions with classmates and responses to hypothetical persuasive situations involving roommates and friends. Analyses revealed that increases in cognitive complexity and construct system abstractness significantly related to use of (1) a greater number of persuasive strategies; (2) more listener‐adaptive persuasive strategies; and (3) formation of more complex and abstract impressions of interaction partners.

Communicative Correlates of Peer Acceptance in Childhood.

Although many studies have found several distinct types of communication skills associated with peer acceptance, few studies have included assessments of multiple communication skills in the effort to determine which skill or set of skills is most related to peer status. Significant associations between different types of comunication skill suggest that some of the reported relationships between peer acceptance and specific communication skills may be spurious. Consequently, the present research sought to determine which of several distinct communication skills is most related to peer status. Participants were 73 first‐ and third‐grade children. Groups of rejected, neglected, and accepted children were created on the basis of positive and negative peer nominations. Participants completed a persuasion task, a comforting task, a listener adaptation task, and three referential communication tasks. Accepted children performed significantly better on the comforting task and one of the referential tasks, and ma...

Construct system development and attention to face wants in persuasive situations

This study assesses the impact of individual differences in construct system development (cognitive differentiation and abstractness) on concern for, and strategic attention to, face wants in persuasive situations. Hierarchic regression analyses suggest a strong relationship between construct development and concern for face as evidenced in rationales for behavior. Actual use of more sophisticated face saving strategies also was strongly influenced by individual differences in construct development.

Person‐centered tactics during verbal disagreements: Effects on student perceptions of persuasiveness and social attraction

The development of communication knowledge and skills for managing verbal disagreements is an important educational task in our increasingly diverse culture. Working from a constructivist framework, this study adapted an existing hierarchy of person‐centered persuasion to analyze student performance in 42 dyadic verbal disagreements. After participating in an argumentative conversation, students were evaluated by their partners on measures of opinion change, perceived persuasiveness, and social attractiveness. As expected, students using person‐centered tactics were rated by their partners as more persuasive. The partners’ level of construct differentiation appeared to mediate some of these effects. In contrast, social attractiveness judgments were unaffected by tactic person‐centeredness. Results are interpreted as evidence of the representative validity of the person‐centered hierarchy for student samples. The usefulness of peer perceptions and interactive tasks in teaching person‐centered argument is d...

On validly assessing the validity of the role category questionnaire: A reply to Allen et al.

The current paper responds critically to Allen et al.s recent investigation of the validity of the Role Category Questionnaire measure of interpersonal cognitive complexity. Factual inaccuracies in Allen et al.s critique are noted, as are deficiencies in conceptualization and design of the two studies reported by these authors. Several advantages in the standard form of the RCQ are described. The paper concludes by suggesting issues future critiques of the RCQ will need to consider.

Similarity in the use of person‐centered tactics: Effects on social attraction and persuasiveness in dyadic verbal disagreements

This study examines the effects of tactic similarity on persuasion and social attraction in actual conversations. Tactics used in 42 recorded conversations were coded on a minute‐by‐minute basis for their degree of person‐centeredness. Post‐conversation measures of social attraction, opinion change, perceived persuasiveness, and general competence were taken. Tactical similarity was positively correlated with partner satisfaction and global competence ratings, but not with measures of persuasion. Results are interpreted as supporting recent work using a “rewards of interaction” model (Berscheid, 1985) to explain the role of communication skills in the creation of interpersonal attraction (Burleson & Samter, 1996). Implications for further research on the processes through which person‐centered behavior is linked to different types of conversational outcomes are discussed.

Interpersonal constructs and communicative ability in a police environment: A preliminary investigation

Abstract This study investigates the relation between indexes of the development of interpersonal construct systems and the qualities of messages generated in response to persuasive tasks within the context of an urban police force. Hypotheses assuming that length of service as a line officer would predict less developed construct systems, and that more developed construct systems would predict message strategies that acknowledge the unique qualities of receivers found general support. In addition, the possibility of further relations between length of service and message variables was explored, but no substantial evidence was found for such effects. These results show the importance of environmental influences on construct development, and suggest that interpersonal perception and message behavior functionally adapt to the needs of organizational participation.

Book reviews: Contemporary human communication

Message‐Attitude‐Behavior Relationship: Theory, Methodology, and Application. Edited by Donald P. Cushman and Robert D. McPhee. New York: Academic Press, 1980, pp. xii + 339.

Social‐Cognitive and Situational Influences on the Use of Face‐Saving Persuasive Strategies

27.00. Applied Communication Research: A Dramatistic Approach. By John F. Cragan and Donald C. Shields. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, 1981, pp. x + 421.