Stephenson J. Beck

Perceiving Strategic Meeting Interaction

This study investigates how individuals perceive the message strategies of other team members and then explores how these perceptions are influenced by message function. Using a mixed-methods data collection, team interaction was coded using Baless Interaction Process Analysis (IPA). Following the meetings, retrospective interviews were conducted to capture perceptions of team member contributions to weekly team meetings. To assess perceptual similarities and differences, team member perceptions were then compared to the IPA codes of meeting interactions. Findings advance knowledge of communication in team meetings, specifically, how and why team members interpret the same interaction in different ways. Study results have implications for improving member communication in task-focused team meetings.

Team Attributes, Processes, and Values: a Pedagogical Framework

This article proposes a pedagogical framework to help students analyze their group and team interactions. Intersecting five fundamental group attributes (group size, group goal, group member interdependence, group structure, and group identity) with three overarching group processes (leadership, decision making, and conflict management) creates an analytical tool for the examination of team interaction. Furthermore, each group attribute/group process intersection encourages analytical questions targeting assumptions, values, and ethical positions embedded within the group. One advantage of this heuristic device is that it weds team member behaviors with the values members espouse and enact during team interactions. Pedagogical considerations are also discussed.

Macrocognition: a communication perspective

Although many disciplines have investigated the relatively new concept of macrocognition, the benefits of a communication perspective have yet to be explored. Oftentimes, in social psychological or organisational studies, communication is oversimplified and treated statically or mechanistically, and often represented by a simple sender → receiver or information sharing model. From a communication perspective, interaction is problematised and shared meaning is complicated, as represented by a sender ↔ receiver model in which individuals fulfil both roles simultaneously and meaning is developed in the interaction. Thus, a communication model necessitates a different way of understanding macrocognition, in addition to a different way of methodologically capturing it. Analysis from a communication perspective places the creation and existence of macrocognition in process, a view of macrocognition that is needed when conducting interdisciplinary research.

Teasing Among College Men and Women

To explore potential sex differences in the teasing of late adolescents, 95 men and 111 women indicated the frequency, impetus for, and impact of their typical teasing experiences. Teasing was common; both sexes reported that it occurred at least once or twice a week. Teasing occurs primarily for fun, for bonding, to cheer others up, and to show liking, although there was also an occasionally competitive element to mens teasing episodes. Instigating teasing with the other sex occurs frequently for the purpose of flirting. Although men evaluated the impact of teasing as positive in all conditions, women responded favorably when teased by a man and neutrally when teased by a woman. Teasing appears to be an important form of bonding and flirting among college students of both sexes.

A Theoretical Comparison of Relational Maintenance and Closeness as Mediators of Family Communication Patterns in Parent-Child Relationships

This investigation sought to elaborate Koerner and Fitzpatrick’s theory of family communication by testing two theoretical models of family communication patterns (FCP), child-to-parent inclusion of the other in the self (IOS), and relational maintenance. Participants included 374 young adults recruited from two universities in different regions of the United States. Results best supported a model positioning maintenance as a mediator of the association between FCP and IOS, as compared to an alternative model with IOS as a mediator of the association between FCP and maintenance. These findings extend Koerner and Fitzpatrick’s theory by highlighting communication as the means by which overarching family schemas influence relationship-specific schemas; additionally, they commend the self-expansion model as a useful theoretical approach to relational maintenance behavior in family contexts.

Examining Laughter Functionality in Jury Deliberations

Despite a presumption that laughter and a death penalty decision seem incompatible, transcript data of jury deliberations from both the guilt-or-innocence and penalty phases of the State of Ohio v. Mark Ducic trial demonstrate that jurors do laugh. Working from the disparate literature on laughter, we problematized laughter from a group communication perspective and analyzed its functionality in jury interaction. The authors identified and analyzed 51 laughter sequences across 414 transcript pages. Three categories of laughter functions (i.e., relational, processual, and informational) were identified; these categories were further detailed by 6, 10, and 10 subfunctions, respectively. Based on these findings, the authors revised their definition of laughter to incorporate its multifunctionality as vocalic and public emotional displays that (a) can be read as positive, negative, or ambiguous and (b) question, control, and regulate relationships, procedures, and information in the group. That laughter can be read in so many ways suggests that one role of laughter may be to create ambiguity to allow the group a chance to figure out what to do next.

Facilitating social support: member-leader communication in a breast cancer support group.

Background: Early detection and treatment have resulted in more women surviving breast cancer; increased survivorship has also increased the need for breast cancer support groups (BCSG). The ostensible goal of such groups is to provide support for the physical and emotional stressors that cancer survivors face, as well as provide information on coping and treatment options. Objective: Although scholars have examined the effects of support groups on their group members, the examination of group facilitator messages has been largely neglected. The goal of this study was to extend theory on group leader behavior, specifically investigating how member-leader messages create social support in support groups. Methods: The transcribed conversations of weekly meetings of a BCSG were examined using Interaction Process Analysis to discover how the member-leader facilitated the group’s enactment and management of social support. Results: Across the meetings, task talk dominated (primarily statements of orientation or information). Furthermore, analysis of interaction sequences between the support group facilitator and other members revealed 2 broad categories of task-oriented facilitation techniques (changing the focus, clarification) and 1 category of socioemotional facilitation techniques (showing support). Conclusions: Support group facilitators need the ability to facilitate both task and relational aspects of social support. Implications for Practice: Facilitator behaviors were highlighted as being instrumental to the creation of social support. The results from this study indicate that the ability to change the focus of interaction, to provide and require clarification on complex issues, and to show support through relational messages is needed in facilitator training.

Emergent team roles in organizational meetings: Identifying communication patterns via cluster analysis.

Previous team role taxonomies have largely relied on self-report data, have focused on functional roles and have described individual predispositions or personality traits. Instead, this study takes a communicative approach and proposes that team roles are produced, shaped and sustained in communicative behaviors. To identify team roles communicatively, 59 regular organizational meetings were videotaped and analyzed. Cluster analysis revealed five emergent roles: the solution seeker, the problem analyst, the procedural facilitator, the complainer, and the indifferent. In terms of meeting outcomes, solution seekers were beneficial to idea longevity, whereas complainers were harmful for meeting satisfaction and idea longevity. Future research directions and managerial implications are highlighted.

Perspectives: Examining Communication as Macrocognition in STS

Objective: There are significant points of alignment between a macrocognitive frame of teamwork and a communication perspective. This commentary explores these touch points in regard to use of teams in sociotechnical systems (STS). Background: The macrocognitive framework emphasizes a team’s shared mental models whereas a communication frame emphasizes that shared meaning among team members is more frequently implicitly than explicitly recorded in their messages. Both acknowledge that communication (in macrocognition) or messages (in communication) serve as an index of team members’ goal-directed behavior. The two approaches differ in the role of communication: as information exchange in macrocognition as compared with verbal and nonverbal symbols composing messages for which senders and receivers co-construct meaning. Method: This commentary uses relevant literature to explicate the communication position. Results: From a communication perspective, individuals are simultaneously sending and receiving messages, communication is continual and processual, and meaning construction is dependent on relationship awareness and development among communication partners as well as the context. Conclusion: The authors posit that meaning cannot be constructed solely from messages, nor can meaning be constructed by one person. Furthermore, sharing information is not the same as communicating. Application: Architects and users of STS should be interested in designing systems that improve team communication—a goal that is interdependent with understanding how communication fails in the use of such systems. Drilling down to the fundamental properties of communication is essential to understanding how and why meaning is created among team members (and subsequent action).

Public Meeting Facilitation A Naïve Theory Analysis of Crisis Meeting Interaction

During the record 2009 flood, the city of Fargo, North Dakota, United States held daily televised public meetings. Unknown to many citizens, the city also held private premeetings to prepare for the public meetings. The present study examined city leaders’ naïve theories of meeting facilitation in light of a minimalist view of public meetings (McComas, 2001). Interviews of city leaders during and after the flood, as well as meeting transcripts, were analyzed. Findings indicated that city leaders believed debate about controversial issues should be contained within private premeetings, where leaders planned how to be open with citizens during public meetings. City leaders also believed public meetings had to portray a calm yet urgent image for the public. City leaders used micro-level (e.g., humor, explicit vigilant messages, and metaphor) and macro-level (transparency) processes to communicatively accomplish their desires.