Tricia S. Jones

Interpersonal distance, body orientation, and touch: Effects of culture, gender, and age.

Video recordings of naturally occurring interactions in England, France, the Netherlands, Italy, Greece, Scotland, and Ireland were coded and analyzed to examine the effects of culture, gender, and age on interpersonal distance, body orientation, and touch. Results partially supported expected differences between contact cultures of southern Europe and noncontact cultures of northern Europe with respect to touch. More touch was observed among Italian and Greek dyads than among English, French, and Dutch dyads. In addition, an interaction effect between age and gender for body orientation suggested opposite development trends for mixed-sex dyads and male dyads. Whereas mixed dyads tended to maintain less direct orientations as they aged, male dyads maintained more direct orientations.

Sources of variability in perceptions of and responses to sexual harassment

Social exchange theory was used to explain sexual harassment interactions in terms of perceived or actual inequities in incurred costs or rewards between targets and perpetrators. A factorial experiment was conducted in which the effects of severity of harassment, target response, target gender, and rater gender on perceptions of harassment, perpetrator appropriateness and target appropriateness and suggested responses to harassment were examined. Ninety-four male and 116 female students from two eastern universities served as subjects. The sample was approximately 90% Caucasian and was composed of traditional (18–22-year-old) undergraduates. Results indicated that all independent variables affected perceptions of and responses to sexual harassment situations.

EFFECTS OF EMPLOYMENT RELATIONSHIP, RESPONSE OF RECIPIENT AND SEX OF RATER ON PERCEPTIONS OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT

The effects of the employment relationship (superior vs coworker), recipients response (positive vs negative), and sex of the rater (male vs female) on perceptions of sexual harassment, appropriateness of the initiators behavior, and appropriateness of the recipients behavior were investigated. Subjects were 82 female and 76 male undergraduate students. The results of a 2 × 2 × 2 multivariate analysis of variance indicated main effects for response of the recipient and sex of the rater. Univariate analyses indicated that women rated the initiator less favorably than men, that men perceived the situation as more harassing and approved of the recipient more than women when the recipients responses were positive, although there was no difference between men and women when the recipients responses were negative.

Proxemic and haptic behavior in three European countries

The influence of culture, gender, and age on proxemic and haptic behavior was investigated in this observational field study. Video recordings of 253 naturally-occurring dyadic interactions in the Netherlands, France, and England were analyzed by trained coders. Contrary to expectations, Halls hypothesis regarding the proxemic and haptic norms of contact and noncontact cultures was not well supported. Among seated interactants, Dutch dyads maintained greater distances than French and English dyads, but French dyads were less proximate than were English dyads. The body orientation of French dyads was more direct than it was for Dutch or English dyads. In addition, with the exception of limited data on touch, neither the gender-composition of the dyad nor the gender of the individual affected the distances or body orientations of the interactants as would be expected according to traditional sex-role socialization processes. Age, as well, did not influence proxemic or haptic behavior. Results are discussed, primarily with respect to the research methods used in this and in previous investigations.

A dialectical analysis of a social justice process: International collaboration in South Africa

Abstract This paper presents a case study of an international team collaboration between US and South African conflict specialists and educators implementing a Community Peace and Safety Network in four communities in the Gauteng province of South Africa. The project, funded by the United States Information Agency, was a social justice initiative that provided mediation training for school and community centers to aid them in accomplishing constructive conflict management and social change. Following an overview of the project goals, stages, and accomplishments, Smith and Bergs theory of paradoxes in groups is used to analyze the negotiated relationships in the international team and the mutual influence of group tensions and community impact throughout the 18‐month project period. Discussion includes implications for dialectical analyses of groups and for social justice scholars.

Sex differences, communication consistency, and judgments of sexual harassment in a performance appraisal interview

Survey research indicates that the problem of sexual harassment in organizations is both significant and widespread. Judgments of sexual harassment appear to be influenced, however, by the sex of the judge and the actions of the perpetrator. In this factorial design survey, the effects of the targets communication behavior and the sex of the judge on judgments of sexual harassment were examined. Judges were presented with vignettes which varied the verbal and nonverbal responses of the target to the perpetrator to create conditions of consistent and inconsistent communication. The results provided some support for the hypothesis that judges would perceive more sexual harassment, would disapprove of the perpetrator more, and would approve of the target more, as the targets responses to the perpetrator were increasingly negative. Although judgments of sexual harassment were not affected by the sex of the judge, female judges showed more disapproval of the perpetrator than did male judges. The essay offers...

The effects of nonverbal involvement and communication apprehension on state anxiety, interpersonal attraction, and speech duration

This experiment raised the question: will communication apprehension (CA) mediate the effect of nonverbal involvement cues (NVI) on state anxiety, interpersonal attraction and speech duration in information gathering interviews? Subjects, high and low in CA, responded to the questions of three trained interviewers from whom they received either high or low levels of NVI behaviors (i.e. head nods, eye contact, body orientation, etc.). CA did not function as a mediating variable. Rather, main effects were obtained for CA on state anxiety and speech duration and for NVI on interpersonal attraction and speech duration.

Combining conflict resolution education and human rights education: thoughts for school‐based peace education

Peace education embraces a wide range of programs and initiatives. Two of those subfields, human rights education and conflict resolution education, are often considered too different in goals, models and content to be seen as partners in the same educational effort. A review of recent literature confirms that few conflict resolution education programs include a strong human rights emphasis. And many human rights education programs contain little in the way of conflict resolution education. In this article, I suggest that these types of peace education may be more productively combined than originally thought, especially in school‐based and youth‐based programs in the United States.

The Influence of Vocal Intensity and Touch on Compliance Gaining

Abstract A bogus postcard technique was used to study the effects of touch and vocal intensity on the compliance of 248 male and female subjects with a simple request. Subjects in three American cities were approached by three female confederates and were asked to mail a postcard. A touch to the forearm accompanied half of the requests, while vocal intensity was varied as either soft, medium, or loud. Comparisons were made for rates of total compliance, initial noncompliance, and subsequent noncompliance. Contrary to expectations, vocal intensity, rather than touch, affected compliance. Results are interpreted in terms of arousal-reduction, involvement, and status-attribution views of the nonverbal communication and compliance-gaining effect.

The contemporary rhetoric of the social theories of law

Traditionally, law and justice have been conceived in a cognitive or formal mode, but in todays society the legitimacy of law must be based on its immanence: Does it address and make sense to the everyday concerns of citizens? This essay argues for a critical theory of justice based on the communicative competence of the community.