Wendy Samter

Similarity in the communication skills of young adults: Foundations of attraction, friendship, and relationship satisfaction

The current paper reports a study assessing how similarities in levels of social‐cognitive and communication skills affected friendship choices by young adults. Participants (208 college students) completed a battery of tasks providing assessments of one social‐cognitive and five communication skills. Sociometric procedures were used to determine interpersonal attraction and friendship patterns. Results indicated that participants were attracted to peers having social skill levels similar to their own. In addition, pairs of friends had similar levels of communication skills related to the expression and management of emotional states. Moreover, pairs of friends having low levels of communication skills were just as satisfied with their relationships as were pairs of friends having high levels of skills. The results are viewed as consistent with a “rewards of interaction”; analysis of the effects of similarity on interpersonal attraction.

How Gender and Cognitive Complexity Influence the Provision of Emotional Support: A Study of Indirect Effects

The current study examined the extent to which cognitive complexity—a well known predictor of message behavior—mediated sex differences in the production of person‐centered comforting messages. Two hundred and eight students (102 men and 106 women) representing a variety of majors at a large midwestern university participated in the study. They responded to Crocketts (1965) Role Category Questionnaire (a measure of cognitive complexity) and three hypothetical situations designed to elicit their levels of comforting ability. Responses to the comforting scenarios were coded for their degree of person‐centeredness (Burleson, 1984). Results demonstrated the partial mediating effects of cognitive complexity. However, the effects of sex were large and remained significant even when controlling for complexity.

The Role of Facework in Younger and Older Adults' Evaluations of Social Support Messages

Two studies assessed younger and older adults’ evaluations of emotional‐ and instrumental‐support messages. Specifically, these studies investigated (a) individuals’ perceptions of support messages that consisted of multiple politeness strategies and face threats, and (b) the ways in which particular types of supportive speech acts (i.e., giving advice, offers of assistance, and expressions of concern) were perceived as more or less helpful and sensitive to recipients’ face needs. Overall, there were both similarities and differences in how older and younger adults viewed these support messages. Across age groups, the type of speech act and positive‐politeness strategy employed were the most influential predictors of the perceived helpfulness and face sensitivity of a support message. However, positive‐politeness strategies were more influential on the ratings by younger participants than they were on evaluations by older adults. Surprisingly, across both age groups, negative‐politeness strategies seemed ...

Similarity in communication values as a predictor of friendship choices: Studies of friends and best friends

The similarity‐attraction hypothesis maintains that cognitively similar persons are more attracted to and more likely to form relationships with each other than cognitively dissimilar persons. The current paper extends this general hypothesis by suggesting that persons with similar communication values are more likely to become friends than persons with dissimilar communication values. This general hypothesis was tested and confirmed in two studies. Implications of the findings for friendship formation are discussed.

Evaluations of communication skills as predictors of peer acceptance in a group living situation

This paper develops the hypothesis that holding age‐ and gender‐typical conceptions of friendship, conceptions expressed in evaluations of several communication skills, is an important determinant of interpersonal acceptance by peers. It was hypothesized that college students who highly value the affectively oriented communication skills of friends would experience higher levels of peer acceptance than those who value nonaffectively oriented skills. However, it was anticipated that gender would mediate the relationship between valuing affectively oriented skills and interpersonal acceptance. Participants (residents of two fraternities and two sororities) responded to a questionnaire on the perceived importance of eight communication skills in friends, provided self‐reports about experienced loneliness, and completed interviews on sociometric assessments of peer acceptance. Correlational analyses detected weak but significant associations between valuing affectively oriented communication skills and indice...

Friendly Fire: Topical Variations in Conflict Among Same and Cross-Sex Friends

This investigation identified conflict events in young adult friendship. In addition, we examined whether different sources of conflict characterize same‐ and cross‐sex friendship and how gender influences perceptions of conflict issues in these relationships. Open‐ended descriptions of conflict episodes were elicited from same‐ and cross‐sex friendship dyads. Results indicated that same‐sex friends more frequently reported conflicts involving Disapproval about Relationship Choices and Sharing Space/Possessions compared to cross‐sex friends. Cross‐sex friends, on the other hand, reported conflicts involving Relationship Intimacy, Friendship Rule Violations, Communication Problems, and Annoying Behaviors more frequently than same‐sex friends. Additionally, in same‐sex friendships, males were more likely than females to report having conflict about Sharing Activities whereas females were more likely than males to report experiencing conflict about Sharing Space/Possessions. In cross‐sex friendships, males a...