The Effect of Relationship Characteristics and Relational Communication on Experiences of Hurt From Romantic Partners

This study expands the relational turbulence model (RTM; Solomon & Knobloch,) by theorizing about how characteristics of relationships and relational judgments influence people's experiences of hurtful messages. Previous applications of RTM to hurt have uncovered associations among relational characteristics that influence people's hurtful experiences; however, the process by which these characteristics influence experiences of hurt remains unclear. We propose that relational communication (specifically, perceptions of dominance, and disaffiliation) is the mechanism linking relational qualities to hurt. A multigroup SEM was conducted to test for the possibility of sex differences. Results showed that people's experiences of hurt vary as a function of both relationship characteristics and relational inferences. Results also indicated a difference in path coefficients for males and females.     

The Impact of Parents “Friending” Their Young Adult Child on Facebook on Perceptions of Parental Privacy Invasions and Parent–Child Relationship Quality

This study examined whether a parent “friending” his/her child on Facebook.com influenced the parent–child relationship and perceptions of parental privacy invasions. One hundred and eighteen parent–young adult child dyads were randomly assigned to an experimental group where the parent was asked to create a Facebook account, “friend” his/her child, and use the account over 2 months or a control group where the parent did not have a Facebook account. Having a parent on Facebook did not result in perceptions of greater privacy invasions, but was associated with decreased conflict in the parent–child relationship. When the parent and child had a more conflicted relationship prior to the parent joining Facebook, the parent's presence on Facebook also enhanced the child's closeness with the parent.     

Public Intimacy: Disclosure Interpretation and Social Judgments on Facebook

This research examines how sociotechnical affordances shape interpretation of disclosure and social judgments on social networking sites. Drawing on the disclosure personalism framework, Study 1 revealed that information unavailability and relational basis underlay personalistic judgments about Facebook disclosures: Perceivers inferred greater message and relational intimacy from disclosures made privately than from those made publicly. Study 2 revealed that perceivers judged intimate disclosures shared publicly as less appropriate than intimate disclosures shared privately, and that perceived disclosure appropriateness accounted for the effects of public versus private contexts on reduced liking for a discloser. Taken together, the results show how sociotechnical affordances shape perceptions of disclosure and relationships, which has implications for understanding relational development and maintenance on SNS.     

Perceived Versus Actual Disagreement: Which Influences Deliberative Experiences?

Little is known about whether deliberative experiences are affected by participants' perceptions of disagreement or by what is expressed during deliberation. Drawing on participants in online deliberations, we find that (a) it is perceived disagreement that is strongly related to experiences such as interest/enjoyment, (b) medium levels of objective disagreement attenuate confusion, and (c) these associations depend on the topic discussed and are subject to some critical thresholds. These results have both theoretical and practical implications. They suggest that (a) perceptions of disagreement, although not clearly indicative of what transpires in deliberation, are consequential, (b) objective disagreement exerts nuanced effects that do not always parallel those of perceived disagreement, and (c) disagreement should be assessed in an issue‐specific manner.     

A Communicative Interdependence Perspective of Close Relationships: The Connections Between Mediated and Unmediated Interactions Matter

In response to calls to recognize that both face‐to‐face (FtF) interaction and technologically mediated communication (TMC) often occur in the same relationships, we introduce a communicative interdependence perspective with a central tenet that relational closeness is associated with interconnections among modes of communication. We examined this perspective with a focus group study (N = 17) and a more extensive survey (N = 317). Consistent with the communicative interdependence predictions, relational closeness was associated positively with integration between FtF and TMC and negatively to difficulties transitioning between modes. Also, discussing topics only via technologically mediated channels was inversely associated with closeness and satisfaction, whereas discussing topics only in person was positively related to closeness and satisfaction.     

Supportive communication on social networking sites: The impact of post valence and relational closeness on support provision

This project adopted a mixed-method approach to examine relational and contextual factors that influence people’s intention to provide support on SNSs. A pilot survey examined people’s use of SNSs for supportive exchange. Facebook was found to be the most used SNS for support seeking. People responded more often to a close friend’s support-seeking post than to an acquaintance’s post. Building on the findings in the pilot study, a main experiment was conducted to examine the impact of valence of a support seeker’s previous posts and relational closeness on viewers’ perceptions of the support seeker and their intention to provide support. Findings showed that valence of a support seeker’s previous posts affects viewers’ liking and perceived need for support in opposite directions, which in turn influences viewers’ intended support provision. In addition, relational closeness positively affects viewers’ liking of a support seeker and thus their intention to provide support.     

Young Voters' Responses to the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election: Social Identity,Perceived Media Influence,and Behavioral Outcomes

Hostile news perceptions, perceived media influence, and behavioral outcomes among Republicans and Democrats were examined before and after the 2004 U.S. presidential election. Predictions were grounded in social identity/self‐categorization theories, and influence of presumed influence. Hostile news perceptions were greater among Republicans, especially Fox News viewers. Third‐person perceptions (TPPs) for ingroup and outgroup (own party, other party) varied based on media message (debates, news, spin, polls, comedy) and party affiliation. TPPs were larger for the outgroup than the ingroup, but only for Republicans. Following the election, changes in media perceptions were related to the election outcome and interpersonal discussion. Greater perceived influence on outgroup voters was associated with stronger support for censorship, and a lower voting likelihood among Democrats.     

When Do People Misrepresent Themselves to Others? The Effects of Social Desirability,Ground Truth,and Accountability on Deceptive Self‐Presentations

Following Leary's (1995) impression management model, three experiments assessed factors that affect deceptive self‐presentations of height and weight. One experiment examined the role of biased cognitive processing. It revealed interactions between biased scanning—focusing on one's own socially desirable characteristics—and participants' sex that affected discrepancies between actual and self‐reported height/weight. Another investigated the effect of establishing ground truth prior to self‐assessment. It determined that exposure to one's actual measures (ground truth) prior to self‐report reduced inaccuracy. The third examined the role of perceived accountability. It found that anticipation of being measured reduced discrepant self‐reports. Results suggest that psychological and social processes provide higher‐order explanations for distorted self‐presentations of the kind that other studies have attributed to specific goals and sociotechnological factors.     

Prospect Theory,Discrete Emotions,and Freedom Threats: An Extension of Psychological Reactance Theory

Consistent with earlier research supporting the use of narratives to increase message persuasiveness, this study examined the role of guilt and happiness following exposure to organ donation narratives presented in professionally produced radio ads. As hypothesized, the loss‐frame narrative was significantly associated with heightened guilt, which was related to greater freedom threat perceptions and psychological reactance. Conversely, the loss‐frame narrative was negatively associated (p = .06) with increased happiness. Contrary to what was hypothesized, reactance was not significantly negatively associated with favorable attitudes toward registering as an organ donor. Instead, freedom threat was directly negatively related to favorable attitudes. Our results are discussed with an emphasis on the theoretical and practical implications.     

The Priming Effects of Virtual Environments on Interpersonal Perceptions and Behaviors

This study investigated how virtual environments prime subsequent interpersonal relations among unacquainted individuals. Participants met in a virtual library or a café. Individuals in the virtual library perceived greater self and partner formality compared to those in the café. In addition, more self‐disclosure correlated with less formality only in the library, showing how revealing more about oneself goes against library norms. In contrast, perceived warmth and word counts were at the center of the effects found in the virtual café. Partner warmth and word counts also mediated the effect of the environments on formality. Overall, this article advances priming research in stimuli‐rich virtual settings by showing how environmental salience and activation of contextual norms affected interpersonal perceptions among unacquainted partners.     

Participatory or deliberative democracy? Exploring the mediation effects of perceived online deliberation and online interactive activities on social outcomes

Using the structural equation modeling method (N = 811), this study explores the structural relationships among online news consumption, political participation and social trust, with a focus on the mediating effects of online users’ deliberative perceptions and news-related online interactive activities. The analysis confirms that users’ perceptions of online deliberation exert a significant mediating effect on users’ levels of news consumption, political participation, and social trust. Users’ interactive civic messaging behaviors, on the other hand, solely enhance participatory intentions. The findings also show that the consumption of political news and the consumption of entertainment news have different effects on users’ perceptions of online deliberation, social trust, and political participation. Specifically, while political news has a direct and relatively strong influence on participation, entertainment news has a limited and indirect effect on participation. Online interactive activities are negatively associated with users’ perceived competency for online deliberation. Further implications of the study are also discussed.     

Revisiting the Worksite in Worksite Health Campaigns: Evidence From a Multisite Organ Donation Campaign

This article advances the beginnings of a general theory of organizational features to aid in understanding why health campaigns that work well in one organization may be ineffectual in another organization. The physical, social, and information structures of organizations are theorized to create an interaction environment that is distinct to each organization and that influences health campaigns. To test this argument, an organ donation campaign was conducted in 46 organizations. Multilevel modeling yielded mixed findings. Physical structure was negatively associated with signing an organ donor card. Social structure and information structure were positively associated with communication with coworkers about donation and communicative peer influence. Industry type was positively associated with knowledge change.     

Effects of environmental uncertainty on organizational intention to adopt distributed work arrangements

Uncertainty in the external environmental context has been shown to affect organizational change and innovation. Distributed work arrangement is an organizational innovation that has the potential to enable a firm to meet the challenges of an uncertain environment more effectively. With the emergence of virtual organizations, such work arrangements are likely to gain increasing popularity. This exploratory empirical study employs a structural model to examine how environmental uncertainty affects organizational predisposition (adoption intention) toward distributed work arrangements. Environmental uncertainty has two different dimensions: environmental complexity (heterogeneity) and environmental variability (dynamism). In this paper, environmental dimensions are modeled to influence adoption of distributed work arrangements through shaping the organizational perceptions of three innovation characteristics: perceived relative advantage, compatibility and complexity. Data analyses using partial least squares statistical technique revealed that environmental complexity is negatively associated with perceived relative advantage, and perceived compatibility. Perceived relative advantage and perceived compatibility are in turn positively related to adoption intention for distributed work arrangements. However, environmental variability has no significant effect on the three innovation characteristics. Contrary to past findings that suggest organizations are more predisposed toward innovations in a complex environment, our study found that organizations in an environment of lower, rather than higher complexity are more likely to adopt distributed work arrangements. Implications for organizations are discussed.     

The Role of Identification and Perception of Just Outcome in Evoking Emotions in Narrative Persuasion

The question is addressed whether identification with a story character can evoke emotions that subsequently influence the audience's attitude. Study 1 (N = 145) manipulated identification and found it to influence the evoking of emotions as well as the audience's attitude. Study 2 (N = 115) examined whether emotions are evoked by the extent to which the story's outcome is perceived as just. The main character's culpability was manipulated thereby influencing the extent to which a bad ending was considered just. Mediation analyses attested to the greater importance of identification for evoking emotions compared to the perception of justice. The studies reveal the mediating role of emotions in narrative persuasion as well as how identification can evoke these emotions.     

To Personalize or Depersonalize? When and How Politicians' Personalized Tweets Affect the Public's Reactions

Two experiments investigated when and how politicians' Twitter communication affects the public's cognitive, affective, and behavioral reactions, focusing on the effects of message personalization. In Study 1, personalized (vs. depersonalized) messages significantly enhanced message recognition and recall, but they heightened perceived presence of and imagined intimacy with the candidate only among more affiliative individuals, while lowering the willingness to vote for him among less affiliative ones. In Study 2, although personalized messages improved message encoding and retrieval, they induced stronger perceived intimacy with and more positive evaluations of the in‐group candidate only among those with weak party identification. By contrast, those attaching greater value to their party affiliation responded negatively to the personalized messages and showed robust in‐group favoritism.     

Clustering Research Activity in Communication Doctoral Programs: Relationship of Publication Productivity and Department Size to Disciplinary Reputation and Prestige

This study extends previous work relating contemporary approaches to the comparative evaluation of doctoral programs, focusing on the 2004 NCA study (based on perceptual measures) and the ComVista system (based on publication patterns). Coding and analyzing the ComVista data for topical content revealed 17 clusters of intellectual activity in the field, grouped doctoral programs into nine categories of publication frequency and distribution, and found substantial prediction of NCA ratings for perceived quality of doctoral faculty. Results suggest that these data are principally based on peer perceptions of faculty publication activity, that more specialized publication activities tend to be perceived more favorably, and that the number of publishing faculty in a program is strongly related to positive perceptions of faculty quality.     

The Meanings of “Open Communication” Among Couples Coping With a Cardiac Event

The value placed on open communication is an ideology in U.S. American discourse. It has particular urgency among couples coping with a cardiac event, who are often advised that open communication can enhance recovery, bolster individual coping, and sustain relational satisfaction. Our interpretive analysis of 41 interviews with cardiac patients and partners explored the connection between a widespread ideology of openness and varied ways of enacting it that included apparently contradictory practices. Our findings raise questions about interventions designed to change couples' communication, expand concepts and theories of open communication, and suggest developments in the ideology of openness.     

Improving the Effectiveness of Virtual Teams: A Comparison of Video-Conferencing and Face-to-Face Communication in China

As virtual teams become more and more important in organizations, understanding how to improve virtual team relational development and meeting outcomes is vital to project success. The objective of this study was to investigate how the dialogue technique that facilitated building of shared understanding in virtual teams can be used to enhance virtual team relational development and decision outcomes in a Chinese cultural context. The results from an experiment demonstrate that the adopted dialogue technique can indeed help team members develop their team relations and enhance their perceived team meeting outcomes. Video-conferencing virtual teams with shared mental models may be engaged as effectively as traditional face-to-face teams. Moreover, this study reveals that the dialogue technique can enhance face-to-face team outcomes. Therefore, the findings of this study have both theoretical and practical implications for helping teams develop shared understanding of effective communication and enhance decision-making outcomes in the Chinese cultural context.      

A Relational Turbulence Model of Military Service Members' Relational Communication During Reintegration

This study employed the relational turbulence model to examine features of relational communication and dimensions of relational inferences during the postdeployment transition for military service members. We surveyed 220 military personnel who had recently returned home from deployment about their romantic relationship. Results of a structural equation model indicated that relational uncertainty and interference from partners predicted openness and aggressiveness, which in turn predicted appraisals of affiliation and dominance in the relationship. The results imply that the transition from deployment to reunion corresponds with upheaval in how service members communicate with a romantic partner and make judgments about their relationship.