Conversation Orientation and Cognitive Processes: A Comparison of U.S. Students in Initial Interaction With Native‐ Versus Nonnative‐Speaking Partners

The present study compares thought patterns, perceptions of interaction (perceived interaction smoothness and interaction involvement), and conversation orientation of U.S. students (N = 60) in dyadic interaction with a partner who is either another American or a non‐American nonnative speaker of English. As hypothesized, U.S. participants with nonnative‐speaking partners perceived interaction as more difficult, or less smooth, than did their counterparts with native‐speaking partners. U.S. participants with nonnative‐speaking partners also displayed different thought patterns, having more thoughts showing confusion, as well as more thoughts focused on the partner and less on the content of the ongoing conversation, than those with fellow native‐speaking partners. U.S. participants with a nonnative‐speaking partner also exhibited a different conversation orientation pattern, focusing more on understanding of the other's message, less on clarifying their own message, and less on displaying their own involvement. Specific thought categories and perceived interaction smoothness were correlated with conversation orientation indices for participants in interactions between native and nonnative speakers. Finally, interaction involvement was found to contribute most to variation in perceived interaction smoothness for both U.S. and non‐U.S. participants in interactions between native and nonnative speakers. Implications of the findings are discussed.     

On Coffee Talk and Break-Room Chatter: Perceptions of Women Who Gossip in the Workplace

ABSTRACT

The present study examined perceptions of female gossipers in the workplace. Male and female participants (N = 129) were asked to think of a woman who either frequently or rarely contributed negative information about other people during conversation. Participants then completed ratings on the target using the six dimensions of the FIRO-B. As predicted, high gossipers were perceived as having a greater need to exert control of others, but less need for others to control them, than low gossipers. Higher gossipers were also perceived as less emotionally warm than low gossipers. The implications of these findings for gossip research are presented.     

FACILITATING CONVERSATION THROUGH SELF-INITIATED AUGMENTATIVE COMMUNICATION TREATMENT

We examined the conversational skills of 2 adult males with severe motor and speech deficits resulting from cerebral palsy. A multiple baseline design across subjects was used to determine the effectiveness of an intervention strategy designed to teach them to use an augmentative communication system (Touch Talker) independently. The dependent measure was the number of conversation initiations relative to conversation reactions during spontaneous communication across baseline and treatment. The treatment included specific training on using the augmentative system to participate in communication. Once the intervention began, the production of conversation initiations accelerated at a rapid rate. The treatment program was effective in training the subjects to use the augmentative system to increase conversation participation. These results demonstrate that training on the operation of the device alone is not sufficient to ensure improvement in conversation performance, and that it is important to incorporate direct conversational treatment when providing instruction on the use of augmentative communication systems for severely speech-impaired individuals.     

The effect of attractiveness on food sharing preferences in human mating markets

The current study explored how physical attractiveness affects food sharing by studying payment preferences for hypothetical romantic dinner dates (a hypothetical mating market). We analyzed payment preferences, self-rated attractiveness, and rated attractiveness for hypothetical dates in 416 participants. We hypothesized that (1) men would be more likely to prefer to pay than would women, (2) attractive individuals of both sexes would be less willing to pay, and (3) preferences to enter an exchange would be influenced by the attractiveness of prospective partners such that (3a) men would prefer to pay for attractive women, and (3b) women would prefer to be paid for by attractive men. All hypotheses were supported by our results. Individuals with higher self-rated attractiveness were more likely to prefer that their date would pay for the meal, and we found clear sex differences in how the attractiveness of potential dates affected payment preferences. Male participants preferred to pay for dates that had higher facial attractiveness, while female participants preferred that attractive men would pay. Individuals show condition dependent financial preferences consistent with the provisioning hypothesis in this mating market that are adaptive to evaluations of their own quality and that of prospective partners.     

A Critical Test of Self‐Enhancement,Exposure, and Self‐Categorization Explanations for First‐ and Third‐Person Perceptions

The third‐person perception is the tendency for people to believe that others are more influenced by media content than themselves (W. P. Davison, 1983 ). The current study provides a critical test of self‐enhancement, exposure, and self‐categorization explanations for first‐ (i.e., self more influenced than others) and third‐person perceptions. Male and female participants (N = 323) judged the extent to which pornography elicited“aroused and excited” (i.e., male normative) versus“repulsed and offended” (i.e., female normative) reactions in themselves relative to average men and women. Men perceived an average woman to be more repulsed and offended by pornography than themselves, and women perceived an average man to be more aroused and excited than themselves (i.e., large third‐person perceptions). Further, men perceived themselves to be more aroused and excited by pornography than an average woman (independent of the degree to which pornography was judged as antisocial), and women perceived themselves to be more repulsed and offended than an average man (i.e., large first‐person perceptions). There were relatively small effects for same sex comparisons independent of norm. The pattern and magnitude of first‐ and third‐person perceptions are consistent with self‐categorization theory, irreconcilable with the exposure hypothesis, and difficult to reconcile with the self‐enhancement explanation.     

Social reciprocity in handicapped and nonhandicapped children in a dyadic play situation

Social reciprocity behavior was compared for handicapped and nonhandicapped preschool children when they were in play situations with both handicapped and nonhandicapped partners. In a counterbalanced design, handicapped and nonhandicapped children were paired with both handicapped and nonhandicapped play partners, and the social initiation and response sequences of the dyads were observed. Types of initiation observed were friendly statements, friendly questions, mildly negative advances, and demanding statements. Friendly, ignoring, and negative responses were observed to these initiations. Handicapped and nonhandicapped children did not differ on overall number of initiations. However, they did differ on the types of initiation they made. Handicapped children asked fewer friendly questions and engaged in more demanding initiations than expected. Both groups made more initiations when paired with handicapped partners than when paired with nonhandicapped partners, but the groups did not differ on the types of initiation made to handicapped and nonhandicapped partners. The handicapped children made more ignoring and negative responses to friendly initiations than the nonhandicapped children. Behaving similarly, both groups tended to respond negatively to negative and demanding initiations.     

GENDER AND THE USE OF SEXUALLY DEGRADING LANGUAGE

Based on feminist social constructionist theory, it was proposed that the sexual language women and men used would reflect male sexual power over women through degradation and objectification. In the first study, 79 women and 88 men (36 of whom were fraternity members) reported anonymously on the sexual language they used. The strongest effects found were that men (particularly those in a fraternity) were likely to use sexually degrading terms to refer to female genitals. Men were more likely than women to use aggressive terms to refer to copulation. In a second study, 56 women and 47 men college participants listened to a conversation between either two women or two men in which they were talking about having sex with someone they just met the night before. The speaker either used more degrading or less degrading language. In general, people judged anyone who used degrading language negatively. The person who was the object in the more degrading conversation compared to the less degrading conversation was judged as less intelligent and less moral. The results suggest that gender is associated with the sexual language people use, and that the degradation and objectification present in the sexual language men sometimes use might have harmful consequences on the person being objectified.     

The effect of race,sex, and career goal differences on sex role attitudes at home and at work

Male and female blacks and whites whose career goals differed as to sex role stereotypy were administered two sex role inventories. One measured attitudes toward women's expanding sex roles in the home/personal environment, while the other measured sex role attitudes in the working environment. The major finding of the present study is that black women had more traditional sex role attitudes in the home environment than white women but the same sex role attitudes about working, whereas both black and white women were more liberal in their sex role attitudes in both environments than black and white men.     

Do infants perceive the social robot Keepon as a communicative partner?

This study investigates if infants perceive an unfamiliar agent, such as the robot Keepon, as a social agent after observing an interaction between the robot and a human adult. 23 infants, aged 9–17 month, were exposed, in a first phase, to either a contingent interaction between the active robot and an active human adult, or to an interaction between an active human adult and the non-active robot, followed by a second phase, in which infants were offered the opportunity to initiate a turn-taking interaction with Keepon.The measured variables were: (1) the number of social initiations the infant directed toward the robot, and (2) the number of anticipatory orientations of attention to the agent that follows in the conversation. The results indicate a significant higher level of initiations in the interactive robot condition compared to the non-active robot condition, while the difference between the frequencies of anticipations of turn-taking behaviors was not significant.     

Family perception of rapists and pedophiles.

Previous research indicates that sex offenders were more likely to have been reared in dysfunctional families and to have identified less with their parents than were individuals in most comparison groups. It is unclear whether such failure to identify may be related to the perceived parenting styles and attitudes of the sex offenders' parents. 16 rapists, 18 pedophiles, 9 general offenders, and 11 college students completed the Children's Report of Parental Behavior Inventory to assess perceived parental communication patterns and attitudes. It was predicted that rapists and pedophiles would perceive their parents as (1) having been more rejecting, (2) as having exerted more control while encouraging less autonomy, and (3) as having provided harsher discipline than would individuals in comparison groups. Results supported the first two predictions.     

When Compensation Fails: Mediating Effects of Sex and Locus of Control at Extended Interaction Distances

Male and female physiological, social, and emotional responses were examined at an interpersonal distance beyond that which is typically chosen for conversation in order to test an extension of an equilibrium theory of social intimacy. This model posits that beyond a critical discomfort level, compensatory processes are relatively ineffective in restoring a desired level of involvement. The results of the present study strongly support the prediction that people experience much discomfort and react negatively when interacting at an interpersonal distance outside of the compensatory range—that is, the area within which adjustments in behavior on dimensions other than distance can restore a preferred level of involvement for an interaction. Further, two individual difference variables, sex and locus of control, were found to mediate stress reactions at the inappropriate distance, with women and individuals characterized by an internal locus-of-control being more negatively affected by these environmental conditions.     

Something in the way we move: Motion dynamics, not perceived sex, influence head movements in conversation

During conversation, women tend to nod their heads more frequently and more vigorously than men. An individual speaking with a woman tends to nod his or her head more than when speaking with a man. Is this due to social expectation or due to coupled motion dynamics between the speakers? We present a novel methodology that allows us to randomly assign apparent identity during free conversation in a video-conference, thereby dissociating apparent sex from motion dynamics. The method uses motion-tracked synthesized avatars that are accepted by naive participants as being live video. We find that 1) motion dynamics affect head movements but that apparent sex does not; 2) judgments of sex are driven almost entirely by appearance; and 3) ratings of masculinity and femininity rely on a combination of both appearance and dynamics. Together, these findings are consistent with the hypothesis of separate perceptual streams for appearance and biological motion. In addition, our results are consistent with a view that head movements in conversation form a low level perception and action system that can operate independently from top-down social expectations.     

Sex differences in student dominance behavior in female and male professors' classrooms

Measures of verbal participation and interaction among graduate students provided a comparison of male and female dominance behavior in the classroom, and measures of the contextual effect of sex of professor provided further data on the interrelatedness of sex, status, and dominance behavior. Male students were found to exhibit significantly more aggressiveness (interruptive behavior) than female students in both male and female professors' classes, although significantly more male aggressiveness occurred in female professors' classes than in male professors classes. Male students were significantly more assertive (frequency and duration of speech) in female professors' classes only. In student-to-student interaction, aggressiveness was predominantly exchanged between sexes rather than among same-sex members.The author would like to thank Julie Parks and Joanie Rubin for their help with this research.     

The role of teachers' perceived control and children's characteristics in interactions between 6-year-olds and their teachers

The study aimed at an understanding of child-teacher interactions in school preparatory classrooms. Relations between observed interactions and sex of the child, teachers' ratings of their perceived control, and of children's undercontrolled and overcontrolled problem behaviors, social competence and work efficiency were studied. Thirty-six teachers and 92 six-year-olds, 39 girls and 53 boys, from 19 classrooms were directly observed on 2-5 occasions during a total mean of 60 minutes per child. The results showed that interactions involving teacher support behaviors were the most common, but comparatively less well explained by the predictors. Associations were found between perceived control and two types of teacher command interactions. For teacher commands initiated by child externalizing behavior, the relation with perceived control was shown to hold for boys only. Male sex and rated undercontrolled problems were predictive of more interactions initiated with externalizing behaviors and also of more restrictive teacher responses following child positive behaviors. Overcontrolled children, who had teachers high in perceived control, were more often met with support behavior when they were off-task. It was concluded that teacher perceptions of control and of child behaviors as well as sex of the child contribute to ongoing processes in preschool classrooms and that the chosen methodology could be used to further the search for factors affecting interactions in preschool settings.     

Sex-role behavior and obedience to authority: A field study

Obedience by male and female subjects to male and female experimenters was investigated under various conditions of “perceived legitimacy.” The procedure involved an experimenter stopping a subject who was about to cross a street at a particular crosswalk, the subject was then instructed to cross at another designated location. The dependent variable was the level of obedience to these instructions. The four main factorial independent variables were the sex of the experimenter, the sex of the subject, and two conditions of “perceived legitimacy” (presence or absence of a “uniform,” presence or absence of an “explanation”). Significant results were obtained for the uniform and sex of subject main effects (more obedience with a uniform, more disobedience by females). Additional analyses indicated that “older” subjects disobeyed more often than “younger” ones, that “formally” dressed subjects disobeyed more often than “informally” dressed ones, and that ethnic minority group experimenters were disobeyed significantly more often than Caucasian experimenters. Significant interactions were also obtained, mainly due to the behavior of the younger men and the older women. Male and female experimenters were obeyed equally, in general. The results are discussed in relation to sex-role prejudice and discriminatory behavior.     

Sex Differences in Mothers' Speech and Play Behavior with 6-, 9-, and 14-Month-Old Infants

In this study, we analyzed mothers' speech and play behavior with their 6-, 9-, and 14-month-old sons and daughters. Thirty-six infant–mother dyads participated in a 10-min free-play session with gender-neutral toys. No sex differences were found in the infants' behavior, but sex differences were found in mothers' verbal behavior and level of engagement. Mothers of daughters made more interpretations and engaged in more conversation with their daughters, whereas mothers of sons made more comments and attentionals, which were typified by instructions rather than conversation. Furthermore, mothers interacted more with their daughters than with their sons across all ages. Overall, these results demonstrate that mothers transmit different messages to their male and female infants, both through language and interaction, which may contribute to infants' gender role development.     

An investigation of the effects of sex of self and other on perceptions of communication satisfaction

This study examined the effects of sex of self and other on communication satisfaction. Respondents rated perceived satisfaction with a conversation they had just completed or one they recalled. Communication satisfaction was operationalized by a 60-item self-report instrument. Results indicated that a person's own gender does not influence the amount of communication satisfaction one experiences, and mixed sex dyads are slightly more satisfying for males and females.     

Responses to the Stigmatized: Disjunctions in Affect, Cognitions, and Behavior

This study examined affective, cognitive, and behavioral responses to members of a stigmatized group – homosexual men. Male participants were placed in a situation in which they anticipated interacting with a gray or a non-stigmatized conversation partner. The topic of the impending conversation was either potentially threatening or non-threatening. Participants in the gay conversation partner condition sat either farther away from the conversation partner (in the threat condition) or closer to the conversation partner (in the no-threat condition) than they did from non-stigmatized conversation partners. There were no differences in attitudes toward the conversation partner as a function of experimental condition. The results were interpreted in terms of predictions based on ambivalence-amplification theory, aversive racism theory, and the integrated threat theory.     

Withdraw or affiliate? The role of humiliation during initiation rituals

Initiation rituals can take different forms and empirical evidence is inconsistent as to whether these rituals promote affiliation among novices. We argue that experienced humiliation during initiations leads to less affiliation among novices, in particular when one is initiated as sole group member rather than as part of the group. We examined this hypothesis in three studies, using different paradigms. In Study 1 (N = 123), perceived severity of an initiation in the past was associated with lower affiliation with other novices; this relationship was mediated by experienced humiliation. Study 2 (N = 64) showed that public derogation in the lab led to more humiliation when participants were the only victim than when they were derogated as a group. Study 3 (N = 248), a vignette study, showed that a similar effect of social context was mediated by expected support from other novices. We conclude that severe initiations may, due to experienced humiliation, result in less rather than more affiliation with fellow novices.     

The impact of socially conveyed norms on the reporting of sexual behavior and attitudes by men and women

This study explored the impact of verbally-conveyed social norms on college students’ reports of sexual behavior and attitudes. Some participants overheard a staged conversation that enforced conservative or permissive social norms. Men and women in the permissive condition were more likely to report extradyadic involvement than those in the conservative condition. Men in the conservative condition reported an older age at first intercourse and fewer lifetime and one-time only sexual partners than did men who did not overhear a conversation. Men’s and women’s reports of sexual attitudes were unaffected by the manipulation. That a transient social norm had an impact on reports of sexual behavior lends support to the notion that some apparent sex differences in sexual behavior are at least partially reporting differences due to the influence of differential social norms. Sexual attitudes were less influenced by the social context, suggesting that attitudinal sex differences may be more robust.