LIMITING THE SCOPE OF THE SPACIAL MODEL OF COMMUNICATION EFFECTS1

An experiment tested the hypothesis that cognitive change resulting from information inputs can be represented as linear motion of concepts in multidimensional space. The theoretical background is reviewed and the mathematical derivation of the hypothesis is given. A set of 15 nations was scaled using Woelfel's Galileo system of multidimensional scaling. Experimental messages were introduced and the posttest interconcept distances compared with those predicted by theory. The crucial partial correlations were low, a failure to confirm the hypothesis. Secondary analyses suggested that the failure may have resulted from inadequate control of message content and failure to ensure that the concepts scaled compose a cognitive domain. The theory made better predictions for a subset of the concepts that might be a domain.     

Moralism and Morally Accountable Beings

abstract In this paper I consider the nature of the purported vice of moralism by examining two examples that, I suggest, exemplify this vice: the first from Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter; the second from David Owen's account of his experience as European negotiator between the warring parties in the former Yugoslavia. I argue that in different ways both these examples show the kind of human weakness or failure that is involved in the most extreme version of moralism, a weakness that involves an inability to see or acknowledge those one seeks to judge as real, morally accountable, human beings.     

THE DISCOURSE OF REQUESTS

A corpus of transcribed, oral requests used in a previous study of compliance-gaining strategies (Tracy, Craig, Smith, & Spisak, 1984) is examined interpretively from the perspective of the politeness theory of Brown and Levinson (1978). Findings include the following: (1) politeness strategies occur in great abundance and variety; (2) superstrategies are mixed in varyingly skillful ways; (3) goals are accomplished through multifunctional discourse; (4) the interpretation of politeness strategies confronts several kinds of indeterminacy; (5) facework strategies that fall outside the scope of the politeness theory, including aggravation and speaker-oriented strategies, are much in evidence. In response to the several theoretical problems that emerge in the course of the analysis, six tenets on which to build a new theory of facework are proposed.