ON LINKING SOCIAL PERFORMANCE WITH SOCIAL COMPETENCE: SOME RELATIONS BETWEEN COMMUNICATIVE STYLE AND ATTRIBUTIONS OF INTERPERSONAL ATTRACTIVENESS AND EFFECTIVENESS

This paper attempts to explore the process of impression formation in initial interactions as a function of an individual's communicative style. Specifically, an attempt is made to identify relations between communication style and observers'perceptions of an interactant's interpersonal attractiveness and communicative effectiveness. Current literature pertaining to communicative competence and literature pertaining to communicator style are reviewed, and an attempt is made to demonstrate their interconnectedness. A precise method for the measurement of communicative/interactive style is described. Subsequently, a study designed to empirically assess the relation between style and perceived attractiveness and communicative effectiveness, in which the above measurement system was employed, is also described. The results indicate that there are at least two interactive styles which are related to two types of perceived attractiveness and effectiveness. The implications of the findings and some suggestions for future inquiry in the areas of communicative style and social competence are discussed.     

An Analysis of Early vs. Later Responses on a Divergent Production Task Across Three Time Press Conditions

Traditional assessments of divergent production have employed standard time press conditions of three minutes for measures of fluency, flexibility, and originality. Recent studies have provided evidence that the traditional time press condition may impede both fluency and quality of responses and that differences in divergent production responses have been found under a variety of creative prompting conditions. The purpose of the present study was to examine the effects of three time press and three creative prompt conditions on early vs. later trial originality scores for three divergent production stimuli. The participants were 91 undergraduate students enrolled in Educational Psychology courses who were randomly assigned to one of six experimental groups. The six groups were counterbalanced across the three vignette tasks in time press requirements and creative prompting. Aggregate differences were found in which there was a higher frequency of originality scores for the latter portions of trials as compared with the early portion of trials for all time press and prompting conditions.     

ASSESSING THE EFFECT OF COHORT,GENDER, AND RACE ON DIFFERENTIAL ITEM FUNCTIONING (DIF) IN AN ADAPTIVE TEST DESIGNED FOR MULTI-AGE GROUPS

Differential item functioning (DIF) statistics were computed using items from the Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT)-Reading Comprehension subtest for children of the same age group (ages 7 through 12 respectively). The pattern of observed DIF items was determined by comparing each cohort across age groups. Differences related to race and gender were also identified within each cohort. Characteristics of DIF items were identified based on sentence length, vocabulary frequency, and density of a sentence. DIF items were more frequently associated with short sentences than with long sentences. This study explored the potential limitation in the longitudinal use of items in an adaptive test.