Getting Down to Business Talk,Gaze, and Body Orientation During Openings of Doctor-Patient Consultations

This study examines the openings of British general-practice medical consultations. The authors use conversation analysis to analyze how doctors' and patients' practices of gaze and body orientation organize interaction such that doctors routinely initiate the sequence wherein patients disclose their chief complaint. Gaze and body orientation communicate levels of engagement with and disengagement from courses of action. As doctors and patients accomplish regular tasks preparatory to dealing with patients'chief complaints, doctors use gaze and body orientation to communicate that they are preparing but are not yet ready to deal with those compkints. In response, patients wait for their doctors to solicit their chief complaint. These findings have implications for research on nonverbal communication, interactional asymmetry, and power.     

Impact of Behavioral Intention on Effectiveness of Message Features Evidence From the Family Sun Safety Project

The effectiveness of messages with different logical styles might change, regardless of factual content, depending on receiver intent to practice prevention. Predictions based on reactance theory, postdecisional regret, and language expectancy theory were tested in a study altering logical style (inductive versus deductive) and language intensity in messages to parents advocating family sun safety. A prediction that deductively formatted messages would be inferior for parents not intending to act was confirmed in analyses of their reported sun protection, supporting a reactance theory explanation. For parents with mixed intentions to increase protection for themselves or their children, deductive messages were most effective, consistent with postdecisional regret processes. High language intensity enhanced both effects. Reactance effects among nonintenders completely disappeared in a follow-up survey, but language intensity effects remained. The influence of message features varies by stage of progression to action, which has practical implications for tailoring health communication to individual needs.     

RELATIONAL MESSAGES ASSOCIATED WITH NONVERBAL BEHAVIORS

Based on the assumptions that relational messages are multidimensional and that they are frequently communicated by nonverbal cues, this experiment manipulated five nonverbal cues -eye contact, proximity, body lean, smiling, and touch - to determine what meanings they convey along four relational message dimensions. Subjects (N= 150) observed 2 out of 40 videotaped conversational segments in which a male-female dyad presented various combinations of the nonverbal cues. High eye contact, close proximity, forward body lean, and smiling all conveyed greater intimacy, attraction, and trust. Low eye contact, a distal position, backward body lean, and the absence of smiling and touch communicated greater detachment. High eye contact, close proximity, and smiling also communicated less emotional arousal and greater composure, while high eye contact and close proximity alone conveyed greater dominance and control. Effects of combinations of cues and sex-differences are also reported.     

Covenantal and contractual values in marriage: Marital Values Orientation toward Wedlock or Self‐actualization (Marital VOWS) Scale

Cultural constructions of marriage have developed to form 2 marital values orientations. These marital values can be understood along a continuum from covenantal at 1 pole to contractual at the other pole. Covenantal marital values prioritize individual sacrifice for the marriage to promote marital health, commitment, and vow taking to resolve conflict, the collective dyad as the primary unit of the marriage, and often spiritual intervention as a primary means of restoring order. Contractual marital values prioritize individual self‐actualization to promote marital health, negotiation, and mutual agreement to resolve conflict, the individual as the primary unit of the marriage, and clinical and psychological interventions as a primary means of restoring order. The authors developed a 26‐item scale to measure contractual and covenantal marital values. In 3 studies examining a total of 786 student and community participants, the factor structure of the scale was evaluated, and convergent and discriminant construct validity, item internal consistency, and 4‐week test–retest reliability were examined.