THE CONCEPTUALIZATION AND MEASUREMENT OF INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION SATISFACTION

The development and testing of a measure of interpersonal communication satisfaction is reported. In the first stage, Likert-style items were constructed from two types of questionnaires, face-to-face interviews, and previous empirical and theoretical work in the satisfaction field. During the second stage, items were tested by applying them to ideally satisfying and dissatisfying conversations. The third stage consisted of further item analyses and factor analysis. The final stage generated reliability and validity information. The resulting 19-item, unidimensional inventory exhibited a high degree of reliability and validity when used to measure communication satisfaction with actual and recalled conversations with another perceived to be a friend, acquaintance, or stranger.     

IS CONSTRUCT DIFFERENTIATION LOQUACITY?

Recent studies have indicated that cognitive complexity scores, based on the quantity of constructs embedded in written essays, correlate significantly with the total number of words contained in the response. As a consequence, a controversy involving whether loquacity rather than cognitive complexity has been measured by such scoring procedures has emerged. In this study (1) the premise is advanced that the quantity of constructs approach represents subjects' willingness to write rather than personal construct systems or construal processes, (2) loquacity is explained in terms of motivational variables rather than construal processes and (3) two separate studies test the motivational hypothesis. Results of study J indicate that subjects promised credit for rigor write more words and more constructs than did their non-motivated counterparts. Moreover, the results of study 2 demonstrate that writing apprehension scores and self-reports of situational motivation predict both loquacity and cognitive complexity scores. These findings support a motivational hypothesis regarding loquacity and raise serious questions concerning cognitive complexity measurement.     

THE MEDIATION OF RESISTANCE TO PERSUASION STRATEGIES BY LANGUAGE VARIABLES AND ACTIVE-PASSIVE PARTICIPATION

This investigation attempted to confer resistance to persuasion by inoculating people with either supportive, refutational, or combination pretreatment messages. Following inoculation, subjects either passively received a high or low intense attack message or actively encoded a message of high or low intensity. As predicted, there was a significant interaction between type of attack and level of language intensity. Discussion centered on the effects of language intensity as a mediator of attitude change in yet another persuasive paradigm.     

Social Risk and Attribution: How Considering the Social Risk of Attributions Can Improve the Performance of Kelley's ANOVA Model in Applied Research

Classic models of attribution are increasingly used, despite serious problems with their empirical validation. This study revisits Kelley's (1967 ) ANOVA model of attribution and argues that it will most usefully predict attributions when attributional processes are socially “safe” and have few social consequences. The results demonstrate that attributions are most likely to be inconsistent with Kelley's predictions when attributional information and the attributions themselves are socially consequential or risky, but are more likely to be made as predicted when they are socially safe. Applications of Kelley's model, therefore, should pay attention to the extent to which attributions and attributional information are socially consequential or risky, particularly when analyzing the use of consensus information.     

TELL ME SOME MORE: EXPLORING HOW VERBAL ABILITY AND ITEM VERIFIABILITY INFLUENCE RESPONSES TO BIODATA QUESTIONS IN A HIGH‐STAKES SELECTION CONTEXT

Although self‐rated or self‐scored selection measures are commonly used in selection contexts, they are potentially susceptible to applicant response distortion or faking. The response elaboration technique (RET), which requires job applicants to provide supporting information to justify their responses, has been identified as a potential way to minimize applicant response distortion. In a large‐scale, high‐stakes selection context (N= 16,304), we investigate the extent to which RET affects responding on a biodata test as well as the underlying reasons for any potential effect. We find that asking job applicants to elaborate their responses leads to overall lower scores on a biodata test. Item verifiability affects the extent to which RET decreases faking, which we suggest is due to increased accountability. In addition, verbal ability was more strongly related to biodata item scores when items require elaboration, although the effect of verbal ability was small. The implications of these findings for reducing faking in personnel selection are delineated.     

NEWTON AND KANT: QUANTITY OF MATTER IN THE METAPHYSICAL FOUNDATIONS OF NATURAL SCIENCE

Immanuel Kant's Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science (1786) provides metaphysical foundations for the application of mathematics to empirically given nature. The application that Kant primarily has in mind is that achieved in Isaac Newton's Principia (1687). Thus, Kant's first chapter, the Phoronomy, concerns the mathematization of speed or velocity, and his fourth chapter, the Phenomenology, concerns the empirical application of the Newtonian notions of true or absolute space, time, and motion. This paper concentrates on Kant's second and third chapters—the Dynamics and the Mechanics, respectively—and argues that they are best read as providing a transcendental explanation of the conditions for the possibility of applying the (mathematical) concept of quantity of matter to experience. Kant again has in mind the empirical measures of this quantity that Newton fashions in the Principia, and he aims to make clear, in particular, how Newton achieves a universal measure for all bodies whatsoever by projecting the static quantity of terrestrial weight into the heavens by means of the theory of universal gravitation. Kant is not attempting to prove a priori what Newton has established empirically but, rather, to clarify the character of Newton's mathematization by building Newton's empirical measures into the very concept of matter that is articulated in the Metaphysical Foundations.     

God's Free Grace and the Freedom of the Church: Theological Aspects of the Barmen Declaration

This article explores the fundamental theological decisions of the ‘six evangelical truths’ of the Barmen Theological Declaration of 1934 on the occasion of its 75th anniversary. Seeing it in close proximity to the theology of Karl Barth, the essay considers in turn the substance and ongoing significance of the Declaration's reaffirmation of the First Commandment, its iteration of the threefold form of the Word of God, its repudiation of natural theology, its ringing affirmation of the positive freedom of the church and, finally, its ecumenical importance as an impulse to Christian unity.