Computer-Assisted Concept Analysis of HCR's First 25 Years

Human Communication Research's (HCR) silver anniversary provides an occasion for an examination of the journal's history of publication. This was accomplished using new procedures for computer-assisted content analysis of text. Titles of 634 HCR articles were normalized using linguistic reduction, elimination of common words and terms with indiscriminate meaning, and tokenization of phrases and compound concepts. The resulting 86 most frequently occurring tokens were submitted to hierarchical cluster analysis to study conceptual linkage. Concepts represented in HCR articles were found to group into five large clusters: media, family, conflict, and learning; culture, social organization, and self; gender and language; cognition, conversation, persuasion, and influence; and group decision making. Support and clarification are provided for findings that HCR serves as a liaison journal between mass and interpersonal communication. It is suggested that HCR's history of publication manifests a theory of communication that is rooted in social psychological traditions.     

Job Motivations of Professional and Technical Contingent Workers: Are They Different From Permanent Workers?

In the United States and Europe, the fastest growing segments of the temporary or contingent workforce have been In professional and technical fields. Yet little is known of the motivations of these workers. Accordingly, the authors administered the Hackman and Oldham (1980) Job Diagnostic Survey to professional and technical contingent and permanent employees of a major U.S. telecommunications company. Contingent workers had higher motivation potential scores, scored significantly higher in task identity and feedback from the job, and scored higher In combined need strength than did the permanent workers. The findings suggest that contingents can be a rich source of motivated workers.     

With Onions and Tears: A Multidimensional Analysis of a Counter-Ritual

“Family rituals” and “family myths” are useful concepts for understanding some of the behavior of disturbed families and hence for planning therapeutic interventions. A case of a family of a schizophrenic patient is described in which a “counter-ritual” involving onion-peeling to induce tearing was invented. The intervention addressed the family's inappropriate laughter and denial of sadness and seemed to lead to therapeutic gains for the identified patient and the family. This counter-ritual, as an indirect affect-inducing experience, is analyzed from a variety of perspectives and a partial parallel is drawn to an Iranian cultural ritual. A suggestion is made that more light may be shed on the mechanisms and structures of myths and rituals in families by drawing on studies of myths and rituals in ethnography. “Counter-ritual” is offered as a general concept for a type of active family intervention that involves inventing and employing rituals antithetical to pathological ones engaged in by some families.     

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PAY-FOR-PERFORMANCE PERCEPTIONS AND PAY SATISFACTION

A study was conducted with 104 hospital employees to assess the relationship between pay-for-performance perceptions and pay satisfaction. Unlike previous research examining this relationship, a multi-item measure of pay-for-performance perceptions and a multidimensional measure of pay satisfaction were used. As hypothesized, the results indicated a positive relationship between pay-for-performance perceptions and pay-raise satisfaction, pay-level satisfaction, and overall pay satisfaction even after the effects of salary level, salary increases, performance ratings, job tenure, job satisfaction, and promotions were controlled. The importance of gathering perceptual data on characteristics of the pay system believed to have differential relationships with the subdimensions of pay satisfaction are discussed.