On Bridging the Communication Gap

While we endorse recent calls for greater collaboration between mass communication and interpersonal communication researchers, in this response we delineate four factors that account for the relative lack of integration of these two areas of communication inquiry. The social policy focus of mass communication research, the high level of public concern over media effects, a variety of methodological cleavages, and different cognate field referents are cited as forces that support segregation of the two research areas. The recent turn to cognitive explanations of communication in both of these domains may create the climate necessary for meaningful collaboration between researchers.     

SLCA III: A METATHEORETIC APPROACH TO THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE

Discourse analysis is a fundamental concern for the study of human communication, accessible through an analysis of language behavior. A theoretic basis is provided for eight variable classes identified by Syntactic Language Computer Analysis (SLCA-III). Numerous empirical studies support its utility as an indicator of perception and cognition. Issues are raised regarding the role of language research in communication. Emphasis is placed on treatment of language as a behavioral indicator of experience, fluctuating as a barometer of social roles, psychological states, communication disorders, and communication mode.     

SOCIAL COMMUNICATIVE ANXIETY AND THE PERSONNEL SELECTION PROCESS: TESTING THE SIMILARITY EFFECT IN SELECTION DECISIONS

Three studies tested competing predictions about the role of similarity in personnel selection decisions. Previous research suggests a significant role for applicant-selector similarity in the determination of selection decisions. Applicants who are similar to selectors are evaluated, by selectors, more positively than dissimilar applicants. The current investigations found that when the object of similarity is the applicant's and selector's level of anxiety, this relationship fails to appear. Regardless of the selector's own level of anxiety, the high anxious applicant is less positively evaluated than the low anxious one. This effect appears even when the communication demands of the position are specified.     

An Indirect Argument for Strategic Voting

abstract   A common bit of public political wisdom advises that in certain three-way elections, one should cast a strategic vote for one of the top two candidates rather than a conscience-driven vote for a third candidate, since doing otherwise amounts to 'throwing one's vote away'. In this paper, I examine the possible justifications for this pragmatic advice to vote strategically. I argue that the most direct argument behind such advice fails to motivate strategic voting in large-scale elections, since there is no significant chance that one's own vote will alter the outcome of the election, even in plausible close-call cases. In short, the lack of probable pragmatic effect undermines the pragmatic motivation for altering one's baseline voting behavior. However, an indirect argument succeeds in motivating strategic voting in some scenarios. Such an indirect argument relies on the possibility of one acquiring an obligation to engage in public strategic campaigning for one of the top two candidates. In many cases in which one strategically campaigns, one will, indirectly, acquire an obligation to vote strategically in accord with one's prior public campaign activities. Thus, the common bit of political wisdom about strategic voting can be justified, though only indirectly.     

College Students' Reactions to the Criteria Recommended for Selecting Employment Referents

This investigation offers a concise review of the literature concerning the selection of employment referents and tests the extent to which college students value the recommended selection criteria.