A Cylindrical Model of Communication Behavior in Crisis Negotiations

This article integrates existing theoretical perspectives on message content and negotiator motivation to formulate a comprehensive definitional model of the interrelationships among communication behaviors in crisis negotiation. A sample of 189 nuclear dialogue spans were transcribed from 9 resolved cases of hostage negotiation and each utterance coded at the level of thought units across 41 behavioral variables. Results of a nonmetric, multidimensional scaling solution provided clear support for the hypothesized cylindrical structure of communication behavior, revealing 3 dominant levels of suspect‐negotiator interaction (Avoidance, Distributive, Integrative). At each level of the structure, interactions were found to modulate around 3 thematic styles of communication (Identity, Instrumental, Relational), which reflected the underlying motivational emphasis of individuals' dialogue. Finally, the intensity of communication was found to play a polarizing role in the cylinder, with intense, functionally discrete behaviors occurring toward the boundary of the structure.     

Effects of facial attractiveness and gender on causal attributions of managerial performance

The present study examined the effect of facial attractiveness and gender on raters' evaluations of and explanations for managerial performance. Results showed attractiveness to be a potential liability for both males and females. Good performance of attractive females was more likely than that of others to be attributed to luck or bias, while that of attractive males was viewed as occurring with little effort. In addition, the poor performance of attractive individuals was blamed on lack of effort (females) or lack of ability (males). Implications of these findings are discussed.An earlier version of this paper was published in the 1986 Proceedings of the Southern Management Association.     

Effect of a means-end contingency on young children's food preferences.

This study showed that a means-end relationship between two snacks exerts a negative influence on preference for the means snack in the contingency. Two snacks ranked of approximately equal medium appeal were individually chosen from an array by each of 86 children (ages 4 years, 4 months to 7 years, 2 months). Children were then assigned to a means-end condition (where one snack was eaten as a means of gaining the other), a temporal order control group (where one snack was presented and eaten before the other), or a mere exposure control group (where the children chose the order in which they ate the two snacks). Post-treatment rankings of the snacks showed that children in the means-end group came to devalue the means snack relative to the reward snack, despite the demonstrably equal prior appeal of the two snacks. Children in the temporal order and mere exposure control groups did not come to prefer the two snacks preferentially. Implications of the finding that adults can affect children's preferences by relatively minor variations in the manner of presentation are discussed.     

Relationship between affect and memory: motivation-based selective generation.

Two experiments examined the influence of anger and retaliatory motivation on memory for negative material. In the 1st study, 60 male undergraduates memorized words with positive, negative, and neutral semantic connotations. It was found that angered men who expected to retaliate against their provocateur recalled more negative words than other words, and more than Ss in all other affect and evaluation conditions. Angered men in the nonretaliation condition displayed no differences in negative word recall. The 2nd experiment investigated memory for details of a provoking experience. Angered men who expected to retaliate more accurately recalled the details of their provocation, but whether they were given the retaliation information before or after provocation had no bearing on memory for these details. Results are discussed in terms of a motivation-based selective generation hypothesis for the relationship between anger and memory.     

Inequalities of power and sexual problems

The proposition that sexual problems can emerge as a response to structural inequalities of power is explored by reference to a case which forms part of our current clinical work and research in this area. It is suggested that inequalities of power between heterosexual partners and societal 'discourses' which support the use of sexuality, predominantly by women, as an influence strategy, can serve to promote the development and maintenance of sexual symptoms as forms of covert power struggles. An integration is attempted of systemic and feminist theories with some practical suggestions for therapists working with couples with sexual problems.