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The paper explored the extent to which hospital appointed official root cause analysis (RCA) panels consider antecedent and proximal events when they investigate communication related sentinel events (CRSEs) in hospitals. It also explored which CRSEs are most common in the hospital setting in Hong Kong and the communication modes most commonly associated with CRSEs. The data consisted of Risk Alert and Annual Report on SEs issued by the Hong Kong Hospital Authority from October 2007 to September 2017. Over the period studied, there were 379 reported sentinel events (SEs). In 186 of these SEs we identified communication as a contributing factor. We examined the RCA panels' reports on contributing factors and subsequent recommendations in these 186 SEs and found that their recommendations only highlighted the proximal contributing factors and not antecedent factors that may be relevant. RCA panels most often recommended that communication should be enhanced or documentation improved. We propose that it is time to review the RCA process to recognize that many CRSEs may occur because of antecedent factors that result from the complex hospital organizational structure and its associated hierarchical culture. We suggest two ways forward, 1) applying a language and social psychology perspective to the investigations of CRSEs and, 2) the involvement of experts from different disciplines who can work with clinicians during RCA investigations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I address the relation between second person and third person attributions of mental states suggesting that, in their simpler forms, both the second and the third person have in common the possibility of non-inferential attribution via embodied mentalism. Such public availability and transparency is not distinctive of, or derived from, second person attributions, but a property of embodied mentalism irrespective of the "person" it is expressed in. Moreover, I will argue that second person intentional relations, like their third person counterparts, contain opaque mentalistic elements. These are not due to their combination with third person attributions, but are primary constituents of the second person. Indeed, learning about the opacity of mental states may be one of the outcomes and benefits of second person interaction. What is distinctive of second person attributions is the peculiar structure of the intentional relations they generate. In reciprocal interactions between two organisms, which have a long evolutionary history (e.g., mating, predator/prey interactions), two lines of intentionality collide generating, on the one hand, an interactive structure that contains implicitly the cognitive structure of Gricean intentionality, and on the other a set of unique first-person ("ostensive") experiences that derive from a long evolutionary history of behavioural and expressive mechanisms linked to social interaction. I develop these ideas in the framework of an outline of the evolutionary origins of second person intentionality in nonhuman animals and how it led to the sort of second person intentionality that occurs in human interaction and communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Self‐deprecation' (SD) is widely understood within social psychology and popular culture as a form of self‐talk that reflects a cognitive state, such as low self‐esteem or negative self‐regard. However, most research on SD suffers theoretical and methodological problems that fail to account for how its cognitive and linguistic aspects can be reconciled. We know little about SD as it occurs in interactional settings. Utilizing a conversation analytic (CA) perspective that brackets cognitive explanations for linguistic phenomena, this paper draws on more than 100 hours of transcribed recordings of interactions from diverse settings to systematically examine the form and function of a common class of SD: critical comments by a speaker on their current talk or actions (self‐deprecatory meta‐comments; SDMCs). Analyses demonstrate that SDMCs are used in environments of possible or actual interactional trouble, and manage this trouble in different sequential positions. The paper shows that SDs can be treated as a communication practice. Rigorous analysis of SDMCs can enrich understanding of the construction of 'identities' in talk. It advances a CA understanding of the ascription of social actions, and the preference for self‐criticism over criticism by others. Findings suggest that widespread advice to self‐deprecate less may be invalid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Every day we trust other individuals as we engage in social interactions in which various desirable outcomes depend on others acting the way we hope, or they have indicated. Trust extends beyond specific individuals, however, as we might trust unknown others – individuals, institutions, corporations, and governments. Some also say that we trust various artifacts, such as machines. But what is the basis of trust, and can we really trust technology? Trust is intimately connected to the notion ethos from the study of rhetoric and human persuasion, which is often used to describe various characteristics of the speaker, the audience, the relationship between the speaker and the audience, and the wider context in which communication and interaction occurs. In this article I explore to what degree machines can be considered to have ethos, and consequently whether ethos is a useful concept for understanding persuasive and credibility-related situations in HMI and by extension key aspects of human-machine trust. This allows us to draw on a long lineage of research from, for example, rhetoric, communication studies, and cognitive and social psychology to better understand the usefulness – or not – of using the notion of trust to describe our relationship with machines. • Trust in machines partly parallels trust in humans, institutions, and artifacts. • Ethos, from rhetoric, relates to credibility and trust in human-machine interaction. • This paper explores if machines can have ethos, and how this relates to trust. • Machine ethos is about perceived credibility and not the machine's ethics. • Examining ethos enriches understanding of trust and design in HMI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lie detection is an important skill for any representative of the law involved in the interview and interrogation process. Unfortunately, there is much misinformation regarding what type of lie detection methods work. This paper is a review of the most important psychosocial criminal research on lie detection and identification the most effective methods. The method of lie detection by reading facial expressions (particularly micro-expressions) is with the conclusion that it is not an effective method. I propose that, considering what the scientific research has unveiled thus far, lie detection methods based on thorough information gathering and comparative analysis work best. Finally, I provide some specific recommendations on effective ways to apply such methods during the interview and interrogation process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since publication of Unequal Treatment by the Institute of Medicine in 2003, there has been a growing recognition of the role of provider implicit racial bias in patient care. Provider implicit racial bias has been consistently negatively associated with both care satisfaction and provider trust among racial/ethnic minority patients. This suggests provider implicit racial bias likely manifests through their communication behaviors, which in turn may offer a means of addressing racial disparities in healthcare and ultimately in health. However, identifying provider communication behaviors that mediate the links between provider implicit racial bias and patient outcomes is challenging. In this paper, we argue that identifying these provider communication behaviors requires (1) taking into account findings from social psychology research of implicit racial bias and (2) incorporating the perspectives of racial/ethnic minority patients into patient-provider communication research. We discuss the utility of mixed methods research designs as a framework for resolving this complex scientific question. Research that draws on social psychology research of implicit racial bias and incorporates the racial/ethnic minority patient perspectives can inform the development of communication skills training programs for students and residents in various healthcare fields. Such programs are one element of a broader effort to reduce racial/ethnic disparities in healthcare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The theory of social representations (TSR) and discursive psychology (DP) originated as different social psychological approaches and have at times been presented as incompatible. However, along the years convergence has also been acknowledged, and, lately, most of all, practised. With this paper, we discuss how versions of TSR focusing on self–other relations for examining cultural meaning systems in/through communication, and versions of DP focusing on discourse at cultural, ideological, and interactional levels, can come together. The goal is to help forge a stronger social–psychological exploration of how meaning is constructed and transformed in and through language, discourse, and communication, thus extending current understanding of social change. After presenting a theoretical proposal for integrating those versions of TSR and DP, we offer also an integrated analytical strategy. We suggest that together these proposals can, on one hand, help TSR systematize analyses of social change that are both more critical and better grounded in theorizations of language use, and, on the other, provide DP with analytical tools able to better examine both the relational contexts where the construction and transformation of meaning are performed and their effects on discourse. Finally, we give some illustrations of the use of this analytical strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) are the future of the intelligent transportation systems (ITS), which aim to improve traffic safety. The received message in VANETs can contain the malicious content that may affect the entire network; hence, these networks are more prone to such attacks. Thus, security is a major consideration before the deployment of such network. In this paper, a secure privacy-preserving authentication framework is proposed, which employs the use of pseudonyms for anonymous communication. A new digital signature scheme and aggregate verification scheme are designed for vehicular communications, and the ID-based signature scheme is used for vehicle-to-RSU communication. The multiple authorities are involved in revealing the identity of the vehicle in case of revocation. The signature verification scheme is improved by the use of bloom filters, and the results achieved by the proposed scheme have been implemented on a simulated environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers how the conversational aspects of design may be examined from perspectives associated with micro-sociology/social psychology: Symbolic Interactionism (SI) and Conversation Analysis (CA). Since many aspects of design involve face-to-face talk, this paper argues that an SI-informed CA offers an effective approach to understanding how communication and negotiation are central to design. Through analyzing excerpts of talk (an architect’s meeting with a client, and a design education critique) we can see how the collaborative nature of conversation contributes to understandings and assessments of objects. This discussion outlines how SI and CA can help delineate the processes that link the details of interaction to the wider social conditions and constraints that impact upon the practices and objects of design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the use of impoliteness by Spanish–English bilingual pre-adolescents as a resource for accomplishing identities in spontaneous conversational interactions in an elementary school setting. The theoretical approach employed integrates the concept of relational work (Locher 2004; Locher and Watts 2005), which is based on Goffman's (1967) notion of face and which privileges participants' evaluation of language behavior within the norms of the community of practice, with recent work in sociocultural linguistics (Bucholtz and Hall 2004a, 2004b, 2005). This approach views identity as an interactional achievement reached through the use of what they call tactics of intersubjectivity. In this analysis, negatively marked, non-politic behavior is viewed as an interactional resource, which, along with other resources such as codeswitching, bilingual speakers may employ for the purposes of alignment and stance-taking. Specifically, the paper examines how speakers use strategies referred to as impolite (cf. Culpeper 1996) in the performance of a variety of tactics of intersubjectivity to manage local identities (e.g., leader/follower, insider/outsider) as well as membership in broad social categories (e.g., gender, ethnic identities) in interaction, how they engage in conflict talk and what they gain from it, and how codeswitching is (and is not) used in interactions. This analysis is situated within the wider social context of language politics and immigration politics in the individual school, the region, and the US. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how literature circles work in the context of L2 instruction through a close scrutiny of classroom interactions in an adult ESL class where nine ESL learners read fictional works and discussed the readings. The paper examines the characteristics of student interactions with the literary text and with other group members, focusing on how the interactions relate to the learners' L2 reading experiences and language development. Analysis of discourse of the literature discussions shows that the students developed diverse, insightful responses concerning literal comprehension, personal connections, cross-cultural themes, interpretation, and evaluation of the text. It also reveals that the students were engaged in highly dialogic social interactions in the target language. The findings suggest that the literature discussions helped the students emotionally and intellectually to participate in the literary text, generating an opportunity for enjoyable L2 reading experiences. In addition, the literature discussions contributed to promoting students' L2 communicative competence by offering chances for them to produce extended output. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human interaction and communication involve space in multiple ways. This paper examines the spatial and interactional order of a covertly video-taped police interrogation. When the participants enter the interrogation room and become engaged in the interrogation process, the room itself is a constraint and a resource for interaction. While interacting within a built environment, the participants appropriate their material surroundings in ways that constitute a spatial order and make possible certain arguments. This paper examines how the physical structure of the interrogation room is differentially appropriated, used, and filled in by the participants‘ territorial and postural manoeuvers over the course of their interaction; and how the spatial structures thus created by the bodily appropriation of the physical locale are subsequently formulated by talk and thereby used as a metaphorical resource to frame the participants‘ situated experience. Through this embedded process, the interrogators move the suspect toward confession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstracts of papers presented in the December 2009 issue of the "Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour," which include a paper on radical interactionism, a paper on social representations approach to the communication between different spheres and a paper on the theory of violence.

Every society has it own rules to keep its people together and live in peace. The rules of the society reflect its own characteristics which consist of material and spiritula life. Some of the rules which have power on language are called taboos. Taboos restrict and delimit the use of language, because some use of the words can be considered bad in a soicety. As one of the important linguistic phenomena, euphemism originated from taboo, and is characterized by nationalization, localization and history. It is the substitution of a word of more pleasant connotation for one of unpleasant connotation. Euphemism is important to harmonize interpersonal and interlogical relations. Due to the cultural differences and in many respect similarities, Kazakh euphemism is slightly different from that of Turkish, but they are almost identical in pragmatic functions. Euphemism has numerous pragmatic functions, but five of them are taboo, avoiding vulgarity, concealing, beautification and humor. Euphemism is frenkuently used in daily communications. Using euphemism correctly can create harmonious atmosphere and build good personal relationship. Euphemism is the reflection of society, and its development is closely related to religions, social psychology and politics. In this paper, the constituent ways of euphemism and principles of its use in Kazakh and Turkish will be examined and discuessed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we are developing a reflection that takes the fear as a central connection between the world of news and readers, listeners and viewers. The starting point is the acceptance that such a feeling is a kind of social representation that establishes a kind of consensus among the population, in this special case of Rio de Janeiro, producing meanings of urban space. For both, especially to cause a rapprochement between the fields of communication and psychology, regain some contributions of two famous authors, Mikhail Bakhtin and Lev Vygotsky, particularly with regard to the dimension of culture as a structuring element of social interaction. Secondly, we will consider the question of the centrality of culture, highlighting the ideological struggle around which produces the hegemonic construction of meanings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contrasts two accounts of audience design during multiparty communication: audience design as a strategic individual-level message adjustment or as a non-strategic interaction-level message adjustment. Using a non-interactive communication task, Experiment 1 showed that people distinguish between messages designed for oneself and messages designed for another person; consistent with strategic message design, messages designed for another person/s were longer (number of words) than those designed for oneself. However, audience size did not affect message length (messages designed for different sized audiences were similar in length). Using an interactive communication task Experiment 2 showed that as group size increased so too did communicative effort (number of words exchanged between interlocutors). Consistent with a non-strategic account, as group members were added more social interaction was necessary to coordinate the group's collective situation model. Experiment 3 validates and extends the production measures used in Experiment 1 and 2 using a comprehension task. Taken together, our results indicate that audience design arises as a non-strategic outcome of social interaction during group discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If education tends to be viewed as an antidote to social violence, this paper turns to Freud’s study of the ‘beating fantasy’ to consider the fictional representation of psychical aggression in scenes of schooling and being schooled. It is argued that such representations both express and fend off libidinal passions at the heart of student/teacher relationships, and language itself. Drawing on clinical examples and a controversial piece of student writing, I suggest that the teacher’s greatest emotional challenge will be to read with an eye for the unspoken communication of forbidden desire held in written iterations of Freud’s ‘beating fantasy’, without acting on her own. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the authors bring to the foreground the centrality of communication as an object of Social Psychology. They focus on the analysis of advertisement's communication practices, departing from the exposure of some of their models of signification. They first explain the model for subliminal advertisement followed by the analysis of the model for advertisements based on myth (connotation), underlying the specificity of publicity. In addition, the authors discuss their modus operandi and analyse communication practices approaching the dimension of ethics, which had been placed in the background by the scientific project of modernity. They consider ethics in relation to the concept of consciousness. The authors suggest that a critical analysis of communication through the perspective of Social Psychology should include both the dimension of ethics and its relation to consciousness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the connection between linguistic impoliteness and identity in computer-mediated communication through the examination of reader responses to ideas and views expressed by professional journalists in the online media. The study finds that respondents may use linguistic impoliteness strategically to communicate disagreements, to argue against an out-group's ideological views, or to discredit ideological opponents. The analysis of reader responses within a social psychological theory of identity indicates that the use of impoliteness is linked to the respondent's identification of him/herself with a group and its ideological position and his/her willingness to act toward the achievement of a goal desired within that group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The analysis in this paper centres on an email exchange between a lecturer and a student at the University of Auckland which resulted in the dismissal of that lecturer. This dismissal gave rise to significant controversy, both off- and online, as to whether the email itself was simply “intemperate” and “angry”, or more seriously “offensive” and “racist”. Through a close analysis of the interpretations of the emails by the lecturer and student, as well as online evaluations made on blogs and discussion boards, it becomes apparent that the inherent discursivity of evaluations of impoliteness arises not only from different perceptions of norms, but also from the ways in which commentators position themselves vis-à-vis these evaluations. It also emerges that the relative level of discursive dispute is mediated by the technological and situational characteristics of the CMC medium in which these evaluations occurred. It is concluded that research into various forums of online interaction provides a unique window into the inherent variability and argumentativity of perceptions of offensive behaviour, as a public record of discursive disputes surrounding particular alleged violations of norms of appropriateness can be (re)scrutinized in such forums. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper includes an effort to extend the notion of affordance from a philosophical point of view the importance of ecological approach for social psychology, ethics, and linguistics. Affordances are not always merely physical but also interpersonal and social. I will conceptualize affordance in general and social affordance in particular, and will elucidate the relation between intentional action and affordances, and that between affordances and free will. I will also focus on the relation between social institution and affordance. An extended theory of affordances can provide a way to analyze in concrete ways how social institution works as an implicit background of interpersonal interactions. Ecological approach considers social institution as the producer and maintainer of affordances. Social institutions construct the niches for human beings. Finally, I will argue the possibility of the ecological linguistics. Language is a social institution. The system of signs is the way to articulate and differentiate interpersonal affordances. Language acquires its meaning, i.e. communicative power in the interpersonal interactions, and interpersonal interactions, in turn, develop and are elaborated through the usage of signs. Communication is seen as never aimed to transmit inner ideas to others, but to guide and adjust the behaviors of others thorough articulating the affordance of responsible-ness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public debate about reconciliation in Australia has been polarized by a distinction between the symbolic and the practical. Challenging this false dichotomy, this paper explores courageous listening as a practice that entails both responsiveness and creative action. Although listening can function as a way of responding to the other and expanding the possibility for shared action; it is nonetheless not inherently open or transformative. Indeed, public debate about the Australian federal government's Northern Territory Intervention is examined as a case study that manifests communicative practices which preserve, rather than transform, established hierarchies of attention. The terms of this debate also, however, contain listening practices grounded in the ideal of responsiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is commentary on Cornejo’s Intersubjectivity as co-phenomenology: from the holism to the being-in-the-world-with-others, co-phenomenology, in which meaning is defined as a construal of phenomenological experience, it is not an individual creation, but rather an intersubjective one. In this paper the basic question is how language expresses the world and things and, consequently, what vision of the world is expressed by language and what relationship it creates with the real. Language is a set of differences between signs and meanings. It lives for and by this constant aspiration to say the inexpressible, to capture the elusive. Language tries to express the driving inner movement of the real through references and interlacing, by multiplying the relational threads of meanings. For example, the phonetic gesture performs for the speaker and his listener a certain structuring of experience, a certain modulation of existence. This is a communicative dimension in which meaning is always a process. It is the situation of co-feeling between subjects, in which understanding is achieved, as defined by Cornejo in his essay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why popularize science? Nowadays, there are different proposals to communicate science, although its major interest lies in spreading it. Based on this reflection, which has started from a previous analysis, are established the differences between: a) the simple sense of communicating or spreading science and b) popularizing it. Every communication process of science, in the sense of popularizing it, must take into account the scientific contents as objects of communication, which are products of a social process and respond to a historic, economic, political and cultural context in which they have been produced and from which it is possible to understand them. This paper provides some contributions to popularize science, with a theoretical background based on the principles by Freire, Kaplun and Moscovici. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The experience and positioning of affect is a material-discursive-intrapsychic experience, which can be interrogated through the examination of the intersubjective realm. This paper examines ways in which women experience and negotiate premenstrual change in affect, positioned as premenstrual syndrome (PMS), drawing on in-depth interviews conducted with fifty-nine women. All of the women interviewed described premenstrual changes in affect in a similar manner, as being characterised by intolerance, irritation, emotional sensitivity, feeling more negative towards others, and feeling overwhelmed in the face of life's demands. Without exception, women expressed a desire to be alone premenstrually, in order to escape relational demands and responsibilities, to reduce stimulation, or to avoid conflict. The way that these premenstrual changes and the woman's desire to be alone were positioned by the woman's partner, and dealt with within relationships, provided the material and discursive context for the woman's experience and negotiation of PMS. Women whose partners were accepting and supportive were more likely to take up a position of awareness, acceptance and self-care in relation to premenstrual change, whilst women whose partners were unsupportive were more likely to engage in self-castigation and self-pathologisation. This suggests that intersubjectivity, the examination of subjectivity and affect in the context of relatedness, will be a fruitful avenue of exploration for critical psychologists, as well as for researchers interested in the complexity of women's premenstrual experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The challenge to define and refine evidence-based practice in the education of students with profound and multiple disabilities has emerged as an important focus of research and discussion over the past decade. In this paper, a model of educational ecologies serving members of this group is introduced as a means of linking individual abilities, human contexts and the wider research and practice agenda in this field. Two particular themes that are addressed are the important contribution of behavior state assessment and recognition of the interdependence of social and communicative factors in educational settings. Implications of this model are evaluated in terms of future priorities in staff development, inclusive practices in curriculum and instructional practices as well as broader quality of life considerations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The current challenges of cultural diversity necessitate effective methods for training professionals in health, as well as other sectors, to work with the phenomenon of culture. This paper presents an overview of a semiotic-based approach to training in this regard. Methods: Recent publications by Anti Randviir in semiotics on the textual nature of cultural phenomena and by Annabel Levesque on the healthcare issues of Western, French-speaking Canadians provide the methodological frame and basic cultural reference for the overview. Results: The anthropological definition of culture as a 'semiotic', or universe of meaning, offers interdisciplinary common ground for designing practical approaches to cultural analysis, intercultural communication and creativity training. This definition is consistent with convergent findings and research practice in social and cognitive psychology, administrative science, philosophy, ethnography, linguistics and semiotics. Conclusions: Cultural performances such as narrative constitute an effective methodological tool for interdisciplinary data gathering and for analysis of all kinds of cultures: organizational, family, ethnic, regional, transborder, etc. When combined with a functionalist and systemic approach to the study of culture, semiotic approaches to narrative analysis provide useful principles for decoding cultural modes of communication and for designing meaningful change based on cultural specificity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers have long studied the effects of social presence and media richness on media choice and the effects of media use. This focus on social presence and social psychological theories has led to valuable research on communication. However, little research (either empirical or theoretical) has been done to understand the ways in which media choices influence the cognitive processes that underlie communication. In this paper we present a cognitive-based view of media choice and media use, based on dual process theories of cognition, which argue that in order for individuals to systematically process messages, they must be motivated to process the message and have the ability to process it. We argue that the use of rich media high in social presence induces increased motivation but decreases the ability to process information, while the use of lean media low in social presence induces decreased motivation but increases the ability to process information. The paradox of richness lies in its duality of impact: from a cognitive perspective, rich media high in social presence simultaneously acts to both improve and impair performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since this society is oriented toward a specific theory, I thought I ought to say something about theories in general and our little theory in particular. Let me get that off of my chest. I am not overly fond of terms like "theory" and "theorist," both of which seem to suggest the importance of the person who claims the identity more than anything else. They are pompous terms. To the extent that we are thoughtful about what we are doing and how we are going about it, all sociologists are theorists and methodologists. But if that is all we are, then we are literally people of no substance. We have no substantial knowledge of or concern for the empirical world. The little theory we share is extraordinarily empirical. It is, as one of its most prominent practitioners called it, a "grounded theory" (Glaser and Strauss 1967). I confess that several years after receiving my degree I had no real sense of what symbolic interaction was and how it might differ from other theoretical orientations. Arnold Rose enlightened me on this when he asked me to submit a paper for a new collection he was editing (Rose 1962). I was pleased and flattered. Rose was a mentor of mine, and I had never before been asked to contribute to an edited volume. But I was unsure of what would be appropriate for a book about symbolic interaction. I screwed up my courage and asked Arnold: "Exactly what is symbolic interaction?" He shrugged off my ignorance, turned on his heels, and muttered over his shoulder, "It is what they do at Chicago." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies privacy and secure function evaluation in communication complexity. The focus is on quantum versions of the model and on protocols with only approximate privacy against honest players. We show that the privacy loss (the minimum divulged information) in computing a function can be decreased exponentially by using quantum protocols, while the class of privately computable functions (i.e., those with privacy loss 0) is not enlarged by quantum protocols. Quantum communication combined with small information leakage on the other hand makes certain functions computable (almost) privately which are not computable using either quantum communication without leakage or classical communication with leakage. We also give an example of an exponential reduction of the communication complexity of a function by allowing a privacy loss of o(1) instead of privacy loss 0. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

MacIntyre et al.'s (1998) heuristic model of willingness to communicate (WTC) is based on research principally conducted in the western world. The goal of this paper is to amend the WTC model so as to reflect more closely the situation found in English language Chinese classrooms. We try to extend MacIntyre et al.'s model in two ways: by changing some structural relationships between constructs included in the model and by reinterpreting some of the variables from a Chinese perspective. An examination of the basic concept of Confucianism and the teaching of Confucian Classics reveals that cultural values are the dominant force shaping the individual's perception and way of learning, which is manifested in L2 communication. We give an account of the linguistic, communicative and social psychological variables that might affect students' willingness to communicate in a Chinese setting. Potential relations between these variables and Chinese cultural values are exemplified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to elucidate the process-social structure controversy, concerning the relations of self to symbolic interactionism. Increasingly, knowledgeable scholars of self theory are gaining methodological insights, which support the fact that our conceptions of process and social structure are each incomplete, supplementary dimensions articulating the same phenomenal states of being and development. Just as self and society are "twin born", structure and process are analytically separable dimensions of self that, however, are not mutually reducible. Hence, the basis problem, attempted herein, is to expound dimensions of the symbolic interactionist perspective required for logically specifying and analyzing those psychological, social and situational conditions under which social structure and social process each exert their differential-- as well as their combined, simultaneous influences in determining consequences that self has for soical behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a microsociological study of a group of people who have undergone a threat experience. Within the combined theoretical frameworks of symbolic interactionism and phenomenology, the event is seen as a "reality shock" for its participants, involving cognitive crises in group and individual definitions of the situation. The after period is one in which procedures toward making the threat experience meaningful on both group and individual levels are instituted within group networks. These procedures on a group level involve the construction of a "real" event by the objectification of time and experience and through the emergence and attribution of post-hoc norms. Strategies toward the maintenance and continuity of identity include reconstruction of the threat situation, of other participants' behavior, of post-hoc norms, or of individual behavior, and the negotiation of identity on these various bases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a gestural theory for the origin of syntax, certainly one of the most difficult questions in the study of language origins. This proposal recognizes both visible and vocal gestures as having an evolutionary role but suggests that visible gestures played a special role in the emergence of syntax. The fundamental kernel of syntax is seen as inherent in visible gestural communication and available for extension by means of ordinary evolutionary processes. In manual gesturing, a hand (as agent) moves (what verbs imply) and may act on another part of the body (as patient). It is proposed, then, that the formation of a manual gesture entails a preadaptive elementary syntax. As gesture becomes linguistic sign, it carries with it the seed of the basic syntactic relationship—it refers and also relates. The social behavior of the hominids could have supplied conditions that enhanced the fitness of individuals and groups with increasingly sophisticated communication systems. The embryo sentences already present in gestural communication might then have constituted preadaptive behaviors available for extension into increasingly complex syntactic structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Framing is the process by which a communication source constructs and defines a social or political issue for its audience. While many observers of political communication and the mass media have discussed framing, few have explicitly described how framing affects public opinion. In this paper we offer a theory of framing effects, with a specific focus on the psychological mechanisms by which framing influences political attitudes. We discuss important conceptual differences between framing and traditional theories of persuasion that focus on belief change. We outline a set of hypotheses about the interaction between framing and audience sophistication, and test these in an experiment. The results support our argument that framing is not merely persuasion, as it is traditionally conceived. We close by reflecting on the various routes by which political communications can influence attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops the concept of radical conversion of sell-identity as a moral career. Following the theoretical orientation of symbolic interactionism, the concept is explicated and differentiated from other forms of sell-change. A critical review of the model developed by Lofland in Doomsday Cult is offered, through which a revised statement of the sequences of radical conversion that is conceptually applicable to cases of diverse content is constructed. Lastly, the revised model is tested using secondary case material and the logic of analytic induction. The findings indicate the model is consistent with the empirical descriptions contained in each case. Suggestions for further analysis are then discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the sociological point of view, communication is a fundamental psycho-social interaction of people, carried by articulated language or codes for transmission of information to achieve stability, or changes of individual or group behaviour. The communication with the patient is an important part of the physician-patient relationship and is a direct, face to face communication, unmediated and informal. The research in this domain reveals that the patient's satisfaction depends on the individual perception of technical and human skills of the medical staff. But patients appreciate mainly communication skills of the health care staff. This paper aims at analyzing the main aspects of communication between doctor and the patient admitted in a single specialty hospital in Sibiu, showing the importance of communication between the admitted patients and the medical team. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Finding the right form of words in interpersonal situations can be a difficult and demanding cognitive tasks. Based on recent affect-cognition theories and research on verbal communication, this paper will review a series of our recent studies demonstrating that positive and negative moods have a marked influence on verbal communication. For example, research has shown that negative mood often increases, and positive mood decreases the level of verbal evasiveness and equivocation in conflict situations. Further, situations that are characterised by high levels of conflict magnify these mood effects. Other experiments showed that similar mood effects also influence verbal communication strategies in real-life situations in organisations, such as the provision of performance feedback messages. Participants were either expert communicators or novices who underwent a happy or sad mood induction and then recorded their performance feedback messages on a tape recorder. The data showed that positive mood had a significant influence on the way performance feedback messages were delivered, with novices being more influenced by affect than experts. These results are discussed in terms of the cognitive strategies that mediate mood effects on verbal communication. The implications of the findings for everyday communication situations, and for current affect/cognition theorising are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article highlights the fifth International Conference on Language and Social Psychology in Brisbane, Queensland on July 6-9, 1994. Keynote speakers are presented. In addition to general paper sessions, invited symposia include: language, social psychology, and power; language and minority groups; interpersonal deception; and, language and health. And the deadline for passing research abstracts is on February 1, 1994.