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Relationships--categorized as no growth, low growth, or high growth--were monitored over a two-week period with structured diaries kept by one party to the relationship. Overall differences were found between males and females, primarily on the four variables of satisfaction, importance, effectiveness, and personalness. (PD)

The article presents information on a discussion held among the authors of this article following a convention on intrapersonal communication held at the Northwest Communication Association Convention in Couer d' Alene, Idaho in 1978. The discussion focused on certain semantic rules. Two of the authors disagreed over the phrase "intrapersonal communication." The discussion inferred that ontology initiates any human science of communication.

The concept of "metacommunication" is examined in its historical context by noting the foundations of the concept. Then some of the conceptual ambiguities of the term are discussed with recommendations for discarding the analogic/digital distinction that has become common in the field of communication. Two levels of metacommunication--relationship and episodic, are postulated as providing conceptual clarity in the use of the term, Finally, extant research on metacommunication is examined and future directions for our inquiry are recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines long-distance romantic relationships from a longitudinal perspective to ascertain their dissolution rates. Research questions center on 1) the participants' predictions of dissolution, 2) coping strategies used during communication, 3) indices of relationship quality, and 4) frequency of communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Utilizing survey data from 99 nursing home residents in nursing home facilities serving Medicaid patients, this study investigated the relationship of interpersonal network involvement to perceived life satisfaction and perceived need accommodations. Each subject completed three survey instruments developed to measure (a) resident's perceived quality care, (b) residents' satisfaction with personal need accommodation and (c) interpersonal network satisfaction. Residents' perceptions of quality care (i.e., attitude of staff, food, and self-selected social activities) and satisfaction with roommates are significant predictors of perceived needs being met. Further, residents are more satisfied with self-selected relationships than with institutionally-selected roommates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most data-based research on relationship dissolution has been limited to hypothetical relationships or those in the distant past. This longitudinal study focused on long-distance romantic relationships that terminated within a 15-month time frame. Subjects provided reports of the termination strategies they and their partners used. We found (1) symmetrical use of verbal indirectness, (2) directness/indirectness as a central dimension of strategy use, (3) dissolution choices uninfluenced by who initiated the dissolution, (4) mutual terminations producing fewer negative emotional reactions than one-sided initiations, and (5) verbal directness used to terminate expressed regrets about the choice. The findings are discussed in terms of extant theory and research on the termination process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional wisdom among regular participants in the yearly Western Speech Communication Association Convention is that W.S.C.A. is both friendly and intellectually stimulating. Each year, a tremendous amount of work is freely volunteered by local hosts, program planners, and many others to produce a W.S.C.A. Convention for the membership. Members have noted that increasing travel costs and corresponding declines in funding are impacting on their decisions concerning convention attendance. This study provides information and reactions about the most recent (1983) W.S.C.A. Convention in Albuquerque. We hope this report will facilitate decisions to further strengthen W.S.C.A. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research explored the impact of relationship frames on judgments of conversations and the reciprocal influence of the conversations on projections for the relationships. Respondents were presented with three sequential conversations under conditions describing the interactants as romantic partners or friends either growing closer or growing apart. The growing apart relationships were perceived as Jess personalized and less honest than the growing closer relationships for the first conversation only. The conversational stimuli, in turn, were related to projected relationship processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on 53rd annual convention of the Western States Communication Association. The convention will be held at the Denver Hilton Hotel, in Denver, Colorado, from February 20-23. Hosts for this convention, headed by Robert Trapp of the University of Northern Colorado and Bill Donaghy, Philip Emmert and Patrick McDermott of the University of Wyoming, are organizing interesting social occasions and are supervising many details for participants. Some topics that will be discussed at the convention are "Establishing the Legal Communication Curriculum," "Facilitating Classroom Communication" and "Meeting the Communication Needs of Non-Native American Students."

This study is placed within a dialectic framework, illustrating the contradictory needs that exist for relationship openness and closedness. It explores one type of closedness in close relationships - the `taboo topic'. Ninety ethnographic interviews solicited informant accounts of topics which were `off limits' in the context of an opposite-sex relationship in which they were involved. Results indicated that there were six primary types of `taboo topics': the state of the relationship, extra-relationship activity, relationship norms, prior relationships with opposite-sex parties, conflict-inducing topics, and negatively-valenced self-disclosures. Of these topic categories, the state of the relationship was the most pervasive as a `taboo'. In an analysis of the reasons why topics were `taboo', it was apparent that the informants held a negative vision of relationship talk as destructive, inefficient, futile and risky. Extra-relationship activity, relationship norms, prior relationships, and conflict-inducing topics were avoided largely because of the negative relational metacommunication implicit in those topic categories. The findings are discussed in terms of metacommunication and uncertainty reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Reports on a test of the construct and predictive validity of measures of ego involvement. Typical indicators of involvement in a person; Techniques used to assess a person's involvement on a topic; Methodological issues that need consideration before attitude change can be predicted; Interrelationship of operational definitions; Operational definitions of involvement.