An intuitive notion regarding the communication of liking is that it is consistently associated with positive relational outcomes. An alternative possibility is that when expressions of liking comprise a negative violation of expectancies, they produce outcomes that are actually more negative than those produced by the absence of such expressions. The current experiment tests this prediction with respect to evaluative and behavioral responses to nonverbal expressions of liking. Ninety-six adults were paired with same-sex strangers and induced to expect the strangers either to like or dislike them and to desire that the strangers either like or dislike them. The strangers, who were trained confederates, enacted nonverbal behaviors associated either with liking or disliking during a short experimental interaction with participants. Participants' evaluations of confederates were most favorable when confederates' behaviors matched participants' desires, whether the desire was to be liked or disliked. Behaviorally, participants matched desired behavior from confederates and reacted with complementarity to undesired behavior. These results suggest the counterintuitive notion that expressions of liking are not consistently associated with positive relational outcomes, but that factors such as receivers' desires and expectations largely determine what outcomes will be produced. The results also raise important issues for how expectations are conceptually and operationally defined.

The primary objective of this research was to investigate whether the principles of Expectancy Violations Theory could be applied to the study of emotional appeals so as to gain an alternative interpretation of the persuasive efficacy of affective messages in the social influence process. Central to this approach is the assumption that certain culturally-based norms guiding the expression of emotion exist at a societal level, and that the violations of these expectancy norms carry implications for the efficacy of persuasive attempts. Specifically, the tenets of EVT suggest that when these violations occur, message recipients will look to the perceived rewardingness of the source of the message, and then interpret the violations as positive or negative. It was posited that these evaluations, in turn, would either facilitate (in the case of positive violations) or inhibit (negative violations) the persuasion process. However, due to a number of methodological confounds in the design of the emotional messages used in this research, this study could not provide a fair test of the predictions suggested by EVT. A significant confederate by actor sex interaction described an experimental situation wherein expectancy violation or confirmation was idiosyncratic to the confederates, which is inconsistent both with the premises of EVT as well as the hypotheses stated in this research. Instead, a series of secondary analyses within confederates was undertaken in an attempt to explore the relationships between source rewardingness and message expectedness on attitude change. However, no significant relationships were found to exist. The discussion section focuses heavily on an analysis of the confounds that existed in this research, and suggestions are made for providing a remedy for similar situations in future research. Finally, directions for future research using expectancy violations theory and emotion are discussed.

A study of people's opinions about deception was conducted. Social scientists believe that people use different types of deception in response to differing situational variables. Individuals perceptions of the different types of deception were studied within a proposed theoretical perspective based on a deceptive adaptation of Language Expectancy Theory and Attribution Theory. The model posits that people develop expectations about deceptive acts that will affect their acceptance of those acts. Deceptive acts that meet or positively violate expectations will be viewed as more acceptable. People make attributions about the causes of behavior when developing normative expectations and will find deceptive acts attributed to situational constraints more acceptable than acts attributed to personal characteristics. A large scale survey of people's repertoires of deceptive strategies and their acceptance as a useful strategy was conducted. Three examples each of six common strategies were used in the survey. The three types of examples involving deceptive acts included two interpersonal situations, one of self-benefit and one of other-benefit, and a medical situation where the deceptive act benefitted the deceiver. The strategies included Ambiguities, Concealments, Exaggerations, Half-truths, Lies and White lies. Three hypotheses examining the theoretical model and two research questions, one examining self-benefit/other-benefit difference and one examining demographic variables, were tested. Results indicate that people do not make major distinctions about deceptive acts, viewing most as Lies, Concealments and Half-truths. Less than 50% of the 3504 examples were correctly identified, and their chosen identifier was a better predictor of their response about use and acceptability than the deceptive act itself. People do admit using deceptive acts, but see others as more deceptive than themselves. Their perceptions of acceptability are more closely linked to their perceptions of their own use of deceptive acts rather than to their perceptions of normative use. Self-benefit/other-benefit results were mixed and demographic differences were non-existent. Implications of the study are discussed and future directions are suggested.

The traditional model of medicine involves recognizing symptoms, undergoing diagnostic tests to find the cause of the symptoms, and provide treatment to relieve or cure the underlying disease. However, with the advent of genetic testing and the ability to diagnose asymptomatic individuals, the traditional model of diagnostic testing and treatment no longer applies. By employing the Extended Parallel Processing Model, EPPM, and utilizing messages similar to fear appeals, this study examined participants' perceptions of testing and treatment efficacy, behavioral intentions to undergo testing, and attitudes towards traditional and genetically-based diagnostic testing. Results indicated that the type of diagnostic test and the temporal proximity of the treatment with respect to the diagnostic test is important in determining the perceived efficacy of testing, treatment, and intent to undergo testing. Practical as well as theoretical implications are discussed as well as directions for future research.

This study proposed and tested a model of relational development in mediated environments. Burgoon and colleagues' principle of inter-activity (Burgoon, Bonito, Bengtsson, Ramirez, Dunbar, & Miczo, 1999), Sunnafrank's (1986) Predicted Outcome Value theory, and Walther's (1996; Walther & Burgoon, 1992) Social Information Processing theory were reviewed and each incorporated into a model for understanding how decisions to pursue relationships in mediated environments occur. The present study examined the role of media and information richness and mediation within the model's framework. Dyads conducted two socially-oriented interactions via one of four conditions (text-only, audioconferencing, videoconferencing, or face-to-face). Results indicated experiential properties were strongly associated with initial predicted outcome values and the certainty with which they are held, which in turn were associated with various relational and communicative factors. Initial predicted outcome values also distinguished relationships which developed from those that did not. Implications for each theoretical perspective are discussed.

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This thesis comprises investigations of the perceptual consequences of children’s misarticulated speech – as perceived by clinicians, by everyday listeners, and by the children themselves. By inviting methods from other areas to the study of speech disorders, this work demonstrates some successful cases of cross-fertilization. The population in focus is children with a phonological disorder (PD), who misarticulate /t/ and /k/. A theoretical assumption underlying this work is that errors in speech production are often paralleled in perception, e.g. that children base their decision on whether a speech sound is a /t/ or a /k/ on other acoustic-phonetic criteria than those employed by proficient language users. This assumption, together with an aim at stimulating self-monitoring in these children, motivated two of the included studies. Through these studies, new insights into children’s perception of their own speech were achieved – insights entailing both clinical and psycholinguistic implications. For example, the finding that children with PD generally recognize themselves as the speaker in recordings of their own utterances lends support to the use of recordings in therapy, to attract children’s attention to their own speech production. Furthermore, through the introduction of a novel method for automatic correction of children’s speech errors, these findings were extended with the observation that children with PD tend to evaluate misarticulated utterances as correct when just having produced them, and to perceive inaccuracies better when time has passed. Another theme in this thesis is the gradual nature of speech perception related to phonological categories, and a concern that perceptual sensitivity is obscured in descriptions based solely on discrete categorical labels. This concern is substantiated by the finding that listeners rate “substitutions” of [t] for /k/ as less /t/-like than correct productions of [t] for intended /t/. Finally, a novel method of registering listener reactions during the continuous playback of misarticulated speech is introduced, demonstrating a viable approach to exploring how different speech errors influence intelligibility and/or acceptability. By integrating such information in the prioritizing of therapeutic targets, intervention may be better directed at those patterns that cause the most problems for the child in his or her everyday life. / <p>QC 20140317</p>

<p>With a growing number of multinational corporations sending workers into new locations, the need for knowledge about how individuals and families successfully integrate and connect to their host country is paramount. This study focuses on the phenomenological communication strategies used for cross cultural adjustment and adaptation of longterm sojourners in a new culture. Longterm sojourners who have lived for three years or longer in two host countries were interviewed to explore their communication strategies of adaptation for meaning making for themselves and for their families. Specifically, perspectives around the experience of cross culture adjustment, language acquisition, and identity shift were explored. Findings show that individuals who approach the experience with openness and non-judgmentalism find greater satisfaction with the host country. Also, those who seek to integrate and deeply embrace the new culture experience acceptance and stay for longer periods. Humor, humility, and perseverance are character traits that predict for satisfactory adjustment. The stresses on marriage and family provide a dialectic experience of strain and closeness. Implications from this study indicate that satisfied longterm sojourners have discovered ways of contending with difficulties that provide knowledge for managing this stressful adjustment. Their experience can inform the expectations of future sojourners. This study emphasizes the need for sojourners to be prepared for the challenges ahead and to engage the process with flexibility.