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O'Keefe has suggested that variations in the goal sets individuals choose to pursue and theform of reasoning they employ are sources of variation in message designs. She ofjered an analysis of the specific consequences of differences in goals ("message goal structure') and in forms of reasoning ("message design logics"J, and showed how this analysis could be used to describe systematically functional variations in regulative messages. The study reported in this article explored the consequences of differences in message design logic and goal structures for success in regulative communication situations: Messages that differed in these properties were presented to subjectsfor evaluation on a number of functionally significant dimensions. Level of message design logic was straightforwardly associated with every type of effectiveness that was assessed. D8erences in message goal structures had more selective effects on message evaluations, often involving interactions with the level of construct diflerentiation of the message evaluator. 0 NE central problem facing communication theory is the explanation of individual differences in message production. Although in many communication situations individuals produce functionally similar and uniform-looking messages (e.g., when asked to describe an apartment, people produce extraordinarily similar messages; see Linde & Labov, 1975), in other situations there is substantial variation in the kinds of messages individuals produce (e.g.,

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