Effects of individual differences on dyadic conversational strategies.

Abstract

Eighteen male and 18 female dyads were tested in three conditions designed to reflect the complementarity of the dominance predispositions of the partners: high-low (complementary) and high-high and low-low (noncomplementary). Subjects discussed issues on which they were known to disagree, and it was predicted that although the rates of successful and unsuccessful interruptions would increase over time for the high-high dyads, they would remain constant for the other two conditions. There were no effects for unsuccessful interruptions, but the hypothesis was confirmed for successful interruptions. The main effect for sex was not significant, but a separate analysis showed that female listeners provided significantly more verbal back-channel cues than did male listeners. The discussion topics were obtained from a questionnaire that was also administered after participation in the dyads, and an analysis of opinion change indicated that significantly greater change had occurred in the low-low than in the highhigh dyads.Conversation typically proceeds by a more or less orderly exchange of speaking turns (Argyle, 1975), but it is also characterized by periods of simultaneous speech. These simultaneous utterances may either be interruptive, a situation in which one speaker attempts to take the floor from another, or noninterruptive, in which the primary intention is to convey to the speaker that the listener is attending to what is being said. Noninterruptive simultaneous utterances have variously been described as listener responses (Dittmann & Llewellyn, 1967), accompaniment signals (Kendon, 1967), or back-channel behaviors (Yngve, Note 1), and Duncan and Fiske (1977) have drawn a further distinction between long and short back-channel utterances. However, it is clear that the terms all refer to a common type of speech act that is readily identifiable in conversation.Interruptive utterances have been more difficult to classify. Mishler and Waxier (1968) distinguished between successful and unsuccessful interruptions, but Ferguson (1977) The authors would like to thank Richard Mallows, of the College of Ripon and York St. Johns, York, for his help in collecting the data.

Gender and aggression in the recognition of interruption

“…A second reason why we selected this particular interview as the stimulus for judging interruption is that there is compelling evidence that both status difference and presence of conflict yield more disruptive interruptions (Coates, 1989;Kollock, Blumstein, & Schwartz, 1985;Roger & Schumacher, 1983). Folger and Poole (1984) observed with reference to power asymmetric situations of conflict that "when power is imbalanced, the stronger and weaker members both face dilemmas as the make moves and step through difficult conflict situations.…”

The effects of implicit encouragement and the putative confession on children’s memory reports

“…Back-channel utterances are brief, often non-lexical expressions (e.g., uh-huh, mm-hmm) that implicitly communicate to a conversational partner that a listener is paying attention, interested, and would like the speaker to continue (Duncan, 1975; Peterson et al, 1999). Also referred to as “response tokens” (Gardner, 2001; McCarthy, 2003) or “facilitators” (Hershkowitz, 2002), back-channel utterances are prevalent in everyday conversations and have been found to be beneficial in a range of contexts, including interpersonal communication, education, and linguistics (Duncan, 1975; Krauss, Garlock, Bricker, & McMahon, 1977; Myers & Macnaghten, 1999; Roger & Schumacher, 1983; Tolins & Tree, 2014; Wannaruk, 1997). For instance, in classrooms, children produce longer responses when teachers include back-channel utterances that acknowledge what children said (e.g., oh really, uh-huh) than when teachers ask follow-up, yes/no or wh-questions to request further details (Dillon, 1985).…”

The Second Bristol Conference: a Personal Assessment

“…The temporal aspect of our studies also has changed for the better with investigators pinpointing the negotiative nature of social interaction (see Smith, Giles & Hewstone, 1982) as witnessed in papers by Bjerkan et al (1983), Diez (1983), Petrie (1983) and Roger (1983). Obviously, the symposium on friendship made a contribution here (see Bradac, this issue) although one would like to see, as Duck & Sants (1983) have advocted so convincingly, a more process-oriented perspective.…”