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The implicit social scientist and the implicit rhetorician:An integrative framework for the introductoryinterpersonal courseKatherine E. Rowan aa Doctoral candidate in the Rhetoric and Composition Program of the English Department, andan instructor in the Communication Department , Purdue University , West Lafayette, IndianaPublished online: 18 May 2009.

To cite this article: Katherine E. Rowan (1984) The implicit social scientist and the implicit rhetorician: Anintegrative framework for the introductory interpersonal course, Communication Education, 33:4, 351-360, DOI:10.1080/03634528409384764

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THE IMPLICIT SOCIALSCIENTIST AND THE

IMPLICIT RHETORICIAN: ANINTEGRATIVE FRAMEWORK

FOR THE INTRODUCTORYINTERPERSONAL COURSEKatherine E. Rowan

When Fritz Heider urged social scientists to "pierce the veil of obviousness thatmakes so many insights of intuitive psychology invisible to our scientific eye,"1 heinvoked a powerful metaphor for understanding human nature: people are "naivepsychologists."2 As Heider noted, "The ordinary person has a great and profoundunderstanding of himself and other people which, though unformulated or onlyvaguely conceived, enables him to interact with others in more or less adaptiveways."3

The notion that behavior can be best understood when people's "scientist-like"4

aspects are stressed has spawned a number of rich social science research programs.George Kelly built upon the people are scientists metaphor to develop personalconstruct theory. Cognitive developmental psychologists are indebted to Jean Piagetfor his stress on "the manner in which the individual conceptualizes his or herenvironment."5 In speech communication, Jesse G. Delia and Charles R. Berger,among others, have built research programs around the insight that the ordinaryperson's thought about social relations is similar to that of a social scientist.6

Just as the people-are-social-scientists metaphor can foster and integrate researchprograms, so too can this idea serve as a generative and binding force in the basicinterpersonal communication course. This paper describes a course that uses thismetaphor to weave together the separately provocative but sometimes loosely boundtopics now standard for interpersonal texts: perception, language, self-concept,nonverbal communication, relational communication, and conflict.7 The frameworkpresented here could either be used with the readings and assignments below, or as abasis for integrative lectures. The course contains three units, and, in Unit III, theoryis tied to practice by teaching students to recognize their implicit rhetorical skills andgiving them experience in using some recommended methods for conflict manage-ment, persuasion, comforting, and disciplinary communication.8

Unit I: Implicit Social Science Made Explicit. Unit I introduces the concept thatpeople are implicit social scientists. For readings, the instructor uses David L.Swanson and Jesse G. Delia's monograph. The Nature of Human Communication9

and the first four chapters of Daniel M. Wegner and Robin R. Yallacher's ImplicitPsychology: An Introduction to Social Cognition.™ These texts are effective becausethey stress the implicit theorizing people use to understand themselves and theirassociates. These two sources complement each other well, since Wegner andVallacher focus on implicit social relations theorizing and Swanson and Delia focus

Katherine E. Rowan is a doctoral candidate in the Rhetoric and Composition Program of the EnglishDepartment, and an instructor in the Communication Department, Purdue University, WestLafayette, Indiana. She would like to thank Brant R. Burleson of the Department of Communication atPurdue for his help with this project.

COMMUNICATION EDUCATION, Volume 33, October 1984

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on the way implicit theorizing or individual interpretation affects communication. Inaddition, Wegner and Vallacher are particularly successful at describing a widearray of studies on attribution, impression formation, social relations, cognitivedevelopment, and the self-concept in a way that makes this research interesting to thetypical undergraduate.11

In Unit I students first read Wegner and Vallacher's chapter one, which uses alively discussion of perception studies to demonstrate that, like scientists constructingtheories, people "construct" their representations of reality, "hypothesize" about theoutcome of their behavior, and "test" their hypotheses by behaving and observing theconsequences of their behavior. In this first chapter, Wegner and Vallacher alsoacknowledge the limitations of the people-as-scientists metaphor, noting that themetaphor over-rationalizes everyday thought.12

Second, students read Swanson and Delia's monograph. These authors maintainthat implicit theorizing is precisely what makes communication both possible andproblematic: unless people make assumptions about others' meanings they cannothope to understand one another, and yet because of implicit theorizing, misinterpre-tation is possible in any communicative event. This problem is called the "categori-centric predicament." Swanson and Delia's monograph is essentially a discussion ofwhy this problem exists and how it may be partially overcome with the resources oflanguage, shared culture, and perspective-taking processes.

Third, students return to Wegner and Vallacher's text, reading chapters two,three, and four on attribution, impression formation, and social evaluation—threeprocesses of implicit theorizing that can especially help or hinder communicativeefforts. For example, in chapter two on attribution, students learn that implicit socialscientists tend to explain actions that hurt them personally (hedonically relevantacts)13 as products of some offender's intentions and character rather than as theeffects of situational forces. This tendency protects people from truly malevolentindividuals, but it also blinds them to the effects of situation and may particularlyhinder disciplinary communication and conflict management.

The major assignment for Unit I asks students to take a series of psychologicaltests, analyze their personal test scores, and write a paper discussing any insights thetests provide into the structure and functioning of their implicit social and communi-cative theories.14

These tests are given intermittently throughout Unit I, each test being adminis-tered a few days before relevant text materials are reviewed in class. The scoring anddiscussion of the tests make abstract textbook concepts clear. In addition, whenstudents read research related to these tests for their papers, they learn aboutconcepts such as validity and reliability by actually putting them to use.

Some precautions must be taken when making this self-analysis paper assignment.First students should be told that most of the tests they are taking were not created as"self-diagnosis" instruments. Thus, in their papers they should discuss this unortho-dox use of these tests, commenting on the validity problem it creates. In addition,instructors need to construct a range of scores against which students may comparetheir own. Other precautions include disguising the names of some tests when testnames might bias results, placing the research students should review on reserve atthe college library, and allowing class time for discussion of a few key concepts suchas reliability and validity.

Unit II: Implicit Social Science Explored and Refined. Unit II of this course is asomewhat loosely structured "special topics" unit in which students break up into

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small groups to study communicative phenomena they find interesting, and topresent their group's findings in a lesson for the class. For this assignment, topics thatare conceptually tied to Units I and III ought to be suggested to students, e.g.,conversational pragmatics, relational communication, nonverbal communication,and the self-concept.

For example, a variety of lessons can be fashioned on different types of relationalcommunications, e.g., relations among friends, mates, families, and business asso-ciates. One group of students in an evening class studied employer-employeecommunication. Using the research Wegner and Vallacher report on implicitdominance theories, they presented a class lesson on the effects of implicit dominancetheories on superior-subordinate communication.15 This information enlightened asubsequent Unit III lesson containing advice for conflict management and disciplin-ary communication.

Four requirements help students use the group project as an opportunity to refinetheir own implicit theorizing. First, each group reads some assigned text passagerelevant to their topic; such passages are typically drawn from the remainingchapters of Wegner and Vallacher's text. Second, in addition to the text reading, eachgroup member is asked to read three to five additional chapters or articles of his orher own choice on the group topic, particularly sources referenced in the text reading.Third, when all reading is completed, class time is allocated for a brief survey of classmembers' own implicit theories about each group's topic (e.g., the group studyingnonverbal communication asked class members to describe nonverbal cues associatedwith deception). This class input is then distributed to the appropriate groups forinterpretation. Finally, students use a set of instructor-formulated questions as abasis for shaping their class lessons.16

Unit III: Implicit Rhetorical Skills Made Explicit. The specific goal of Unit III isto improve students' technical proficiency as everyday rhetoricians by helping themto (1) identify communicative goals, (2) apply implicit theories to inform rhetoricalchoices, (3) use rhetorical strategies effectively, and (4) recognize the uses andlimitations of rhetorical strategies.17 Four rhetorical goals usually treated in this unitare conflict management, persuasion, comforting, and disciplinary or regulatorycommunication.18

Unit III requires prescriptive readings about rhetorical skills, such as Ronald B.Adler's Confidence in Communication: A Guide to Assertive and Social Skills.19

Adler's text teaches students to ascertain their communicative goals, identify thefeelings and perspectives of others, and develop a flexible set of strategies for conflictmanagement. Unfortunately, Adler has little to say about adaptive persuasion,comforting, and disciplinary communication skills;20 thus, to teach these skillsstudents are given the coding schemes researchers Jesse G. Delia, Ruth Anne Clark,James L. Applegate, Brant R. Burleson, and Susan L. Kline use to assess theaudience adaptiveness of messages generated by college-aged and older adults.21 Forexample, the comforting communication coding scheme contains three major levels:

I. Messages that deny, condemn, or ignore the feelings of and perspective of the other.

II. Messages that provide some acceptance or positive response to the feelings of the other but do notexplicitly mention or elaborate those feelings.

III. Messages that acknowledge and elaborate the feelings of the other and/or additional partiesinvolved. Messages at this level may include attempts to provide a general understanding of thesituation and the feelings present there.22

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Thus a nonadaptive Level I comforting response to a friend upset about beingdropped by her boyfriend would be: "You're stupid to act that way; no guy is worththat"; a somewhat more adaptive response that does not explicitly discuss feelingswould be the Level II response: "Let's go out for a drink," and an adaptive Level IIIresponse that explicitly recognizes the other's perspective would be: "I know you'rethinking that you'll never meet another guy, but that's just not true. Give yourselftime to get settled. Breaking close ties is hard to do. I know how emotionally involvedyou are."23

In Unit III, students are given comforting, disciplinary, and persuasive communi-cation coding schemes to help them generate messages that could be scored at LevelIII. As they learn these recommended strategies they are also urged to think about thestrategies' limitations. Further, whenever a particular strategy is taught, it istheoretically linked to material learned in earlier portions of the course. The focus oftraining, then, is on enhancing students' communicative options and therebyincreasing their rhetorical flexibility. Thus skills training increases implicit rhetori-cians' freedom as well as their effectiveness.

The major assignment for Unit III is a role-play examination, requiring studentsto demonstrate their ability to use some recommended communication strategies andto discuss the advantages and limitations of such strategies. To do well on this exam,students first need some self-knowledge about their rhetorical strengths and weak-nesses. Because such knowledge is difficult to acquire on one's own, Unit III beginswith a rhetorical skills pre-test that gives students a series of conflict management,persuasion, comforting, and disciplinary situations and asks them to respond aseffectively as they can to these hypothetical situations.24 Later, when recommendedrhetorical strategies are discussed in class, students privately review their ownresponses to the pre-test situations, noting how their responses compare to recom-mended responses.

Midway through Unit III a written test on conflict management, persuasion,comforting, and disciplinary strategies is given so that the instructor can identify anystudents who have misunderstood the Adler text or the coding schemes. Misunder-standing is common. Implicit rhetoricians have their own communicative strategiesand often cannot see the difference between the strategies they are using and thosethat they believe themselves to be imitating.

Finally, students take the role-play examination to which they come in pairs for athirty-minute session with the instructor. Each pair member has a chance to be the"major" speaker in one role-play (seventy percent of his or her grade) and the minorspeaker in a second role-play (thirty percent of the grade). The major speaker mustuse appropriate, recommended strategies to achieve an instructor-designated goal(persuasion, comforting, etc.) and be able to discuss (1) the theoretical justificationfor his or her strategy and (2) the circumstances in which this recommended strategywould be inappropriate. The minor speaker's job is to challenge the major speaker byexpressing views or feelings that oppose those of the major speaker. Role-playsituations involve common conflicts such as roommate disputes over allowing a newperson to move in, a group's reaction to a member who is not working hard on aproject, and a business context in which the speaker must persuade a superior toexperiment with flexible work hours for assembly-line personnel.

The role-play examination seems to work most effectively when the instructordesignates a specific communicative goal for the major speaker and when studentsare told how they are to feel in each role-play. When these steps are not taken,

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THE IMPLICIT SOCIAL SCIENTIST AND THE IMPLICIT RHETORICIAN—355

students' performances become difficult to grade because the goal of the majorspeaker and the difficulties he or she must overcome to meet the goal will change witheach student pair. Finally, holding a rehearsal round for the role-play examinationsignificantly reduces student anxiety and the likelihood of procedural errors.

Course logistics: cost and accessibility of readings and materialsThe three texts, Implicit Psychology by Wegner and Vallaher, The Nature ofHuman Communication by Swanson and Delia and Confidence in Communicationby Adler sell for approximately $32. Additional readings for the self-analysis paperand group projects can be placed on reserve at the college library to reduce excess costto students and faculty. If the reserve readings system becomes inconvenient forevening classes, much of the additional material may be presented in class lecture.Materials for Unit Ill's skills training may be obtained from the sources cited innotes 20,21, and 25, or by writing the author for a booklet of hypothetical situations,coding principles, and teaching suggestions.25

Students' message strategy skills and reaction to the courseIn general, the controlling metaphors, implicit social scientist and implicit rheto-rician, seem to make the objectives of this interpersonal communication course clearto students. They like thinking of themselves in these newly invoked identities; suchself-pride may even stimulate them to excell in these roles.

Students also seem to benefit from the skills training in Unit III. To find out if thistraining did indeed teach effective communicative strategies, an exploratory studywas conducted. Three classes read Wegner and Vallacher's text and worked ongroup projects, but only two of these classes received a skills training unit (the"Theory with Skills Training Group"; see Table I). A fourth class, the controlgroup, used a standard interpersonal text, Bobby R. Patton and Kim Griffin'sInterpersonal Communication in Action, 3rd edition.26 The class format for thecontrol group emphasized student reports and instructor-guided discussions onpopular interpersonal communication topics.

Near the end of the semester the three groups were tested for their messagestrategy skills by eliciting their written responses to several hypothetical situations.For two of the hypothetical situations, students were told to re-write what aninterpersonal communication "bumbler" had said, substituting the best possiblestatement one could make in the given situation. In the third situation, students wereasked to write the best response a speaker could make to regulate the behavior of aspecific individual.

Situation I tested students' abilities to assert their feelings constructively. Thehypothetical scenario involved a student upset about a roommate borrowing thesubject's possessions without permission. The "bumbling" assertion of feelingsstatement said: "You make me so , mad when you take my stuffwithout asking. One of these days I'm going to walk off with your stuff to show youwhat it's like for me." Following principles recommended by Adler, rewrites of thismessage were scored as follows: a low-level message would retain the bumbler'sprimary intent of assigning blame to the other; a mid-level message would primarilyfocus on requesting behavioral change with minimal emphasis on assigning blame orexplaining one's own feelings (e.g., "Alex, I would rather you ask me to use my stuffbefore taking it, because I may be needing it"). The highest level messages were thosethat concentrated primarily on describing the speaker's feelings in an effort toprovide the other with reasons why behavioral change was important to the speaker

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and (implicitly) to the listener (e.g., "Alex, it really bothers me that you use mythings without asking first. I get upset when I start to look for something and it isgone. We need to communicate to each other before we borrow each other'sthings").27

Situation II tested students' abilities to acknowledge the legitimacy of another'sperspective in the context of a minor disagreement. The hypothetical situation readas follows:

Alice (Jim's wife): You better not buy that, Jim. I don't think there's enough money in the account tocover the check. Jim (the interpersonal bumbler): Hey, don't worry. Trust me. I know exactly howlong it takes our check to go from Sears to the bank. We could wait till next Tuesday to make adeposit.

According to Adler's analysis of conflict management skills, a statement such as Jim'sis relatively poor because his message does not allow the possibility that another's"implicit hypothesis" may also be legitimate.28 A mid-level response to this situationacknowledges the legitimacy of the other's concern but does not elaborate thespeaker's own reasons for disagreeing with the other (e.g., "You're right, Alice. I'dbetter make a deposit first"). A high-level message strategy maintains the legitimacyof both the speaker's and the listener's points of view by presenting the reasons foreach person's opinion (e.g., "You're right, there's not enough money in the accountright now. But we have a check coming that we're planning to deposit before nextTuesday, don't we? It'll take at least that long for this one to be passed through bySears").

Situation III, which tested regulative or disciplinary communication, requiredrespondents to imagine they were employers in a small office with several secretarialworkers. One of these employees is an excellent typist and efficient employee withone bad habit: he/she consistently arrives fifteen to twenty minutes late for work.Subjects were asked to write a dialogue in which they, as the employer, used the bestpossible message to have him/her arrive on time in addition to maintaining his/herother good habits. Following the logic of Applegate's regulative coding scheme,low-level messages typically threatened the worker's job, salary, or privileges, or casthim/her in a negative identity (e.g., "Tris, could I talk to you for a moment? . . .every day you come in fifteen to twenty minutes late . . . I just want you to know thatthe employment industry doesn't look so good. I think you'll know what will happenif you continue to come in late").29 Mid-level messages stressed the importance of ageneral principle or rule, such as the importance of punctuality or teamwork,without specifically adapting the regulatory message to the person in question: (e.g.,"Janet, when I hired you, you agreed to begin work at 8:00 every morning, not 8:20.After all, your salary starts at 8:00. So, I think you should hold up your end of thebargain by arriving on time; after all everyone else here does"). A high-level messagefocused on individualizing the situation, either by developing a positive identity thatthe other would take pride in maintaining or by suggesting specific advantages thatwould accrue with a change in behavior: (e.g., "Lynn, you are the finest secretary ofthe group. When I arrive here in the morning I always have some important calls andletters to be sent off. I would like to have you handle these for me because you aredefinitely the most competent of all the secretaries. So if you would please arrivepromptly at 8:00 a.m., I could really use your help. If there's a problem with yourbeing here at 8:00, let me know and we can work it out").

Results of this exploratory study are summarized in Table I. The classes exposed

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THE IMPLICIT SOCIAL SCIENTIST AND THE IMPLICIT RHETORICIAN—357

TABLE 1

COMPARISON OF MESSAGE STRATEGY SKILLS AMONG STUDENTSIN THREE TYPES OF INTERPERSONAL COURSE

Levelor Skill

High

Middle

Low

Total Nb

Asserting One's OwnFeelings Appropriai

TheoryPlus Skills

64.7"(33)15.7

(8)19.6(10)51

TheoryOnly

12.1(4)

5).5(17)36.4(12)33

:ely'

ControlGroup

28.1(9)

40.6(13)31.3(10)32

Acknowledging the Legitimacyof Another's Perspecti

TheoryPlus Skills

70.6(36)29.4(12)5.9(3)

51

TheoryOnly

48.5(16)21.2

(7)30.3(10)33

ive"

ControlGroup

34.4(U)28.1

(9)37.5(12)32

Regulating the BehaviorofaSubordinate*'

TheoryPlus Skills

53.8(28)28.8(15)17.3(9)

52

TheoryOnly

27.3(9)

39.4(13)33.3(11)33

'*

ControlGroup

42.4(14)39.4(13)18.2(6)

33

V - 26.33 (4df), p < .001•*X 2 - 16.13 (4dO,p<.01• * V - 6 . 8 8 ( 4 d O , p < . 1 5'Numbers in parentheses are frequencies; the number above each frequency is a percentage.•"Total N varies because not all subjects responded to each situation. All subjects were university students enrolled in a basic interpersonal course.

to the proposed course design (theory along with skills training) generally outper-formed the theory-alone and the control group. A series of chi square analysesrevealed significant differences between the three groups in asserting feelingsconstructively (x2 = 26.33 (4df), p < .001; 80% interrater agreement between twocoders for twenty-three protocols); acknowledging the legitimacy of another's pointof view (x2 = 16.13 (4df), p < .01; 90% interrater agreement), and a nonsignificantset of differences on regulating the behavior of a subordinate (x2 = 6.88 (4df), p <.15; 100% interrater agreement).30

More important than the training effects these data suggest is the point thatregardless of course format, interpersonal communication students did not automati-cally see the relation between theoretical material learned in class and strategies foreveryday communicative situations. A variety of other studies have also foundsubstantial individual differences among college students and adults in persuasiveand regulatory communication skills.31 These individual differences would seem towarrant explicit skills training in the basic interpersonal course.

Further, although the data reported above indicate that the proposed trainingmethod was reasonably effective, these data are an insufficient basis for concludingthat the proposed training method is especially so; indeed it appears that the controlgroup received some skills training through instructor-guided discussion, since 43.4%of this group was able to produce high-level regulative messages whereas only 27.3%of the "theory-only" group utilized such messages (see Table I). The success of thecontrol group along with that of the trained group suggests that a variety of trainingtechniques may be effective in enhancing interpersonal rhetorical skills. The majoradvantage to the proposed technique is the theoretical grounding it provides for thestrategies taught; without such grounding instructors have little justification forteaching and evaluating message strategies.

Student Reaction to the Course. The course design has been used at a majoruniversity by both the author and a colleague, and by the author at a junior collegewith both traditional day students and evening, continuing education students. Allgroups have generally given the course favorable ratings, with overall course ratingsranging from 2.03 to 2.06, where 1.00 indicated a highly favorable rating and 5.00 avery poor rating (see Table II). Most students said that they liked the practical focusand individual attention they received in Unit III, though a smaller group felt that

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TABLE 2

STUDENT REACTION TO THE COURSE1

Type of school,instructor, and

number of students

university instructor #168 students

3 classes

university instructor f 222 students

1 class

junior college instructor f\19 students2 classes

109 lolal students

Clarity ofcourse goals

2.01

2.05

2.17

Value ottextbooks

2.43

2.27

1.97

Value ofCourse

Activities

2.03

2.01

1.97

Difficultyof Course

2.61

2.36

1.96

Overa»Evaluationof Course

2.03

2.03

2.06

'Students responded to questionnaires with five-point scaled items, 1.00 meaning "superior,** 2.00 meaning "very good," 3.00 meaning "good," 4.00meaning "fair,'* and 5.00 meaning "poor." For the "Difficulty of Course" item, 1.00 means "very difficult,'* 2.00 means "moderately difficult," 3.00 means"average," 4.00 means "moderately easy," and 5.00 means, "very easy." Responses are the mean responses by the number of students listed in each row.

the content of Units I and II was more intellectually stimulating than that of UnitIII. Along these same lines, students generally felt the course was somewhat difficult,with junior college students rating the course an average of 1.96 (where 1.00 equalsvery difficult) and university students rating the course difficulty at 2.36 and 2.61.University and junior college students seemed to like the course texts, with textratings ranging from 1.97 to 2.43, and both groups felt course objectives were clear,rating this scale item an average of 2.01 to 2.17.

In general, then, student reaction to the course is favorable, and some evidencesuggests the prescriptive third unit improves students' message strategy skills. Butthe major strength of this interpersonal course design lies in the power of the twocourse-controlling metaphors: people are implicit social scientists and implicitrhetoricians. These concepts furnish a framework for understanding basic interper-sonal processes, integrate the often diverse topics covered in the interpersonal course,and link theoretical concerns to practical communication skills. In particular, thecourse framework encourages students to make explicit their implicit theories ofpersonality and rhetoric. In so doing, the course attempts to capitalize on whatHeider calls the ordinary person's "great and profound understanding of himself andother people."32

NOTES

1 Fritz Heider, The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations (New York: John Wiley, 1958), p. 7.2 Heider, p. 4. 3 Heider, p. 2.4 George Kelly, A Theory of Personality: The Psychology of Personal Constructs (New York: W. W. Norton,

1963), p. 4.5 Daniel M. Wegner and Robin R. Vallacher, Implicit Psychology: An Introduction to Social Cognition (New

York: Oxford University Press, 1977), p. vii.6 See for example, Jesse G. Delia, "Constructivism and the Study of Human Communication," Quarterly Journal

of Speech, 63 (1977), 66-83, and Charles R. Berger, Royce R. Gardner, Malcolm R. Parks, Linda Schulman, andGerald R. Miller, "Interpersonal Epistemology and Interpersonal Communication," in Explorations in Interper-sonal Communication, ed. Gerald R. Miller (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1976).

7 One well integrated text that is a clear exception to this claim is Michael D. Scott and William G. Powers,Interpersonal Communication: A Question of Needs (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1978); see note 12 for comment onthis text.

8 This third unit on interpersonal communicative skills is included because the instructor saw that many studentswho understood interpersonal communication theories nevertheless often failed to see the relevance of those theoriesto everyday rhetorical choicemaking, a phenomenon James C. McCroskey recently characterized as the "communi-cation competence" vs. "communication-performance" dichotomy ("Communication Competence and Performance:

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THE IMPLICIT SOCIAL SCIENTIST AND THE IMPLICIT RHETORICIAN—359

A Research and Pedagogical Perspective," Communication Education, 31 [1982] esp. pp. 4-5). SupportingMcCroskey's distinction is research showing that college students may be able to understand an audience'sperspective without seeing the relevance of that perspective to the task of message construction. See Marshall A.Atlas, Addressing An Audience: A Study of Expert-Novice Differences in Writing. Technical Report No. 3(Pittsburgh: Carnegie-Mellon University, 1980).

9 David L. Swanson and Jesse G. Delia, The Nature of Human Communication (Chicago: Science ResearchAssociates, 1976).

10 See note 5.11 Another set of texts that stress implicit theorizing are W. Barnett Pearce's monograph, An Overview of

Communication and Interpersonal Relationships, (Chicago, Illinois: Science Research Associates, 1976), and DavidJ. Schneider, Albert H. Hastorf, and Phoebe C. Ellsworth, Person Perception, 2nd ed. (Reading, Mass.:Addison-Wesley, 1979). Schneider et al.'s text is more comprehensive than Wegner and Vallacher's (e.g., Schneideret al.'s includes a chapter on nonverbal behavior); however, the Wegner and Vallacher text is somewhat morereadable than Schneider et al.'s and thus more appropriate for an introductory course.

12 While the cognitive psychology perspective recommended in this paper may over-rationalize human behavior,the needs perspective may under-rationalize human behavior. This is not a bad state of affairs; instructors may wantto refer to both types of texts to stimulate a dialectical critique of each. However, from my point of view it ultimatelymakes little sense to teach students about "needs" if those needs are not in some way cognizable and controllable. Ifthe interpersonal communicator can make genuine rhetorical choices, he or she is more an implicit social scientist orrhetorician than simply a needs responder. One has to ask, is a need truly a need if we have reflective awareness ofand control over it?

13 Wegner and Vallacher, p. 51; also see Edward E. Jones and Keith E. Davis, "From Acts to Dispositions: TheAttribution Process in Person Perception," in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (vol. 2), ed. LeonardBerkowitz (New York, Academic, 1965).

14 A series of six tests, which Wegner and Vallacher refer to, are used for the self-analysis assignment. Forexample, Wegner's social cognitive articulation test gives students a measure of their ability to think about others.(Daniel M. Wegner, "Attribute Generality: The Development and Articulation of Attributes in Person Perception,"Journal of Research in Personality, 11 (1977), 329-339); Julian Rotter's locus of control measure and MiltonRokeach's values survey give estimates of beliefs that may affect one's interpersonal style ("Generalized Expectanciesfor Internal versus External Control of Reinforcement," Psychological Monographs, 80 (1966), 1-28; "Change andStability in American Value Systems, 1968-1971," Public Opinion Quarterly, 38 (1974), 222-238). In addition,instructors may want to use one or two "communication attitude" instruments such as James C. McCroskey'sShyness Scale and Personal Report of Communication Apprehension (James C. McCroskey and VirginiaRichmond, The Quiet Ones: Communication Apprehension and Shyness (Dubuque, Iowa: Gorsuch, Scarisbrick,1980), pp. 4; 10-11).

15 Wegner and Vallacher show that a dominant individual, such as an employer, may actually be perceived as moredominant when he or she acts in a disagreeable manner; students discuss the possible strategies one might use tocommunicate with such an employer.

16 Although student reports may sometimes benefit the report-givers more than the recipients, the group lessonsdescribed in Unit II have generally been well received by class members. This positive reaction may occur because thereports focus on topics close to classmates' lives, e.g., implicit theorizing about ¡deal friends and mates; implicittheorizing about oneself and its effect on academic success, and so forth. Further, to reduce the chances of a tediouspresentation, the groups are limited to thirty minutes each and employ nontraditional teaching methods such as skitsand class participation exercises. For example, one nonverbal communication group began its lesson with a lecturetteon the implicit social scientist's cognitive need to predict, and followed this lecturette with a series of skits illustratingsome well-known nonverbal communication cues that class members were asked to identify. Discussion then ensuedover class members' implicit nonverbal theories, focusing on the group's central question: can people guess well aboutsome nonverbal communicative cues because these cues have inherent meaning or because we as implicit socialscientists have "agreed" on conventional meanings for these cues?

17 This classical Aristotelian set of communicative skills is similar to R. R. Allen and Barbara S. Wood'sdescription of the components comprising communicative competence: "(1) developing a repertoire of communicationacts according to criteria, (2) selecting from that repertoire the most appropriate communication acts according tocriteria, (3) implementing these communicative choices effectively through verbal and nonverbal means, and (4)evaluating these communication attempts according to elements of appropriateness and effectiveness." See "BeyondReading and Writing to Communicative Competence," Communication Education, 27 (1978), p. 289.

18 Allen and Wood list "ritualizing communication" as one of five major communication functions, the other fourbeing controlling, (which Applegate calls regulative communication), sharing feelings (which encompasses assertingfeelings and comforting communication), informing, and imagining. See Allen and Wood, p. 288. Ritualizingcommunication may be taught using Ronald B. Adler's Confidence in Communication: A Guide to Assertive andSocial Skills (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1977), particularly chapter seven on conversational skills.

19 See note 18. For a review of Adler's text see Janet L. Weathers, Communication Education, 27 (1978), 173-175.This instructor uses the last three chapters of Adler's text for teaching conflict management, asserting feelingsappropriately, and active listening. The first six chapters of the text are recommended as additional, nonrequiredreading to students concerned with developing assertiveness.

20 Adler's text, like many interpersonal texts influenced by the Rogerian emphasis on asserting feelings for

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psychological health, does not explore the range of communicative strategies available to the persuader, comforter orregulative communicator. One source of such strategies is our field's rich rhetorical tradition. Another is the growingbody of empirical research on message strategies. See for example, Lois J . Einhorn's excellent account of persuasivestrategies used by interviewees, "An Inner View of the Job Interview: An Investigation of Successful CommunicativeBehaviors," Communication Education, 30 (1981), 217-228; also see Linda L. Putnam and Ritch L. Sorenson,"Equivocal Messages in Organizations," Human Communication Research, 8 (1982), pp. 114-132, and MargaretL. McLaughlin, Michael J . Cody and Carl S. Robey, "Situational Influences on the Selection of Strategies to ResistCompliance-Gaining Attempts," Human Communication Research, 7 (1980), pp. 14-36, in addition to the sourceslisted in note 21.

21 For a persuasive coding scheme see Jesse G. Delia, Susan L. Kline, and Brant R. Burleson, "The Developmentof Persuasive Communication Strategies in Kindergarteners Through Twelfth-Graders," Communication Mono-graphs, 46 (1979), 241-256; for a regulative scheme see James L. Applegate, "Adaptive Communication inEducational Contexts: A Study of Teachers' Communicative Strategies," Communication Education, 29 (1980),158-170; for a comforting communication scheme see Brant R. Burleson, "The Development of ComfortingCommunication Skills in Childhood and Adolescence," Child Development, 53 (1982), 1578-1588.

22 Burleson, pp. 1581-1582. 23Burleson.24An excellent source of ideas for conflict management, persuasion, and comforting situations or role plays is

Ronald E. Bassett, Nilwon Whittington, and Ann Staton-Spicer's "The Basics in Speaking and Listening for HighSchool Graduates: What Should be Assessed?" Communication Education, 27 (1978), esp. pp. 301-302. Forexample, one human relations skill described is "expressing approval to your child for his/her school achievement."A comforting role play based on this skill might ask students to comfort a sibling upset about performing poorly on atest. When constructing role-play situations, instructors should take care to create everyday situations, rather thanrequiring students to use communication skills to cope with great personal tragedies (e.g., the death of a parent),which would probably require more acting than interpersonal communication skill and are unnecessarily extremesituations for the purpose of testing communication skills.

25 Please enclose $2.00 to cover photocopying and postage costs.26 (New York: Harper & Row, 1981.)27 Adler, pp. 173-183. All examples are student responses collected in the exploratory study.28 Coding principles for the skill of acknowledging the perspective of another are drawn from Adler pp. 190-200

and attribution theory.29 For an analysis of positive and negative identity management in persuasive communication see Ruth Ann Clark,

"The Impact of Self Interest and Desire for Liking on the Selection of Communicative Strategies, CommunicationMonographs, 46 (1979), 257-273. The regulative coding principles are a slight variation on Applegate's, pp.164-166, note 21.

30 Obviously these results should be considered suggestive rather than conclusive since the data they summarizewere not collected in the context of a rigorous training study. Rather, the study was conducted to assess in apreliminary way the utility of direct instruction in interpersonal rhetorical skills. The data suggest that some of themethods used in Unit III to teach interpersonal rhetorical skills are moderately effective. Clearly, however, moreextensive and rigorous research is needed to assess adequately the merits of the specific teaching methods describedhere.

31 See Atlas, note 8; Delia et al.'s and Burleson's findings that on the average, older adolescents employed onlymid-level persuasive and comforting strategies.

32 Heider, p. 2.

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