Non-verbal behaviour in same-sex and mixed-sex physiotherapist-patient interactions

Six male and six female physiotherapists were videotaped while treating male and female patients. The average duration of the therapist's gaze, smiling, touch, and speech, as well as the ratio of therapist's to patient's speech, were computed. It was found that these non-verbal behaviours differed as a function of sex of physiotherapist, sex of patient and point in the interaction. It was suggested that physiotherapists should increase their awareness of these behaviours in their interactions with patients

Group membership, social rules, and power: A social-psychological perspective on emotional communication

Reviews research on the language and communication of emotion in interpersonal situations between people in different social groups. Three main areas are reviewed: self-disclosures between people of different ages or different social status; conflict in close relationships, including the tendency of men to withdraw and women to engage conflict; and assertive communication. All these contexts are highly rule-governed, and power is also a highly salient variable in all of them. Overall, the literature suggests that people communicate their emotions in such difficult contexts using strategies that maximize their own comfort and sense of power. These strategies are closely tied to sociostructural power differences

The impact of sex and role identity on employees\u27 perceptions of managers\u27 communication style

This study reports the findings of quantitative analyses of 157 employees’ perceptions of their managers in both negative and positive conversations. The main theoretical frameworks were Communication Accommodation Theory and Social Identity Theory. MANOVA analyses revealed that intergroup dynamics, including (“us vs. them” perceptions such as “distancing”, “dominant” “controlling”) were invoked in the negative conversations, especially with male managers, while in-group dynamics (e.g. “similar to me”, “supportive” and “friendly”) were invoked in the positive conversations, especially with female managers. Further, the results showed that managers were perceived more negatively by their same-sex than their opposite sex employees. Finally, high-roleidentifying employees rated managers in unsatisfactory conversations more positively than low role-identifying employees did. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed

Conversations between postgraduate students and their supervisors: intergroup communication and accommodation

The main aim of this study was to analyze intergroup communication and language processes in conversations between postgraduate students and their academic supervisors. Communication accommodation theory and Social Identity Theory were used as the main theoretical frameworks. A secondary aim was to contribute to the CAT literature by further operationalizing communication accommodation strategies. Transcripts of conversations between 31 postgraduate students and their supervisors were examined using thematic content analysis, and the findings produced a number of predicted and emergent themes. The themes included dominance, status, mentoring, academic and professional identity, and postgraduate students’ independence. Face issues also emerged as a central theme. At a theoretical level, the findings supported and extended CAT as a robust theory for examining ingroup and intergroup processes in supervisor-postgraduate student communication. At an applied level, the findings contribute to the literature on maintaining and improving supervisor-supervisee communication in general, and more specifically in an academic context

The mediating role of narrative in intergroup processes talking about AIDS

This article shows how the use of narrative mediates intergroup processes in spoken discourse. Sixty male and 72 female young Australian heterosexual adults participated in 4-person conversations (same-sex or mixed-sex) about HIV/AIDS and safe sex. Two hundred and thirty-two extracts from the transcripts that met the criteria for narratives were coded for in-group and out-group, agent and object (if any) named, extent of group homogeneity, and positivity/negativity. Major results of analyses of variance showed more positivity to in-groups than out-groups, children with AIDS, and people with medically acquired HIV. There was little difference in homogeneity among groups. On the other hand, qualitative analysis of several extracts indicated that negative affective reactions to the out-group and perceived out-group homogeneity were collaboratively negotiated, using narrative to assist in defining the out-group, the tone adopted by the participants to the out-group, and how participants positioned themselves relative to the issue discussed

Accommodating a new frontier: the context of law enforcement

This chapter spotlights communication accommodation theory (CAT: see Giles, Coupland & Coupland, 1991) -- a longstanding framework (Gallois, Ogay & Giles, 2005: Giles, 1973) that has been heralded as one of the most prominent in the social psychology of language (Tracy & Haspel, 2004) and one that has captured cross-disciplinary imaginations (Coupland & Jaworski, 1997). The theory has had a hsitory of application to an array of organizational contexts (e.g. Bourhis, 1991) and, herein, we add another exciting possibility, namely its relevance for a more incisive appreciation of understanding police-civilian relations. After a brief discussion about what images people hold of police officers, we introduce CAT with particular attention to its face and identity concerns, whilst we distil the theoretical essence of CAT down to four key principles, underscoring its potential for developing not only an innovative reserach agenda for the future, but also for suggesting new theoretical propositions to test in this applied domain