Leslie A Baxter
Biographic Data
| ID | 649897 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Leslie A Baxter |
| GIVEN NAMES | Leslie A |
| FAMILY NAME | Baxter |
| SIGNATURE | BAXTER L A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Iowa |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 56 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1425 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 55 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1978 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2021 |
| H-INDEX | 22 |
Relational Dialectics Theory
This article first provides an overview and brief history of relational dialectics theory (RDT) before turning to a presentation of RDT's basic tenets and theoretical utility. In addition, it also examines how RDT has been applied in studying family contexts and offers suggestions for future directions of RDT‐based research
Engaging Theories in Family Communication
Remaking «Family» Communicatively
The Dialogic Construction of “Adoption” in Online Foster Adoption Narratives
One hundred online narratives of foster adoption were analyzed qualitatively with the goal of identifying what, if any, competing discourses animated the meaning of “adoption” constructed by adoptive parents. Framed in relational dialectics theory, two discourses were identified: (1) the Discourse of Utilitarian Acquisition, in which adoption was constructed as a second-best pathway to parenting, after biological reproduction had failed, and (2) …
Narrating Adoption
Framed in narrative theory and relational dialectics theory, one hundred online stories of domestic adoption told by adoptive parents were qualitatively analyzed, revealing four primary discourses of adoption that challenge the idea that adoption is a second-best way to parent. Narrative beginnings were dominated by a discourse of adoption as a valuable alternative to pregnancy. Narrative middles-and-ends featured two discourses of how the adopti…
Telling the Story of Stepfamily Beginnings
The current study adopts a narrative perspective in examining the content of 80 stepchildren's stepfamily origin stories. Results reveal five types of stepfamily origin stories: Sudden, Dark-sided, Ambivalent, Idealized, and Incremental. Results support the hypothesis that story type would predict differences in family satisfaction; stepchildren who described their stepfamily origins as Idealized were more satisfied than those whose origins were …
Discursive Constructions of the Meaning of “Family” in Online Narratives of Foster Adoptive Parents
Framed by relational dialectics theory, discursive constructions of the meaning of “family” were examined in 100 online foster adoption narratives. Parental narratives manifested struggles between biogenetic and discursive constructions of “family,” identified here as the discourse of biological normativity (DBN) and discourse of constitutive kinning (DCK). The DBN reinscribes the dominant cultural and foster care system preference for biogenetic…
Explaining Communication
Contents: Preface. S.W. Littlejohn, The Nature and Evaluation of Theory. K. Tracy, Discourse and Identity: Language or Talk? W.A. Afifi, Nonverbal Communication. C. Pavitt, Impression Formation. S.R. Wilson, Communication Theory and the Concept of Goal. B.R. Burleson, Constructivism: A General Theory of Communication Skill. A. Rancer, A.M. Nicotera, Aggressiveness Communication. C.R. Berger, Plans, Planning, and Communication Effectiveness. J.O. …
Perceived and Ideal Family Communication Patterns and Family Satisfaction for Parents and their College-Aged Children
A sample of 120 dyads consisting of a parent and their college-aged child provided reports of perceived and ideal family communication patterns (FCP) in addition to indicating their satisfaction with the family. Results indicated high correlations between perceived and ideal FCP dimensions for both parents and their children. Parents reported higher scores than children did on perceived conversation orientation, ideal conversation orientation, an…
Narrative Coherence in Online Stories Told by Members of the Adoption Triad
Two hundred ninety-eight online narratives told by adoptive parents, adoptees, and birth mothers were rated for their narrative coherence, which consisted of five dimensions: sequential organization, orientation, causal explanation, congruence of affect with content, and sense-making. Overall, mean ratings across all adoption triad members suggested more incoherence than coherence, but relative differences were found among triad members. Adoptive…
Voicing Relationships
Extending on her 1996 seminal and award-winning book on relational dialectics theory, author Leslie Baxter presents the 'next generation' of the theory: relational dialogics theory
Dear Birth Mother”
The current study, a qualitative investigation of online letters to domestic birth mothers from adoption-seeking parents, was framed in Relational Dialectics Theory and identified four discursive struggles that animate the meanings of domestic adoption, adoptive parenting, the identity of the birth mother, and the anticipated nature of the adoption triad among the birth mother, the child, and the adoptive parents: adoption as gain versus adoption…
Topic Expansiveness and Family Communication Patterns
Conversational topic largely has been studied as an individual's binary decision to engage in disclosure or avoidance. The study complements this work by examining how various topics are engaged in parent-adolescent family communication. Specifically, it examines topical differences in dialogic expansiveness, conceptualized with Bakhtin's dialogism theory as the extent to which all interactants' viewpoints are encouraged and legitimated. Operatio…
Relational Dialectics Theory, Applied
The Dialogue of Marriage
This article, framed in relational dialectics theory, argues for dialogic creativity as an alternative to extant companionate and institutional conceptualizations of marital quality. Dialogic creativity—dialogue—forecloses monologic calcification of meaning in marriage, including the evaluative judgment of what constitutes marital quality, through the ongoing interplay of competing discourses. Four potential discursive sites are discussed through…
Constructing family
This study explored how participants discursively rendered voluntary kin relationships sensical and legitimate. Interpretive analyses of 110 interviews revealed four main types of voluntary kin: (i) substitute family, (ii) supplemental family, (iii) convenience family, and (iv) extended family. These types were rendered sensical and legitimated by drawing on the discourse of the traditional family. Except for the extended family, three of four vo…
Parent-Child Perceptions of Parental Behavioral Control Through Rule-Setting for Risky Health Choices During Adolescence
This study of 164 parent-child dyads compared perceptions of the rule-setting processes during the child's adolescence surrounding reported rules for the risky health domains of sexual activity, alcohol use, and tobacco use. Two kinds of rules were identified: abstinence rules and contingency rules. Tobacco use was largely dominated by abstinence rules, whereas sexual activity and alcohol featured both abstinence and contingency rules. Parents pe…
Lay Conceptions of “Family”
This study replicates and extends research initiated by Trost (1990) Trost, J. 1990. Do we mean the same by the concept of family?. Communication Research, 17: 431–443. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]. In particular, 181 university students provided perceptual data on the family status of each of 23 structural constellations. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four experimental groups that manipulated two independent …
Empty ritual
This qualitative study investigated 80 young-adult stepchildren's talk about one of their parents' remarriage ceremony. The remarriage event was celebrated in six types of ritual enactments, five of which celebrated the couple's marriage and one of which was family-centered in its celebration of the beginning of the new stepfamily. Three factors led stepchildren to find the remarriage ceremony empty: (i) a ritual form that was too traditional or …
Problematizing the Problem in Communication
Keywords: DialogismDifferenceInterpersonal CommunicationFamily Communication Additional informationNotes on contributorsLeslie BaxterLeslie A. Baxter (PhD, University of Oregon) is F. Wendell Miller Distinguished Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Iowa
Engaging Theories in Family Communication
Preface - Dawn O. Braithwaite and Leslie A. Baxter Foreword: Family Communication Theories: Variations and Challenges - Anita L. Vangelisti 1. Introduction: Meta-Theory and Theory in Family Communication Research - Leslie A. Baxter and Dawn O. Braithwaite I. Theories Originating in Communication 2. Communication Accommodation Theory: An Intergroup Approach to Family Relationships - Jake Harwood, Jordan Soliz & Mei-Chen Lin 3. Communication Privac…
The divorce decree, communication, and the structuration of coparenting relationships in stepfamilies
Using Giddens's (1984) structuration theory, this study explored the communicative processes surrounding the divorce decree in coparenting relationships in stepfamilies. Participants included 21 adults who were coparenting children in stepfamilies who completed diary entries of all interactions with coparents over a 2-week period, and who completed follow-up interviews. Results revealed two structures of signification with respect to the divorce …
Family Communication Environments and Rule-Based Social Control of Adolescents' Healthy Lifestyle Choices
To describe further the contribution of family interaction to adolescent members' health, 164 parent-college student child dyads completed questionnaires regarding perceptions of Family Communication Environment (FCE), healthy lifestyle rules in the family during the child's adolescence, and child compliance with those rules. Families higher in Expressiveness reported lower child compliance to rules, lower parent articulation of rules, and lower …
Relationships as dialogues
This article discusses five interrelated conceptions of dialogue in the works of Russian scholar Mikhail Bakhtin that ground relational dialectics theory: (a) dialogue as constitutive process, (b) dialogue as dialectical flux, (c) dialogue as aesthetic moment, (d) dialogue as utterance, and (e) dialogue as critical sensibility. The author's recent research in relational dialectics is discussed, as are directions for future research. Relational di…
A Tale of Two Voices
(2004). A Tale of Two Voices: Relational Dialectics Theory. Journal of Family Communication: Vol. 4, No. 3-4, pp. 181-192
Taboo Topics in Close Relationships
This study is placed within a dialectic framework, illustrating the contradictory needs that exist for relationship openness and closedness. It explores one type of closedness in close relationships - the `taboo topic'. Ninety ethnographic interviews solicited informant accounts of topics which were `off limits' in the context of an opposite-sex relationship in which they were involved. Results indicated that there were six primary types of `tabo…
Turning Points in Developing Romantic Relationships
The 80 partners from 40 romantic relationships were independently interviewed using the RIT procedure with regard to the turning points of their respective relationships; 26 types of turning points were found, which reduced to 14 supra-types. These supra-types differed in their association with relational commitment, with some events strongly positive, some strongly negative, and others relatively modest in reported change in commitment. About ha…
Dialectical Contradictions in Relationship Development
Three fundamental contradictions were examined in the stages of development identified retrospectively by 106 romantic relationship parties: autonomy-connection, openness-closedness, and predictability-novelty. The contradictions were reported to be present in approximately three-quarters of all identified stages. The openness closedness contradiction was more likely than the other two contradictions to be reported during the initial stage of dev…
An Investigation of Compliance-Gaining as Politeness
This study considers an alternative perspective on the compliance-gaining phenomenon, specifically the theory of politeness articulated by Brown and Levinson (1978). They posit that all interaction is characterized by concern over the other person's autonomy needs and his or her desire to be liked, manifested in message behavior that addresses these needs (i.e., politeness). Brown and Levinson's typology of politeness strategies was translated in…
Constructing family
This study explored how participants discursively rendered voluntary kin relationships sensical and legitimate. Interpretive analyses of 110 interviews revealed four main types of voluntary kin: (i) substitute family, (ii) supplemental family, (iii) convenience family, and (iv) extended family. These types were rendered sensical and legitimated by drawing on the discourse of the traditional family. Except for the extended family, three of four vo…
Strategies for Maintaining and Repairing Marital Relationships
Although relationship research has concentrated on relational formation and termination processes, most of the time spent in long-term relationships is devoted to relational maintenance and/or repair. The present study examines the maintenance/repair strategies reported by fifty couples (n= 100 spouses). It attempts to discover the strategies and the ways in which their number and choice are related to marital satisfaction, participation in a mar…
Gender Differences in the Hetero-Sexual Relationship Rules Embedded in Break-Up Accounts
Rules theory is the framework for this study's analysis of ordinary language contained in break-up accounts. It attempts to understand the relationship expectations which parties have for their opposite-sex romantic relationships. Break-up accounts from 157 respondents produced eight primary reasons/rules relevant to this relationship type: the obligation to grant autonomy beyond the relationship; the expectation of similarity; the obligations to…
Secret Tests
Journal Article "Secret Tests": Social Strategies for Acquiring Information About the State of the Relationship Get access Leslie A. Baxter, Leslie A. Baxter 1Leslie A. Baxter (Ph.D., University of Oregon, 1975) is an associate professor of communications at Lewis and Clark College, Portland, OR Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar William W. Wilmot William W. Wilmot 2William W. Wilmot (Ph.D., University of Was…
Constituting Relationships in Talk A Taxonomy of Speech Events in Social and Personal Relationships
In a series of four studies, a descriptive taxonomy of dyadic speech events in everyday relating was developed and employed to explore the constitutive functions of interpersonal communication. Twenty-nine speech events were identified and replicated through a variety of multi-method procedures, including unstructured and structured diary records, judgment sorting tasks, and semantic-differential rating scaks. Everyday relating appears to be domi…
Turning Points in the Development of Blended Families
A modified retrospective interview technique (RIT) was employed with members of 53 blended families to determine the types of turning points they reported experiencing and the developmental trajectories of their respective blended family's first 4 years. Findings revealed 15 primary types of turning points, of which 'Changes in Household Configuration', 'Conflict', 'Holidays/Special Events', 'Quality Time' and 'Family Crisis' were the most freque…
Perceptions of Dialectical Contradictions in Turning Points of Development in Heterosexual Romantic Relationships
The current study sought to examine the perceived centrality or importance of six basic contradictions in the turning points of relationship development for heterosexual romantic pairs. A modified Retrospective Interview Technique was employed to elicit respondent accounts of the turning points of their relationship. For our sample of 100 males and females, drawn from 50 heterosexual romantic couples, the contradictions of Autonomy-Connection and…
Relationship Maintenance Strategies and Dialectical Contradictions in Personal Relationships
This questionnaire study of both partners from 162 romantic and marital relationships sought to examine perceived partner maintenance strategies as correlates of participant satisfaction for relationships at varying dialectical moments of the autonomy-connection, predictability-novelty and openness-closedness contradictions. The perceived partner maintenance strategies of contact, romance and avoidance varied in efficacy depending on the particul…
Marital Partners' Perceptions of Marital Maintenance Strategies
The purpose of the present study was to examine marital partners' perceptions of the underlying similarities among the marital maintenance strategies initially reported by Dindia & Baxter (1987). The perceptual judgment sorts of ninety-one married persons were analyzed using individual differences multidimensional scaling, hierarchical cluster analysis and content analysis. Results indicated that husbands and wives sorted the maintenance strategi…
Discursive Constructions of the Meaning of “Family” in Online Narratives of Foster Adoptive Parents
Framed by relational dialectics theory, discursive constructions of the meaning of “family” were examined in 100 online foster adoption narratives. Parental narratives manifested struggles between biogenetic and discursive constructions of “family,” identified here as the discourse of biological normativity (DBN) and discourse of constitutive kinning (DCK). The DBN reinscribes the dominant cultural and foster care system preference for biogenetic…
Symbols of Relationship Identity in Relationship Cultures
Relationships are unique mini-cultures in which the parties construct meaning systems in a variety of ways, including ritual enactments, stories and symbols. This study examines the content features and functions of the symbols by which relationship parties identify their relationships. A group of 108 randomly selected respondents from a university population was interviewed with regard to the relationship symbols for either a romantic relationsh…
Forms and Functions of Intimate Play in Personal Relationships
Two studies are reported on intimate play in same-sex friendships and in opposite-sex romantic relationships. In Study 1, a typology of eight play forms was derived: private verbal coding, role-playing, teasing, prosocial physical play, antisocial physical play, games, gossiping, and public performances. Study 1 also modified the Betcher PQII paper-and-pencil measure of perceived playfulness for use in nonmarital relationships, finding playfulnes…
Stepchildren's Perceptions of the Contradictions in Communication with Stepparents
This interpretive study, framed in relational dialectics theory, sought to identify stepchildren's perceptions of the contradictions that animate communication with the stepparent in their household of primary residence. In-depth interviews were conducted, producing 802 pages of double-spaced interview transcripts, which were analyzed inductively for commonly experienced contradictions of stepchild-stepparent communication. Three underlying contr…
Trajectories of Relationship Disengagement
It was the purpose of this study to explore primarily through qualitative data the process by which personal relationships dissolve. In applying the method of analytic induction to ninety-seven heterosexual romantic relationship break-ups, a flow chart of the disengagement process was developed around six distinctive features of the break-up process. This flow chart was subsequently used to trace the dissolution process for each break-up account,…
Couple Perceptions of Their Similarities and Differences
This interview study of 27 friendship and 14 romantic pairs examined the dialectical unity of two contradictions: similarity/difference and positivity/negativity. Relationship partners were able to identify phenomena upon which they were similar and upon which they were different. In addition, partners identified phenomena upon which they were both similar and different. Partners were able to identify similarities and differences that were positi…
Rules for Relating Communicated among Social Network Members
Two studies were conducted on the rules of relating communicated in the social network interactions of young adults. Study 1 involved 68 university students who completed a two week diary recording interactions with others in which rules for conducting relationships were communicated. In general, rules for relating tended to be communicated among same-sex dyads or triads through advice-giving, sanctioning, and gossip. Rules dealt primarily with r…
Self-Disclosure as a Relationship Disengagement Strategy
Interactants are strategic goal seekers in their interpersonal communication. However, to date, research has concentrated almost exclusively on the communicative strategies by which actors achieve a goal of relationship initiation. Relationship disengagement occupies an important motivational force, as well. This study initiated exploration of the communicative strategies by which actors disengage their relationships, focusing in particular on th…
I do' Again
This study provides descriptive insight into the dialectical themes of one public relationship ritual in modern US society, the renewal of marital vows between spouses. Interpretive analyses of in-depth interview data revealed that this ritual allows spouses to manage three underlying dialectical contra- dictions: private-public, stability-change and conventionality-uniqueness
The divorce decree, communication, and the structuration of coparenting relationships in stepfamilies
Using Giddens's (1984) structuration theory, this study explored the communicative processes surrounding the divorce decree in coparenting relationships in stepfamilies. Participants included 21 adults who were coparenting children in stepfamilies who completed diary entries of all interactions with coparents over a 2-week period, and who completed follow-up interviews. Results revealed two structures of signification with respect to the divorce …
Revealing and Not Revealing the Status of Romantic Relationships to Social Networks
The researchers conducted retrospective interviews with 101 university-level participants to determine what they did to make their developing romantic relationship known to social network members and what they did to keep their relationship from becoming known. The most frequent topic of both revelation and concealment was information on the relationship's status and progress. Strategic disclosure and manipulation of co-presence signals were the …
A Tale of Two Voices
(2004). A Tale of Two Voices: Relational Dialectics Theory. Journal of Family Communication: Vol. 4, No. 3-4, pp. 181-192
Sex-role identity, sex of other, and affective relationship as determinants of interpersonal conflict-management styles
Self-Disclosure as a Relationship Disengagement Strategy
Interactants are strategic goal seekers in their interpersonal communication. However, to date, research has concentrated almost exclusively on the communicative strategies by which actors achieve a goal of relationship initiation. Relationship disengagement occupies an important motivational force, as well. This study initiated exploration of the communicative strategies by which actors disengage their relationships, focusing in particular on th…
Antisocial and Prosocial Behavior on Prime-Time TV
Communication characteristics of relationships with differential growth rates
One hundred sixteen relationships were monitored over a two‐week time period with structured diaries kept by one party to the relationship. Based on respondent perceptions of relationship change, the relationships were categorized as no growth, low growth, or high growth in nature. MANOVA results revealed a significant effect for relationship growth, with no, low, and high growth groups displaying progressively more perceived encounter effectiven…
Androgyny, depression, and self-esteem in irish homosexual and heterosexual males and females
Trajectories of Relationship Disengagement
It was the purpose of this study to explore primarily through qualitative data the process by which personal relationships dissolve. In applying the method of analytic induction to ninety-seven heterosexual romantic relationship break-ups, a flow chart of the disengagement process was developed around six distinctive features of the break-up process. This flow chart was subsequently used to trace the dissolution process for each break-up account,…
Secret Tests
Journal Article "Secret Tests": Social Strategies for Acquiring Information About the State of the Relationship Get access Leslie A. Baxter, Leslie A. Baxter 1Leslie A. Baxter (Ph.D., University of Oregon, 1975) is an associate professor of communications at Lewis and Clark College, Portland, OR Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar William W. Wilmot William W. Wilmot 2William W. Wilmot (Ph.D., University of Was…
An Investigation of Compliance-Gaining as Politeness
This study considers an alternative perspective on the compliance-gaining phenomenon, specifically the theory of politeness articulated by Brown and Levinson (1978). They posit that all interaction is characterized by concern over the other person's autonomy needs and his or her desire to be liked, manifested in message behavior that addresses these needs (i.e., politeness). Brown and Levinson's typology of politeness strategies was translated in…
Taboo Topics in Close Relationships
This study is placed within a dialectic framework, illustrating the contradictory needs that exist for relationship openness and closedness. It explores one type of closedness in close relationships - the `taboo topic'. Ninety ethnographic interviews solicited informant accounts of topics which were `off limits' in the context of an opposite-sex relationship in which they were involved. Results indicated that there were six primary types of `tabo…
Gender Differences in the Hetero-Sexual Relationship Rules Embedded in Break-Up Accounts
Rules theory is the framework for this study's analysis of ordinary language contained in break-up accounts. It attempts to understand the relationship expectations which parties have for their opposite-sex romantic relationships. Break-up accounts from 157 respondents produced eight primary reasons/rules relevant to this relationship type: the obligation to grant autonomy beyond the relationship; the expectation of similarity; the obligations to…
Turning Points in Developing Romantic Relationships
The 80 partners from 40 romantic relationships were independently interviewed using the RIT procedure with regard to the turning points of their respective relationships; 26 types of turning points were found, which reduced to 14 supra-types. These supra-types differed in their association with relational commitment, with some events strongly positive, some strongly negative, and others relatively modest in reported change in commitment. About ha…
Symbols of Relationship Identity in Relationship Cultures
Relationships are unique mini-cultures in which the parties construct meaning systems in a variety of ways, including ritual enactments, stories and symbols. This study examines the content features and functions of the symbols by which relationship parties identify their relationships. A group of 108 randomly selected respondents from a university population was interviewed with regard to the relationship symbols for either a romantic relationsh…
Strategies for Maintaining and Repairing Marital Relationships
Although relationship research has concentrated on relational formation and termination processes, most of the time spent in long-term relationships is devoted to relational maintenance and/or repair. The present study examines the maintenance/repair strategies reported by fifty couples (n= 100 spouses). It attempts to discover the strategies and the ways in which their number and choice are related to marital satisfaction, participation in a mar…
Dialectical Contradictions in Relationship Development
Three fundamental contradictions were examined in the stages of development identified retrospectively by 106 romantic relationship parties: autonomy-connection, openness-closedness, and predictability-novelty. The contradictions were reported to be present in approximately three-quarters of all identified stages. The openness closedness contradiction was more likely than the other two contradictions to be reported during the initial stage of dev…
Marital Partners' Perceptions of Marital Maintenance Strategies
The purpose of the present study was to examine marital partners' perceptions of the underlying similarities among the marital maintenance strategies initially reported by Dindia & Baxter (1987). The perceptual judgment sorts of ninety-one married persons were analyzed using individual differences multidimensional scaling, hierarchical cluster analysis and content analysis. Results indicated that husbands and wives sorted the maintenance strategi…
Interpersonal Communication as Dialogue
Root Metaphors in Accounts of Developing Romantic Relationships
This study was undertaken in an attempt to complement extant approaches to our understanding of how parties make sense of their developing romantic relationships. A metaphor analysis was undertaken of 106 interview transcripts, finding three root metaphors that dominated the data: relationship development as work, relationship development as a journey of discovery and relationship development as an uncontrollable force. In addition, four secondar…
Forms and Functions of Intimate Play in Personal Relationships
Two studies are reported on intimate play in same-sex friendships and in opposite-sex romantic relationships. In Study 1, a typology of eight play forms was derived: private verbal coding, role-playing, teasing, prosocial physical play, antisocial physical play, games, gossiping, and public performances. Study 1 also modified the Betcher PQII paper-and-pencil measure of perceived playfulness for use in nonmarital relationships, finding playfulnes…
Relationship Maintenance Strategies and Dialectical Contradictions in Personal Relationships
This questionnaire study of both partners from 162 romantic and marital relationships sought to examine perceived partner maintenance strategies as correlates of participant satisfaction for relationships at varying dialectical moments of the autonomy-connection, predictability-novelty and openness-closedness contradictions. The perceived partner maintenance strategies of contact, romance and avoidance varied in efficacy depending on the particul…
Revealing and Not Revealing the Status of Romantic Relationships to Social Networks
The researchers conducted retrospective interviews with 101 university-level participants to determine what they did to make their developing romantic relationship known to social network members and what they did to keep their relationship from becoming known. The most frequent topic of both revelation and concealment was information on the relationship's status and progress. Strategic disclosure and manipulation of co-presence signals were the …
Disciplining the feminine
This essay, positioned at the nexus of several intellectual projects, including the rhetoric of inquiry, the ideological turn, critical rhetoric, and feminist theory, provides a case study of some of the practices in the communication discipline that support a masculinist ideology. The authors examine the ideological issues and practices implicated in a 1992 report on “Active Prolific Female Scholars in Communication” and in their effort to publi…
I do' Again
This study provides descriptive insight into the dialectical themes of one public relationship ritual in modern US society, the renewal of marital vows between spouses. Interpretive analyses of in-depth interview data revealed that this ritual allows spouses to manage three underlying dialectical contra- dictions: private-public, stability-change and conventionality-uniqueness
Constituting Relationships in Talk A Taxonomy of Speech Events in Social and Personal Relationships
In a series of four studies, a descriptive taxonomy of dyadic speech events in everyday relating was developed and employed to explore the constitutive functions of interpersonal communication. Twenty-nine speech events were identified and replicated through a variety of multi-method procedures, including unstructured and structured diary records, judgment sorting tasks, and semantic-differential rating scaks. Everyday relating appears to be domi…
Everyday Loyalties and Betrayals in Personal Relationships
Scholars typically have conceptualized loyalty (and its opposite, betrayal) as a manifestation of individual dispositions of a state-like or trait-like nature. By contrast, the present study takes a dialectical perspective, arguing that loyalty is a social experience in which relationship parties face a cross-current of competing and oppositional loyalty demands. As a consequence, when parties are loyal to one relational expectation they simultan…
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Psychology (52 works) · Social Psychology (42 works) · Social Psychology (41 works) · Attachment and Relationship Dynamics (33 works) · Sociology (28 works) · Developmental psychology (26 works) · Epistemology (23 works) · Dialectic (20 works) · Philosophy (15 works) · Family Dynamics and Relationships (14 works)