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The Effect of Vocal Fillers on Credibility, Communication Competence, and Likeability
Abstract
This study examines the impact of vocal fillers on a person’s perceived likeability, communication competence, professional credibility, and personal credibility. Previous studies have suggested that using filler words or discourse markers may decrease professional credibility and discredit communication competence. However, it is unknown how audience members of different genders will respond to the usage of vocal fillers in comparison to each other. A 2 x 2 factorial experimental design was constructed (N = 145) in which four audio recordings contained four responses to an interview question; the amount of vocal fillers were manipulated (absent or many) and the gender of the speaker in the recording was also manipulated (female or male). Results indicated that the more filler words or discourse markers were used, the less professional and personal credibility was shown, regardless of gender. However, when listening to vocal fillers, although both genders viewed them negatively, males perceived vocal fillers significantly more negatively.
... Vocal fillers (Gikas & Sutcliffe, 2019), lacking detail, low levels of confidence, and inconsistencies in the information delivered (Connolly & Price, 2013) have a negative effect on speakers' credibility. In the classroom, instructors who use frequent nonverbal immediate behaviors (eg, eye contact when speaking, smiling, using vocal inflection) are perceived to be more credible than those who do not (Klebig et al., 2016). ...
... Female students rate instructors using a moderate amount of technology as more caring and competent than instructors who use no technology, while male students rate instructors using no technology as more competent and caring than those who use a moderate amount of technology (Schrodt & Turman, 2005). More generally, women rate speakers that are high in likeability as more credible (Brodsky et al., 2009) while men rate vocal fillers significantly more negatively in terms of competence than women (Gikas & Sutcliffe, 2019). ...
... Taken together, the present study explores this unknown. Given that student gender has been found to play a role in perceptions of instructor credibility (Brodsky et al., 2009;Gikas & Sutcliffe, 2019), particularly in terms of technology use (Schrodt & Turman, 2005), the following research question is proposed to examine the effect of both virtual lecture background and student gender: RQ1: How do the professionalism of virtual backgrounds and student gender affect students' perceptions of instructor credibility (competence, caring, and trust)? ...
The current study sought to investigate the impact of using speech fillers on students’ communicative competence in English within higher education contexts. To achieve the intended aim, the study addressed two primary research questions regarding how using speech fillers in oral presentations would impact students’ communicative competence in English and what suggestions could be offered to assist students in minimizing the use of speech fillers while presenting. Additionally, the study raised one secondary research question on which speech fillers were most frequently used by the participating students. The study involved three categories: language instructors, toastmaster members, and university students covering a total of two-hundred and four subjects. The author implemented three study tools, namely, a questionnaire, an interview, and class observations. The findings revealed that the vast majority of subjects viewed using speech fillers in oral presentations as having a negative impact on students’ communicative competence in English. In light of subjects’ suggestions, the study offers a variety of ideas as to how producing speech fillers in oral presentations could be minimized. Finally, the study presents the speech fillers which were frequently used by the participating students, offering recommendations for scholars to consider.
Introduction
Limited healthcare studies have analyzed communication practices with limited English proficiency (LEP) patients. Empirical literature lacks evidence about LEP patient-pharmacist communication about opioid risks. This study aimed to (1) explore topics discussed in opioid medication consults, (2) assess if students inform patients about dependency and overdose risks associated with opioid use and the manner in which those risks were introduced and discussed, and (3) assess LEP specific communication practices.
Methods
Third-year pharmacy students in a required communications course consulted LEP standardized patients (SPs) who spoke 30% English and 70% non-English language. The SP followed a script simulating an encounter between a pharmacist and patient picking up a new, month long prescription of oxycodone. All consultations were video recorded and quantitatively coded for verbal and non-verbal communication skills.
Results
Twenty-three pharmacy students conducted consultations with LEP SPs. The majority of students discussed common side effects, but only a few discussed severe side effects. Four of 23 students named the medication as an “opioid” or “narcotic” and described dependency, overdose, or other opioid specific risks. Students used several filler words, long sentences, and a fast pace. A majority of students used teach back methods to identify patient understanding. Students expressed the need for more structured education and training in providing patient counseling for opioids and communicating with LEP patients.
Conclusions
Pharmacy students lack confidence and skills in communicating with LEP patients regarding opioid-specific risks, suggesting structured training is needed.
Purpose – This research investigates the generational differences in workplace communication, expectations and behaviors of employees from the perspectives of female leaders and their direct reports.
Design – This study employs a qualitative approach through in-depth interviews with 12 female leaders and 24 of their direct reports who are working in various organizations in Malaysia.
Findings – Findings include three themes that emerged as key in determining and reflecting the female leaders’ experiences in communicating with their employees in the workplace: (1) attitudes towards power and authority; (2) being creative and taking risks and (3) workplace dynamics.
Research Implications – The workplace setting and the leaders’ stance with regards to workplace interaction have seen adjustment towards a flatter and less-hierarchical structure in line with the challenges associated with the 21st century organizations.
Practical implications – Leaders and members of the organizations should work towards balancing some traditional and emerging expectations and work practices to better engage with each other.
Originality/value – This research highlights the interactions between two distinct groups that are gaining importance and influence in the current workplace; female leaders and the Gen-Ys and uncovers the unique blend between perceived cultural dimensions, the influence of technology advancement and overseas exposure in organizations in Malaysia.
Expectancy violations theory predicts and explains the effects of nonverbal behavior violations on interpersonal communication outcomes such as attraction, credibility, persuasion, and smooth interactions. Human interactions are strongly governed by expectations which, if violated, are arousing and trigger an appraisal process that may be moderated by the rewardingness of the violator. Violation interpretations and evaluations determine whether they are positive or negative violations. Positive violations are predicted to produce more favorable outcomes, and negative violations less favorable outcomes, than positive and negative confirmations respectively. Many of the theory's propositions have been supported empirically. Some contrary findings have led to revision of the theory. The theory has also been expanded to several kinds of nonverbal violations, including personal space, eye contact, posture, touch, involvement, and immediacy violations. The theory also spawned the investigation of the meanings associated with violations and the kinds of arousal that violations provoke.
Keywords:
communication theory;
expectations;
interpersonal communication;
interpersonal theory;
interviewing;
nonverbal communication;
relational communication;
social norms;
violations
Building on recent revisions to communication accommodation theory (CAT), we propose and test a model relating inferred motives, perceptions of accommodation, and evaluative responses to nonaccommodation. In a vignette scenario, inferring a positive (i.e., helping) motive was found to influence evaluative responses to nonaccommodative communication, and the same communicative behavior was experienced as more accommodative (i.e., appropriately adjusted) to the extent that it was seen as more positively motivated. Our results also indicate that the consistent differences in evaluations of over versus underaccommodation found in previous research can be a result of listeners’ inferences about speakers’ motives.
This article presents an observational study on how some common conversational cues – laughter, fillers, back-channel, silence, and overlapping speech – are used during mobile phone conversations. The observations are performed over the SSPNet Mobile Corpus, a collection of 60 calls between pairs of unacquainted individuals (120 subjects for roughly 12 h of material in total). The results show that the temporal distribution of the social signals above is not uniform, but it rather reflects the social meaning they carry and convey. In particular, the results show significant use differences depending on factors such as gender, role (caller or receiver), topic, mode of interaction (agreement or disagreement), personality traits, and conflict handling style.
There have been numerous studies examining the effects of social role theory on negative stereotyping of female managers, including low perceived likeability and unwillingness by subordinates to trust them. These attributions are particularly relevant in the context of “male-dominated” jobs, such as technical disciplines like engineering and project management. We investigated the specific setting of project manager job candidate selection, a professional discipline that has historically been male-dominated, but one that has seen a large rise in female project managers over the past decade. We examined the perceptions of respondents to differences in male and female job candidates based on the critical personal/managerial characteristics of trust and likeability. Using a scenario-based survey questionnaire, we sampled 312 project management personnel and tested subjects’ reactions to two candidates for a project management position, employing identical descriptions and language while only changing the candidate's name: Susan or Stan. Our results suggested that, contrary to expectations, respondents’ perceptions of the female candidate, Susan, were significantly higher across both managerial dimensions of likeability and trust. Implications of these findings and directions for future research are discussed.
Filler words (I mean, you know, like, uh, um) are commonly used in spoken conversation. The authors analyzed these five filler words from transcripts recorded by a device called the Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR), which sampled participants’ language use in daily conversations over several days. By examining filler words from 263 transcriptions of natural language from five separate studies, the current research sought to clarify the psychometric properties of filler words. An exploratory factor analysis extracted two factors from the five filler words: filled pauses (uh, um) and discourse markers (I mean, you know, like). Overall, filled pauses were used at comparable rates across genders and ages. Discourse markers, however, were more common among women, younger participants, and more conscientious people. These findings suggest that filler word use can be considered a potential social and personality marker.
A sample of 407 university students completed the Leathers Personal Credibility Scale on each of the three candidates for President after the final 1992 televised presidential debate. A factor analysis of respondents' perceptions yielded two dimensions of personal credibility, trustworthiness and dynamism. The personal credibility dimensions were remarkably similar for each of the three candidates.
Travelers have used the Internet as an information channel for years and more recently also started to produce content themselves. With an abundance of information channels competing for customers’ attention, researchers and practitioners need to better understand which online channels are trustworthy and consulted for travel-related factual information or for reports on experiences. Thus, this article compares the trustworthiness of three different online channels (personal, marketing, and editorial). The results of the experiment indicate that user-generated content appears to be highly trustworthy, showing high levels of integrity; however, it is not always regarded as the most informative. Editorial content providers, such as tourist boards, are considered to be the most able information provider. The results confirm that depending on the type of online channel, different dimensions of trustworthiness become effective as drivers of overall trust.
This article reports the development of a self‐report Interpersonal Communication Competence Scale (ICCS) that taps 10 dimensions of competence: self‐disclosure, empathy, social relaxation, assertiveness, interaction management, altercentrism, expressiveness, supportiveness, immediacy, and environmental control. First, we created the ICCS, reducing the number of items from an original 60 to 10. Then we established concurrent validity of the scale by looking at the ICCS's relationship to cognitive and communication flexibility.
This study examined whether a debater's background nonverbal behavior affected audience perceptions of her and her opponent's likeability. Students watched one of four versions of a televised debate. In each, while the speaking debater appeared on the main screen, subscreens displayed her opponent's background nonverbal behavior. In one version, the nonspeaking debater displayed a neutral expression, whereas in the others she displayed occasional disagreement, nearly constant disagreement, or both agreement and disagreement. After viewing the debates, students rated the debaters' likeability. Analysis indicated that background behavior influenced perceptions of the nonverbal communicator but not of the speaking debater.
[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 112(3) of
Psychological Bulletin (see record
2008-10512-001). Some of the numbers in the Value columns of Table 1, page 11, were aligned incorrectly. The corrected version of Table 1 is provided in the erratum.] Reviews research on the evaluation of women and men that occupy leadership roles. While holding the characteristics, except for sex, constant and varying the sex of the leader, these experiments investigated whether people are biased against female leaders and managers. Although this research showed only a small overall tendency for Ss to evaluate female leaders less favorably than male ones, this tendency was more pronounced under certain circumstances. Specifically, women in leadership positions were devalued relative to their male counterparts when leadership was carried out in stereotypically masculine styles, especially when this style was autocratic or directive. Also, the devaluation of women was greater when leaders occupied male-dominated roles and when the evaluators were men. Findings are interpreted from a perspective that emphasizes the influence of gender roles within organizational settings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
An earlier model of personal space expectations and their violations is expanded through specification of primitive terms, constitutive definitions, and the prepositional logic underlying the model. Five sample hypotheses are deduced and experimentally tested. Results generally support the model: violations by rewarding communicators produced more positive outcomes than violations by punishing communicators, and the relationships between distance and communication outcomes for each type of communicator were curvilinear.
The proliferation of information sources as a result of networked computers and other interconnected devices has prompted
significant changes in the amount, availability, and nature of geographic information. Among the more significant changes
is the increasing amount of readily available volunteered geographic information. Although volunteered information has fundamentally enhanced geographic data, it has also prompted
concerns with regard to its quality, reliability, and overall value. This essay situates these concerns as issues of information
and source credibility by (a) examining the information environment fostering collective information contribution, (b) exploring the environment
of information abundance, examining credibility and related notions within this environment, and leveraging extant research
findings to understand user-generated geographic information, (c) articulating strategies to discern the credibility of volunteered
geographic information (VGI), including relevant tools useful in this endeavor, and (d) outlining specific research questions
germane to VGI and credibility.
How does gender influence trust, the likelihood of being trusted and the level of trustworthiness? We compare choices by men and women in the Investment Game and use questionnaire data to try to understand the motivations for the behavioral differences. We find that men trust more than women, and women are more trustworthy than men. The relationship between expected return and trusting behavior is stronger among men than women, suggesting that men view the interaction more strategically than women. Women felt more obligated both to trust and reciprocate, but the impact of obligation on behavior varies.
In this paper we examined the differences and similarities in the human capitalvariables of male and female information system (IS) workers and the affect thesedifferences had on job outcomes. The human capital variables studied included: age,education, organization and job tenure, and number of years in the IS occupation. Wefound that, even when controlling for the differences in human capital, women in ISstill tended to be employed at lower levels of the organization, made less money, andhad greater intentions to leave the organization.
This study was conducted to investigate the relationship between expert witness likeability and jurors' judgments of credibility and tendencies in sentencing. Two actors playing expert witnesses were trained to present themselves as high and low in likeability in a standard testimony scenario in the sentencing phase of a capital murder trial. The effects of extraversion and gender of the 210 psychology undergraduates serving as mock jurors attending to expert testimony were also examined. The dependent variables were the jurors' perceptions of the witnesses' credibility and their agreement with the testimony. The likeability of the expert witnesses was found to be significantly related to the jurors' perception of their trustworthiness, but not to their displays of confidence or knowledge or to the mock jurors' sentencing decisions. The women rated highly likeable experts as more credible than the less likeable ones, but the men did not differentiate between the two types. As extraversion increased, the male jurors' agreement with testimony increased, but the female jurors' agreement decreased. The results suggest that likeability can be an important element in the credibility of the source and that attorneys and trial consultants now have an empirical foundation for addressing likeability as part of witness preparation. Final published version of the article available free to JAAPL members or via a free JAAPL trial access period to non-members at http://www.jaapl.org/
A total of 242 subjects participated in 3 experimental studies investigating reactions to a woman's success in a male gender-typed job. Results strongly supported the authors' hypotheses, indicating that (a) when women are acknowledged to have been successful, they are less liked and more personally derogated than equivalently successful men (Studies 1 and 2); (b) these negative reactions occur only when the success is in an arena that is distinctly male in character (Study 2); and (c) being disliked can have career-affecting outcomes, both for overall evaluation and for recommendations concerning organizational reward allocation (Study 3). These results were taken to support the idea that gender stereotypes can prompt bias in evaluative judgments of women even when these women have proved themselves to be successful and demonstrated their competence. The distinction between prescriptive and descriptive aspects of gender stereotypes is considered, as well as the implications of prescriptive gender norms for women in work settings.
The study aims to test quantitatively whether filled pauses (FPs)
may highlight discourse structure. More specifically it is first
investigated whether FPs are more typical in the vicinity of major
discourse boundaries. Secondly, the FPs are analyzed acoustically, to
check whether those occurring at major discourse boundaries are
segmentally and prosodically different from those at shallower breaks.
Analyses of twelve spontaneous monologues (Dutch) show that phrases
following major discourse boundaries more often contain FPs.
Additionally, FPs after stronger breaks tend to occur phrase-initially,
whereas the majority of the FPs after weak boundaries are in
phrase-internal position. Also, acoustic observations reveal that FPs at
major discourse boundaries are both segmentally and prosodically
distinct. They also differ with respect to the distribution of
neighbouring silent pauses
The preliminary results from a research project on the changing
position of women engineers worldwide are presented and discussed. These
results include data on women engineers in a number of different
countries for the period 1960-1997. They were obtained from a survey of
130 engineering institutions in 55 different countries. As an
introduction to the presentation of these results, some of the problems
facing women engineers in industry and education are considered. The
data are discussed in detail; a number of hypotheses to explain the data
are proposed, and further investigations and additional data
requirements to allow these hypotheses to be verified or disproved are
identified. These hypotheses include increases in the percentage of
women engineers resulting from the effects of changes in the political
system, convergence of the images of women and engineers, and generally
good conditions for women and their involvement in public life
Few studies have examined the communication behaviors of those who recruit for clinical trials and research studies, particularly of nonmedical professionals who often do the bulk of recruiting. This focus-group study of 63 recruiters analyzes the ways in which nonverbal communication behaviors support the process of recruitment, using the lens of communication accommodation theory. Results indicate that recruiters first “read” potential study participants’ nonverbal communication for clues about their state of mind, then use nonverbal communication to achieve a sense of convergence. Specific nonverbal communication behaviors were discussed by recruiters, including smiling, variations in the use of voice, adjusting body position, the appropriate use of physical touch, the management of eye contact, and the effect of clothing and physical appearance. Implications for recruitment practice are discussed.
Listeners are exposed to inconsistencies in communication; for example, when speakers' words (i.e. verbal) are discrepant with their demonstrated emotions (i.e. non-verbal). Such inconsistencies introduce ambiguity, which may render a speaker to be a less credible source of information. Two experiments examined whether children make credibility discriminations based on the consistency of speakers' affect cues. In Experiment 1, school-age children (7- to 8-year-olds) preferred to solicit information from consistent speakers (e.g. those who provided a negative statement with negative affect), over novel speakers, to a greater extent than they preferred to solicit information from inconsistent speakers (e.g. those who provided a negative statement with positive affect) over novel speakers. Preschoolers (4- to 5-year-olds) did not demonstrate this preference. Experiment 2 showed that school-age children's ratings of speakers were influenced by speakers' affect consistency when the attribute being judged was related to information acquisition (speakers' believability, "weird" speech), but not general characteristics (speakers' friendliness, likeability). Together, findings suggest that school-age children are sensitive to, and use, the congruency of affect cues to determine whether individuals are credible sources of information.
Researchers have demonstrated qualitative differences in witness verbal reports made in the presence and absence of misinformation. The present study examined changes in linguistic markers present in verbal reports in the context of a repeated-retrieval misinformation study. After witnessing an event, an immediate retrieval group engaged in a free-recall test associated with the event. The delayed retrieval group completed a filler task. Following, all participants were presented with a post-event narrative that included neutral, consistent, and misleading details. Both groups then took two free-recall tests. We found that hesitations were more likely to accompany correctly remembered details if those details were altered in the narrative, than if there was consistency between the original event and narrative. We also found that retrieval prior to misinformation positively influenced the inclusion of hesitations in free-recall reports that immediately followed the narrative.Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Courses: Basic Course, Introduction to Communication, Gender Communication, Interpersonal Communication, Intercultural Communication, or any other foundational course that wishes to include more interaction between students.Objective: In this unit activity, students will accommodate their communication in such a manner that encourages student–student interaction inside and outside of the classroom.
This paper is a pragmatic, functional and discursive analysis of actual conversations. The aim of this research is to discover the extent to which the contributions of the participants in casual verbal interactions are influenced by variables such as age or gender. Casual conversation is the interactional pattern in which discourse markers could acquire the most innovative pragmatic meanings and functions due to the lack of discursive constraints that characterize this type of verbal exchange. Among the elements that generate such discursive individuality are the variables of age and gender. The latter variables could either contribute to the confirmation of the core pragmatic meanings and functions of discourse markers or they could trigger the speaker's distancing from these central functional descriptions.
In this article we integrate contextual and cognitive explanations for gender-based selection in the workplace; we also consider the implications of this integration for understanding gender segregation. We argue that decision makers' propensity to use applicant gender as a basis for hiring and promotion decisions varies systematically across organizational contexts. We explore specific ways in which organizational context influences decision makers' development and use of gender-associated schemas of typical jobholders. We also argue that the interaction between context and cognition may be partially responsible for the persistence of gender segregation. Finally, we discuss the implications of our approach for the practice of personnel selection and research on selection and gender segregation.
Although you know and I mean are frequent in spontaneous talk, researchers have not
agreed on what purpose they serve. They have been thought by some to be used similarly and
by others to be used differently. Similarities of uses at a surface level encouraged historical
discussions of these two markers in the same breath. The current synthesis details how both
the apparent multifunctionality of you know and I mean and their surface similarities can arise
out of each discourse marker’s basic meaning, with you know’s basic meaning being to invite
addressee inferences (Jucker, A.H., & Smith, S.W. (1998). And people just you know like ‘wow’:
Discourse markers as negotiating strategies. In A. H. Jucker & Y. Ziv (Eds.), Discourse
Markers: Descriptions and Theory (pp. 171–201). Philadelphia: John Benjamins), and I
mean’s basic meaning being to forewarn upcoming adjustments (Schiffrin, D. (1987). Discourse
Markers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). # 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All
rights reserved.
This article summarizes literature on workplace engagement, an issue that affects organizations’ financial results and individuals’ personal lives. The newest of the four generations in the workplace, Millennials, were recently shown to have different values than the other two prevalent generations. Surveys taken by 16,000 high school seniors of three generations on intrinsic, extrinsic, social, leisure, and altruistic values at work show only the altruistic value is not statistically different. When aggregated, these generational differences have noticeable practical impact. In the classroom, engagement is essential to learning. Examples of engaging activities that address the Millennials’ values are provided.
Females are more apprehensive when talking in class, but more nonverbally immediate, and prefer a collaborative learning style. Males prefer independent and avoidant learning styles, and report learning less than females.
Personal presentation attributes have long been understood to affect perceptions of competence and capabilities. To that end, this study investigates seven attributes associated with favorable interview presentation, including overall physical attractiveness, neatness and grooming, clothing color, conservative versus trendy attire, professional versus casual attire, and body modification (including tattoos and piercings). Participants (n=108), including students, faculty, and hospitality industry professionals, sorted an orthogonal array of 16 full-color, laminated cards that contained photos so that respondents could see levels of clothing color, clothing conservativeness, and degree of professional attire. The remaining attributes and their corresponding levels were shown on respective analog indicators. The conjoint analysis results indicate that grooming and professional attire are the most important attributes in shaping favorable perceptions. Furthermore, faculty perceived conservative clothing to be better while students and industry professionals indicated that trendy clothing creates a more favorable presentation on the part of a job candidate.
Four groups of marketing students (N=91) viewed color videotapes of four women interviewing for a middle management position, rated each applicant on five management characteristics, and made hiring recommendations for each applicant. The four applicants were videotaped in each offour costumes representing four levels of masculinity. Analysis of variance was used to estimate the effect of costume, person, gender of the respondent, and possible interactions on perception of management characteristics and on hiring decisions. The results showed that masculinity of clothing had a positive effect on (a) the perception of management characteristics, and (b) favorability of hiring decisions. Although gender differences were not statistically significant, females tended to rate the applicants as more forceful and self-reliant and were more likely to hire than were males.
The present study of 60,470 women and men examined evaluations of participants’ current managers as well as their preferences for male and female managers, in general. A cross-sex bias emerged in the ratings of one’s current boss, where men judged their female bosses more favorably and women judged male bosses more favorably. The quality of relationships between subordinates and managers were the same for competent male and female managers. A small majority (54%) of participants claimed to have no preference for the gender of their boss, but the remaining participants reported preferring male over female bosses by more than a 2:1 ratio. Qualitative analysis of the participants’ justifications for this preference are presented, and results are discussed within the framework of role congruity theory.
Approaches to measurement of communication competence are reviewed. The self‐report approach to measurement of communication competence is examined. It is concluded that self‐reports have little validity as indicants of competent communicative performances but may serve as useful measures of self‐perceptions which may function as precursors of communicative choices. The Self‐Perceived Communication Competence scale is suggested as a measure which can he used for such purposes.
This article presents an interview with Jim Olson, a retired auto industry executive, about his experience with his company's hiring process. The responsibility for establishing and implementing procedures and policies that adhere to government regulations is critical. It makes sense for employers and potential employees to understand laws governing the hiring process and for companies to provide training to ensure that their managers practice these standards. Creating policies and procedures for selecting and interviewing job candidates is usually the responsibility of a company's human resources department, often with the guidance and approval of its legal affairs office. Such requirements are designed in accordance with U.S. federal and state laws related to civil rights, gender and ethnic rights, age discrimination, disabilities, and family leave, among others. These laws govern the conduct for companies during the recruitment process (Andrews & Baird, 2005), and though federal laws affect companies with $50,000 or more in federal contracts and more than 15 employees, most U.S. companies tend to comply because of the threat of litigation.
This study examined perceptions of male and female models depicted smoking or not smoking cigarettes. Undergraduate students viewed photographs of smoking or nonsmoking models and then rated the models' credibility, homophily, attractiveness, likeability, considerateness, cleanliness, and healthiness. Analysis indicated that being viewed as a cigarette smoker damaged people's images. With the exception of two dimensions of credibility, smokers, compared to nonsmokers, were rated less favorably on every variable examined in this study. These results are discussed.
In recent months, certain major policy documents have highlighted the importance of facilitating the development of interpersonal communication competence in vocational teachers. These documents include the provocative Australian Education Council Review Committee Report (Finn Report) which lists interpersonal and personal development as one of six key competency areas. As new vocational teacher education courses like the Bachelor of Teaching are beginning to be developed on a national scale within Australia, it is appropriate to cater for the development of interpersonal communication competence in vocational teacher education curricula. Among the more vexatious questions which need to be addressed is the determination of whether vocational teachers can demonstrate interpersonal communication competence, particularly in relation to their professional roles. This paper examines current scientific literature on communication competence. Since competence implies more than skill alone, consideration is also given in this paper to ways of identifying vocational teachers’ understanding of interpersonal communication processes and their importance in relation to the facilitation of learning in the post‐secondary vocational education sector. Such issues as assessing interpersonal communication competence in teacher‐learner relationships by means of direct observation, video‐based structured reflection, and self‐analysis are identified for further study. Finally, implications are drawn for vocational teacher education curricula currently being developed within Australia.
When the U.S. public logs on to find information, they choose from billions of Web pages produced by everyone from fringe activists to respected media outlets. Research experts advise Internet users to carefully examine a variety of cues when evaluating the credibility of online information. This study isolates 2 cues (source and advertising) that individuals might rely on when judging online information and examines whether they are used by Web audiences, at least in an experimental setting. In a 2 x??2 factorial design, participants were shown an online news story from either a high- (nytimes.com) or low- (a personal home page) credibility Web source surrounded by either high- or low-credibility advertising. It was hypothesized that, in the absence of a brand-name news source, participants would look to surrounding advertising as a secondary cue. Although source credibility was significantly tied to participants' ratings of the story, advertising credibility was not. Further, participants paid little attention to the ads, even though advertising covered one third of the Web page.
Social-role theory suggests that women are likely to be penalized for acting assertively (or in other ways that are counter to stereotypical expectations). Using a sample of 76 supervisor–subordinate dyads, this research investigates the reactions of supervisors to the use of intimidation strategies by men and women working in a law enforcement agency. The findings suggest that, among female employees, the use of intimidation tactics of impression management is negatively related to supervisor ratings of likeability. In contrast, among males, the use of intimidation is unrelated to supervisor ratings of likeability. In addition, for females, the use of intimidation is unrelated to performance ratings; among male employees, though, the relationship between intimidation and performance evaluations is positive. The implications of this study for management practice and future research are also discussed. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
In question-answering, speakers display their metacognitive states using filled pauses and prosody (Smith & Clark, 1993). We examined whether listeners are actually sensitive to this information. Experiment 1 replicated Smith and Clark′s study; respondents were tested on general knowledge questions, surveyed about their FOK (feeling-of-knowing) for these questions, and tested for recognition of answers. In Experiment 2, listeners heard spontaneous verbal responses from Experiment 1 and were tested on their feeling-of-another′s-knowing (FOAK) to see if metacognitive information was reliably conveyed by the surface form of responses. For answers, rising intonation and longer latencies led to fewer FOAK ratings by listeners. For nonanswers, longer latencies led to higher FOAK ratings. In Experiment 3, electronically edited responses with 1-s latencies led to higher FOAK ratings for answers and lower FOAK ratings for nonanswers than those with 5-s latencies. Filled pauses led to lower ratings for answers and higher ratings for nonanswers than did unfilled pauses. There was no support for a filler-as-morpheme hypothesis, that "um" and "uh" contrast in meaning. We conclude that listeners can interpret the metacognitive information that speakers display about their states of knowledge in question-answering.
The proposal examined here is that speakers use uh and um to announce that they are initiating what they expect to be a minor (uh), or major (um), delay in speaking. Speakers can use these announcements in turn to implicate, for example, that they are searching for a word, are deciding what to say next, want to keep the floor, or want to cede the floor. Evidence for the proposal comes from several large corpora of spontaneous speech. The evidence shows that speakers monitor their speech plans for upcoming delays worthy of comment. When they discover such a delay, they formulate where and how to suspend speaking, which item to produce (uh or um), whether to attach it as a clitic onto the previous word (as in "and-uh"), and whether to prolong it. The argument is that uh and um are conventional English words, and speakers plan for, formulate, and produce them just as they would any word.
Computer-mediated communication (CMC) has created a new communication divide. Mostly, this division is due to technical and access problems. Overlooked is yet another divide in terms of user communication competence. This contribution focuses on media competence based on theories about communication competence and theories about CMC. Two field studies are presented: an analysis of a virtual seminar chat communication (22 participants, 3 weeks' duration) and an analysis of unsubscribe-failures within 2 years of a German mailing list (average of 1,000 subscriptions). Data from both studies reveal that help-seeking CMC users with low media-specific competence experience setbacks in terms of interpersonal relations and information gathering. There is a spiral of neutral to negative reactions and an increase in stress and aggression-related language in the reaction of the addressed peers. From the perspective of external raters, we found a contraintuitive result: The style, content, and wording of the message of the respondent is considered as an indicator for a less competent and socially attractive person behind the follow-up message than those of the initial message. On the one hand, media experts are needed and appreciated as technical problem-solvers; on the other hand, they might be perceived as socially narrow-minded freaks who are less interested in the task itself than in CMC-based task completion. This leads to the question of how sensibility for the social context, task orientation, and media competence can be combined (and trained for) in one person. Two competence trainings for text-based synchronous and asynchronous communication are introduced as interventions.
This study examines the relationships of gender and race with the
career progress of 2508 employees in the technical division of a Fortune
500 company: 1354 employees with bachelor's degrees (Level One) and 1154
employees with master's degrees (Level Two) in engineering and computer
science. Using company records to measure employee promotions and
controlling for level of education, female and nonwhite employees
received fewer promotions than males or whites. Hierarchical multiple
regression analyses found that gender differences in promotions could be
explained by work-related variables, primarily organizational tenure.
However, race added significant predictive ability for Level One (not
Level Two) employees' current job level after controlling for work
experience, tenure, job performance, and gender. Unexpectedly, marital
status predicted the current job level for Level Two employees, with
single employees receiving fewer promotions than married employees.
These findings are discussed in light of theory and research
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