Mary C. Toale’s research while affiliated with Baldwin Wallace University and other places

This investigation assessed the factorial structure and validity of the Service Provider Sociality Scale (SPSS). The SPSS was administered to 455 customers, including 255 undergraduate students attending a small Midwestern college and 200 residents in communities surrounding the college. Confirmatory factor analysis results indicated that the service provider sociality measurement model had significant composite reliability and discriminant validity. Implications and recommendations for further research are provided.

The first of two studies investigated the differences between reported relational maintenance strategy usage by high and low interethnic communication apprehensives (IECAs). An instrument based on Canary and Stafford's (1992) relational maintenance strategies taxonomy and Neuliep and McCroskey's (1997a) Personal Report of Interethnic Communication Apprehension (PRECA) was employed. The results indicated that individuals who were law IECAs reported utilizing significantly more of the task, network, and positivity strategies. Differences in openness and assurance strategies followed the same pattern but were not significant. The participant's reported usage and IECA score were inversely related. The second study replicated the first and explored two theoretical explanations for the results. This study revealed significant differences on all of the dimensions and significant negative correlations. This study also examined whether trait communication apprehension (disregarding ethnicity) and/or ethnocentrism (the presumed foundational components of IECA) could account for the differences in reports of relational communication behavior. The results of the second study indicated that both trait CA and ethnocentrism contributed to the prediction of IECA and to overall reported strategy usage, and that ethnocentrism was the better predictor.

Improving the care of persons at the end of their lives is a major priority of medical associations and patient advocacy groups. Central to this effort is the need to better prepare health care surrogates so that they will be able to respect the dying person's wishes if that person loses decision making capacity. But efforts to facilitate communication between dying persons, their surrogates, and health care providers have not been fully successful. We conducted a telephone survey of 174 randomly selected adults from a mid‐sized university community to determine whom people wanted to function as their surrogate, to test the hypothesis that overconfidence in the surrogate's ability may impede communication, and to examine gender differences in communication preferences with surrogates. Spouses were the most frequently selected surrogate, followed by an adult child. Women were more likely to be selected than men were. As expected, persons overestimated their surrogates’ abilities to represent their interests. Two other predictions were not confirmed. Interactions between gender and whether the person was responding as a patient or surrogate were observed. These results confirm the value of applying uncertainty management theories to health issues and lead to recommendations for improving communication between patients and their surrogate decision makers.

This study involved players’ perceptions of their coaches’ nonverbal immediacy, assertiveness, and responsiveness. Previously in the classroom setting, Thomas, Richmond, and McCroskey (1994) found that in the classroom setting nonverbal immediacy was positively, moderately correlated to both assertiveness and responsiveness. College students (N = 192) were asked to fill out a questionnaire based on a coach that they had in high school. Players who perceived their coaches as being nonverbally immediate, also perceived their coaches as being responsive, and to a lesser extent, assertive. Future research directions include considering the relationships between a coach's nonverbal immediacy with player motivation and satisfaction.