Surveys the field of audience studies, noting common concerns. Identifies models of the audience: audience as mass, audience as outcome, and audience as agent. Recommends exploiting the interdisciplinary potential, employing an enlightened empiricism, considering audiences as collectives as well as individuals, abandoning the active/passive…

Examines the impact of normative and informational influence with respect to research on hidden profiles, which occur when the members of a group individually hold information favoring a low-quality decision but collectively have the information necessary to make a high-quality decision. Finds that when normative and informational influences are…

Describes how teachers can help children feel included, connected, and valued, explaining that the family is the child's first and most important group, and children learn the rules of social interaction from primary relationships with adults. As children play, they learn and formulate their own social rules. Teachers can provide structured,…

Whenever group work takes place, rules and norms are established by group members. Rules are typically written and formally stated by group members, whereas norms are more informal and are implicitly stated. But regardless of how rules and norms are established, they enable group members to develop procedures from which the group can function.…

This study aimed to examine when children come to distinguish between the private affairs of an individual and the group's matter in relation to group decision making and whether there are any differences between Japan and England in learning the distinction. In total 217 children aged 8, 11, and 13 years, and undergraduates participated in the…

The concept of organizational culture is defined, and its relevance to higher education is explored, along with possible approaches for uncovering organizational culture on a college campus. The literature on higher education includes examples that apply the concept of organizational culture, or the implicit values, beliefs, and ideologies of…

This paper presents a model for turn-taking in conversation that is locally managed, party-administered, interactionally controlled, and sensitive to recipient design. Several general consequences of the model are explicated. (CK)

The present study demonstrated that complex "here-and-now" affective verbalizations, basic to most experiential or therapeutic groups, could be reliably induced in a group by simple reinforcement techniques. Further, reinforcement produced levels of performance equivalent to that induced by therapists. (Author)

The importance in Japan of group identity, the Japanese approach to decision making, and the way in which the Japanese avoid conflict and build consensus when making a decision are characteristics of Japanese interactions that are critical for Americans to understand in order to communicate successfully with the Japanese. Those who would be…

This annotated bibliography includes sources of information that are primarily concerned with problem solving, decision making, and processes of social influence in small groups, and secondarily deal with other aspects of communication and interaction in groups, such as conflict management and negotiation. The 57 entries, all dating from 1980…

Interest has recently focused on group polarization as a function of attitude processes. Several recent reviewers have challenged polarization researchers to integrate the explanations of polarization to existing theories of attitude change. This review suggests that there exists a clear similarity between the social comparison and persuasive…

Interest in the ways in which conflict can be de-escalated led to this study, in which 86 college students served as subjects, to compare the effectiveness of tit for tat strategies with Osgood's (1962) proposal of graduated and reciprocated initiatives in tension reduction. The first requirement of Osgood's proposal is to communicate the need for…

Adolescent girls who were referred to a guidance counselor because of lack of academic interest, erratic attendance, or uncooperative behavior participated in this study conducted at a large, urban, public school. Two groups were formed and the function of humor and laughter explored. (BJG)

Based on an address at the Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association (75th, Washington, D.C., September 1967). Research supported by U.S. Public Health Service Contract MH-08563-03.