Interpersonal Involvement Research Articles

The therapeutic community inpatient ward: Does it really work?

This study compared ward atmosphere, member satisfaction, and treatment effectiveness on community-oriented and medical model psychiatric inpatient wards. The method used for comparison was the Community Oriented Program Environment Scale (COPES) developed by Moos. The results showed that the community-oriented ward has greater patient autonomy, interpersonal involvement, and practical orientation than the medical model ward, whereas the medical model ward shows more order and organization. These results suggest that a community orientation sacrifices the appearance of an orderly ward for increased patient activity and involvement. In addition, the members of the community-oriented ward showed significantly greater satisfaction than the members of the medical model ward, suggesting that the community approach is more effective at creating a helpful level of morale and confidence in the treatment approach. A check of hospital records revealed that neurotics treated on the community-oriented ward were readmitted twice as frequently as neurotics on the medical model ward. Also, character disorder patients left the hospital against medical advice more frequently on the community-oriented ward.

Linguistic Styles as Indices for Interpersonal Distance

Summary Two experiments were conducted to examine whether linguistic style affected subjects' estimations of interpersonal distance. In accordance with Hall, it was proposed that distinct linguistic styles would produce differential estimates of interpersonal distance and involvement between interactors. Subjects confirmed this proposal in Experiment I. In Experiment II the finding was replicated, and it was further shown that content of interaction was less influential than linguistic style. It is suggested that some sort of grammar for distance best accounts for the results.

Friendship to the Death in Rural Thai Society

With reference to a growing literature on interpersonal relations in peasant societies, Foster has asserted that peasants typically exhibit the following characteristics: distrust of the intentions of others; noncooperativeness; inability or unwillingness to seek interpersonal involvement; and friendlessness. He notes in addition the widespread occurrence of what might be termed a deus ex machina complex: a heavy reliance on patron-client relationships in a variety of critical situations, and an emphasis on luck or magic as explanations of either success or failure. Here I shall comment only upon the first of these two clusters of traits.

Experimenter Behavior as an Unintended Determinant of Experimental Results

Summary Sound motion pictures were made of 19 Es conducting a person perception experiment with 53 Ss. Ss' task was to rate the degree of success or failure of people pictured in photos. From some of the Ss, Es had been led to expect ratings of success and from some ratings of failure. Actually, Ss were assigned at random to the “success-perceiving” or “failure-perceiving” group, Es showed significant behavioral variation in the way in which they conducted the experiment, Es whose experimental behavior reflected greater interpersonal involvement or warmth obtained ratings of the photos as more successful, Es whose experimental behavior reflected a greater task orientation, greater competence, and a more professional manner obtained ratings significantly more in accordance with their expectancy, regardless of the particular nature of that expectancy.

The relationship of interpersonal involvement and affectiveness of content to the verbal communication of schizophrenic patients.

Despite the importance accorded schizophrenic communicative disturbances, few experimental efforts have been made to examine conditions which seem functionally related to them. Two such conditions suggested by the literature are interpersonal involvement, and affectiveness of communication content. That interpersonal involvement affects schizophrenic communication is suggested by general interpersonal theory. It is perhaps most explicitly stated in a remark of Will (1954, p. xiv) which noted Sullivan's observation of the defensive aspect of schizophrenic language. Will proposed that, having experienced considerable anxiety in interpersonal relationships, the schizophrenic attempts to withdraw from them, either physically or by talking in a way that puzzles and irritates the listener. Few studies have manipulated the interpersonal variable experimentally and most of them have used some kind of written or drawn material as the interpersonal situation (Rabin & King, 19S8, pp. 237-238).