Social Cognition and Communication

Communication researchers focus on a key area of study, one that affects all areas of communication, and indeed unites the field. Social cognition is the thought process that understands human and social interaction, and which produces messages, speech and social behaviour. Original contributions review or propose approaches to its study, and research its role in relationships, speech patterns, legal communication, and mass communication.

′...the essays in this volume convincingly demonstrate the utility of social cognitive processes for understanding various aspects of communication...These chapters draw interesting and insightful conclusions about their subjects. The editors and authors are to be commended.′ -- Journal of Communication, Spring 1984

MICHAEL E. ROLOFF (Ph.D, Michigan State University) is professor of Communication Studies at Northwestern University. His research and teaching interests are in the general area of interpersonal influence. He has published articles and offers courses focused on persuasion, interpersonal compliance-gaining, conflict management, organizational change and bargaining and negotiation. His current research is focused on conflict avoidance and serial arguing in intimate relationships, the interpretation and construction of persuasive messages, and the effects of planning and alternatives on negotiation processes. He has co-edited four research volumes: (1) Persuasion: New Directions in Theory and Research, (2) Social Cognition and Communication, (3) Interpersonal Processes, and (4) Communication and Negotiation. He wrote Interpersonal Communication: The Social Exchange Approach. He completed a term as the editor of Communication Yearbook and is currently co-editor of Communication Research. He was co-recipient of the Woolbert Award for Outstanding Contribution to Communication Research from the Speech Communication Association and of a publication award from the Social Cognition and Communication Division of the National Communication Association. He has been the Chair of the Interpersonal Communication Division of the National Communication Association. He is currently Director of the National Communication Association Publications Board. Professor Roloff has received several teaching awards from groups at Northwestern including the Associated Student Government, the Mortar Board, and the Alumni Association.

CHARLES R. BERGER (Ph.D., Michigan State University) is professor in the Department of Communication at the University of California, Davis. His research interests include message production processes and the processing of threat-related messages by intuitive and rational systems. He is a former editor of Human Communication Research and co-editor (with Sandra Ball Rokeach) of Communication Research. He is currently a member of several editorial boards of communication journals. He is a Fellow and a Past President of the International Communication Association. Berger has published a three-digit integer’s worth of articles and book chapters. Among the books he has published are Language and Social Knowledge: Uncertainty in Interpersonal Relations (with James J. Bradac); a volume which received both the NCA Golden Anniversary Book Award and the ICA Fellows Book Award. Social Cognition and Communication (with Michael E. Roloff) received a book award from NCA’s Social Cognition Division. He also co-edited the first edition of the Handbook of Communication Science (with Steven H. Chaffee) and Communication and Social Influence Processes (with Michael Burgoon). His book Planning Strategic Interaction: Attaining Goals through Communicative Action received the NCA Interpersonal Communication Division’s Gerald R. Miller Book Award. He is co-recipient (with Judee Burgoon) of NCA’s Mark Knapp Award. He is currently an area editor for the International Encyclopedia of Communication.