Exercise 1: All knowledge about interpersonal communication is not valid

If you tell someone that you are studying interpersonal communication, they may offer you popular advice on the topic. Many people believe that they understand love, relational development, and interpersonal communication even though they have not studied it. How can you separate the popular bromides on these topics from the valid and reliable findings from research studies? Select one relational word: love, jealousy, friendship, dating, courtship, marriage, and at least two search engines [one general search engine such as dogpile.com, yahoo.com, aol.com, or google.com and one more specialized search engine such as the Librarians Index to the Internet (www.lii.org)] and identify conclusions from each. How do the conclusions differ? How are they similar? What have you learned about finding information on the Internet?

Exercise 2: Can it be measured?

You know that a number of diagnostic tests have been created by psychologists, communication experts, and other consultants. These tests measure a variety of personality or interactional qualities. All tests are not created equal.

Select a topic from this chapter (for example: compliance gaining, argumentativeness, assertiveness, self-disclosure, intimacy, androgyny, deception, dominance, responsiveness, or attraction) and go online to determine if tests have been measured to assess this concept.

Try to find at least three such tests from a variety of different websites. Examine the tests and determine if they have face validity, that is, whether they appear to measure what they purport to measure. What doubts do you have about the instruments? Do you think one of them is better than the others in drawing accurate and reliable conclusions about people on the basis of the test?